Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy

Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy[lower-alpha 1] is a horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed by Flare II and originally published by Atari Corporation exclusively for the Atari Jaguar first in North America on November 23, 1993. It was, aside from the pack-in game Cybermorph, the only launch title for the system in the region.[1] It was also released in Europe on June 27, 1994 and finally in Japan on January 13, 1995 where it was published by Mumin Corporation.[2][3]

Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy
Cover art in all regions
Developer(s)Atari Corporation
Flare II
Publisher(s)
  • NA/EU: Atari Corporation
  • JP: Mumin Corporation
Producer(s)James Hampton
Designer(s)Eric Ginner
Susan G. McBride
Programmer(s)Andrew J. Burgess
Artist(s)B.J. West
Cheryl Blaha
Donald Wang
Linnea Wigren
Composer(s)Alex Rudis
Michael Stevens
R. Wiley Evans
Platform(s)Atari Jaguar
Release
  • NA: 23 November 1993
  • EU: 27 June 1994
  • JP: 13 January 1995
Genre(s)Horizontally scrolling shooter
Mode(s)Single-player

When the Crescent Galaxy has been conquered by a strange entity, the main armada units from the interplanetary defense squad Circle Reserves were dispatched but almost all of them were nearly destroyed when battling against it. Trevor McFur, a corporal from the reserve alongside his partner Cutter, warp to their home in order to counterattack the unknown entity, referred only as Odd-It and its own armada to free the planets and the galaxy from his graps, before it makes everything odd like himself. Being one of the first titles released for the system, Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy is believed to have been originally in development for the unreleased Atari Panther console and was moved to the Jaguar when the project was terminated.[4]

Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy received mixed reception when it launched from reviewers who praised the graphics but most of them were divided in regards to the gameplay and controls, while others criticized the lack of in-game music, lack of depth and sound effects. By April 1, 1995, the game had sold nearly 24,000 copies, though it is unknown how many were sold in total during its lifetime.[5]

Gameplay
Gameplay screenshot.

Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up game where players take the role of corporal Trevor McFur from the Circle Reserves in a mission to defeat the entity known as Odd-It, by destroying the four moons orbiting around the planet Cosmolite in order to get into the main base of the enemy. The player has multiple continues to keep playing until they run out and the cartridge's EEPROM only saves high-scores and other settings.

Unlike most of its contemporaries, the player can choose between any of the four starting moons and each one consists of two stages with a boss at the end of each stage. The player's ship has three types of weapons at his disposal: The main cannon, whose firepower can be increased up to six times, as with the bomb that can also be increased multiple times and the special weapon, which is activated by pressing the C button on the controller and they can also be changed for another special weapon by pressing Option, however, the player can also activate them at any given time by pressing their corresponding number on the controller's keypad. Pressing 9 brings Cutter to shoot the enemies and obstacles alongside the player.

Power-up for the main cannon, bombs and special weapons are dropped by enemies and on every second stage, there is a Circle Reserves base, which grants power-ups as well. After each moon has been completed, the player is sent into a bonus stage where they fly between rings in order to get weapons and the stage is over once they crash into a ring. Extra lives are granted either by points or by finding their corresponding icons.

Plot

An area in the universe known as the Crescent Galaxy has fallen and the planets within the galaxy have been conquered, guarded by a blockade and put under the rule of an entity only referred as Odd-It, whose sole passion is to turn everything odd like it and now resides on the planet Cosmolite. The main armada in the Crescent Galaxy's chapter of the Interplanetary Defense Squad known as the Circle Reserves have nearly perished when they tried to battle against the entity. Trevor McFur, a corporal in the Circle Reserves along with his female feline partner Cutter, set their coordinates for home and engage at warp nine, seeking to overthrow Odd-It's regime on the planets he has attacked by his own armada. After destroying the four moons that surround Cosmolite, Trevor McFur and Cutter descent into Odd-It's main base on the planet. The two destroy it, saving the Crescent Galaxy in the process and both Trevor McFur and Cutter became household names for the Circle Reserves due to their efforts.[6][7]

Development and release

Originally codenamed Side Shooter early in development,[8] Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy was first showcased at Atari's August 1993 press conference at Sunnyvale, California in an early but playable state.[9][10] A 1993 promotional recording sent by Atari to video game retail stores features the game in a much earlier state with many differences compared to the final release.[11]

Andrew Burgess, best known for his work in S.T.U.N. Runner, worked as a programmer and developed the game's sound engine. Andrew stated that the game was given a short deadline to get the project completed and meet the console's launch before other consoles were launched. He also stated that "the game was built on an evolving platform that was hard to program, with early development features, and a highly inexperienced game development organization at the time".[12]

B.J. West, who is more well known for the unreleased Atari Jaguar CD title Black ICE\White Noise and his work as a graphic artist in The Sims, worked as an animator for various enemies and bosses in the game. It was one of his first works in the video game industry.[13][14]

Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
GameRankings42%[15]
Review scores
PublicationScore
AllGame[16]
Atari ST User90%[17]
Edge4 / 10[18]
Electronic Gaming Monthly20 / 50[19]
GamePro11 / 20[20]
Génération 476%[21]
Hyper45%[22]
Joypad71%[23]
MAN!AC21%[24]
Megablast44%[25]
Mega Fun42%[26]
Play Time42 / 100[27]
Score60%[28]
Super Game Power3.5 / 5.0[29]
ST-Computer70%[30]
ST Format44%[31]
ST Review35%[32]
Video Games25%[33]

In their review of Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy, Electronic Gaming Monthly commented "The graphics are very nice, but the game is not very challenging, not to mention the controller cramps your hand," and gave it a 4 out of 10.[19] GamePro panned the game, saying it has generally impressive graphics but shallow, primitive gameplay, elaborating that "You scroll side-view across open, flat, non-interactive backgrounds and shoot hordes of boring, redundant enemies. There is no variance to the speed, and little technique is needed other than moving fast and shooting the right objects".[20]

Notes
  1. Also known as Crescent Galaxy (Japanese: クレッセント・ギャラクシー, Hepburn: Kuressento Gyarakushī) in Japan.
gollark: ComputerCraft's not particularly bad as environments go.
gollark: No, it should just not be done, do things cleanly, correctly and... generally sanely?
gollark: Well, as I said, that way it will *maybe* fix your *particular* issue, but you'll try and blindly shove that in another project and it *won't*.
gollark: ...
gollark: All good JSON parsing/serialization code would just handle all the escaping and whatnot sanely and automatically and let me just pass in an object and convert it to a string.

References
  1. "ATARI SHIPS JAGUAR FOR NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO MARKETS; WORLD'S FIRST 64-BIT INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA HOME ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM AVAILABLE". TheFreeLibrary.com. PR Newswire. November 23, 1993. Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  2. Castle, Justin (July 21, 2018). "Historical Atari Jaguar UK Magazine Advert/Reviews Collection" (PDF). Issuu. p. 340. Retrieved 2018-09-04.
  3. "JAGUAR Soft" (in Japanese). GAME Data Room. Archived from the original on 2018-08-25. Retrieved 2018-06-16.
  4. "HCM: The Atari-Panther Story". Homecomputer.de. 1997-11-27. Archived from the original on 2016-08-25. Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  5. "Atari Jaguar Lifetime Sales". betaphasegames.com. Archived from the original on 24 August 2017. Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  6. Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy game manual (Atari Jaguar, US)
  7. "Ending for Trevor McFur In The Crescent Galaxy (Atari Jaguar)". vgmuseum.com. Archived from the original on 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  8. Dragon, Lost (July 5, 2017). "The Ultimate Jaguar Unreleased/Beta/Source/Dev Master List! - Page 5". atari.io. Archived from the original on 4 November 2018. Retrieved 2019-02-02.
  9. QLvsJAGUAR (August 18, 2015). ATARI JAGUAR 1st Press Conference 1993-08-18. YouTube.
  10. D. George, Gregory (September 9, 2002). "A conversation with Lx Rudis - Atari's most famous musician speaks!". ataritimes.com. Archived from the original on December 16, 2017. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
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