Stunning game, an absolute joy to play. Great to see a new Master System title. We'll be doing a full review as part of our homebrew section in the next Issue of Fusion magazine. www.fusionretrobooks.com - Check it out!
Well done! The presentation is truly phenomenal for a Master System game! How was your experience making a game for this wonderfully underrated platform? For a while now I wanted to make a SMS game, but being primarily an artist, coding straight Z80 assembler or, best case scenario, C, seems super daunting to me.
Thanks! The tools available for SMS now make things a lot easier. As you mention though, knowledge of C or assembler is still required. This game is almost entirely written in C.
I have just purchase, I was hoping to play on my MiSTer FPGA but it doesn't seem to run - have you tested on this platform or is it not supported? thanks!
Yes, one of our play testers used MiSTer to complete the game. I believe you need to set "bios: disable" for it to run. Some other games have the same issue.
Alternatively, you can use the newer Mega Drive core which doesn't have the above issue.
Awesome Master System shooter with perfect playability, although quite difficult even in easy mode. It is probably one of the best games of its kind for this console not just because of the incredibly detailed graphics and perfect multi-scrolling. Our German-language review can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 03:01:07. English subtitles are also available. Subscription to our YouTube and Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
I think this game does have plenty of things going for it like the graphics and the rank system, but I think the dodge mechanic needs to be tweaked a bit. It's too easy to activate it by accident when you're trying to adjust your position slightly or tap dodge. Also, because you use down to switch weapons, using diagonals as an alternative is obviously not going to be an option here.
My suggestion would be to tweak the dodge to where you can only do that while you're not firing. That way, you can double tap while firing without having to worry about accidentally dodging.
But I love seeing a new Master System game in 2025.
On accidentally dashing. I discussed this with the play testers and we found that it disappears over time. As you get used to it you begin to move knowing there is a dash move, avoiding double tapping unless you want to dash. It's just incorporating that into how you move.
I like your suggestion, but there are times (without spoiling) you might want to dash and shoot.
What if you programmed it to where you can still tap the shot button and dodge, but not dodge when you're holding shot down long enough since you do have autofire in this game? Just a thought.
It starts to get a bit complicated having different states to enable dashing and introduces another layer of difficulty to the controls. Although I agree it can be difficult to control dashing in the beginning, it feels more straightforward to learn.
Just curious, did you try having faster base movement for the main character before implementing the dodge? Many arcade shmups give you the option of having ships of different speeds and shots or in the case of some PC Engine shmups, giving you the option to switch between ship speeds. You'd be surprised how many shmup superplayers can control a fast ship even without a focus shot mechanic.
The game briefly had speed power ups but it didn't really add anything to the game, other than an extra pick up. The dash came in after that as I felt it was a more interesting mechanic. Faster movement is just a stat increase, but the dash can be used for temporary faster movement or to dash through bullets, it also has risk/reward if you fail and is tied to the scoring mechanics by generating score if you dash through bullets.
Another reason is the game is not exactly the same as traditional shmups due to no vertical movement. Likewise a dash mechanic would be harder to integrate in a traditional shmup I imagine.
Had the pleasure to playtest and still want to keep playing! Encourage anyone to give it shot. I've previously bounced off shooters as a genre, but this game just feels so good, I've had the itch to keep replaying since the first demo release. Lost count of the moments a new mechanic or new stage feature made me laugh in joy and/or frustration to get a little further next time! So much depth to the gameplay. Love it
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could add two or more opponents IMO but im not complaining. fun game 🙂
Stunning game, an absolute joy to play. Great to see a new Master System title. We'll be doing a full review as part of our homebrew section in the next Issue of Fusion magazine. www.fusionretrobooks.com - Check it out!
Great, thanks! I'll look out for it.
New review!
Well done! The presentation is truly phenomenal for a Master System game! How was your experience making a game for this wonderfully underrated platform? For a while now I wanted to make a SMS game, but being primarily an artist, coding straight Z80 assembler or, best case scenario, C, seems super daunting to me.
Thanks! The tools available for SMS now make things a lot easier. As you mention though, knowledge of C or assembler is still required. This game is almost entirely written in C.
I have just purchase, I was hoping to play on my MiSTer FPGA but it doesn't seem to run - have you tested on this platform or is it not supported? thanks!
Yes, one of our play testers used MiSTer to complete the game. I believe you need to set "bios: disable" for it to run. Some other games have the same issue.
Alternatively, you can use the newer Mega Drive core which doesn't have the above issue.
Thanks I will give that a try. In the mean time I have been playing it on my Analogue Pocket and it's awesome!! :)
Yes setting the bios to disable works perfectly - thanks again!
Hi, I just purchased the game, but the manual is not in English. Is there another way to download a manual in English? Thanks!
The manual is in English, it's in the zip file.
The Brazilian Portuguese manual is downloaded separately.
You are right! I actually loaded the zip on my Anbernic as-is and it worked just fine so I did not bother to unzip. It's there. Thanks!
Awesome Master System shooter with perfect playability, although quite difficult even in easy mode. It is probably one of the best games of its kind for this console not just because of the incredibly detailed graphics and perfect multi-scrolling. Our German-language review can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 03:01:07. English subtitles are also available. Subscription to our YouTube and Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
We would like to show this game in our next livestream tomorrow on Twitch. Is there a demo version? Please let us know!
Great! There's an Alpha Demo here if you'd like to try it: https://badcomputer0.itch.io/frontier-force-alpha-demo
Hi there, I hope you don't mind, but I have included Frontier Force in the best Master System homebrew games of all time.
Thank you!
you are very welcome.
Is this a ROM file? It looks cool, but I'm probably only gonna ever play something like this on my retro handheld clones.
Yes, it's a game made for the SEGA Master System. If your device can play SMS games then it should work fine.
This looks great, I wish it was around when I was growing up. Instead we had junk like Global Defense and Alex Kidd.
Hi badcomputer, i just need a very easy baby mode with 9 lives and 9 continues. thanks lol
Lol thanks for playing! Don't worry, you can do it with practice!
it canno't be .noooooooooooooo
I think this game does have plenty of things going for it like the graphics and the rank system, but I think the dodge mechanic needs to be tweaked a bit. It's too easy to activate it by accident when you're trying to adjust your position slightly or tap dodge. Also, because you use down to switch weapons, using diagonals as an alternative is obviously not going to be an option here.
My suggestion would be to tweak the dodge to where you can only do that while you're not firing. That way, you can double tap while firing without having to worry about accidentally dodging.
But I love seeing a new Master System game in 2025.
Thanks for playing!
On accidentally dashing. I discussed this with the play testers and we found that it disappears over time. As you get used to it you begin to move knowing there is a dash move, avoiding double tapping unless you want to dash. It's just incorporating that into how you move.
I like your suggestion, but there are times (without spoiling) you might want to dash and shoot.
What if you programmed it to where you can still tap the shot button and dodge, but not dodge when you're holding shot down long enough since you do have autofire in this game? Just a thought.
It starts to get a bit complicated having different states to enable dashing and introduces another layer of difficulty to the controls. Although I agree it can be difficult to control dashing in the beginning, it feels more straightforward to learn.
Just curious, did you try having faster base movement for the main character before implementing the dodge? Many arcade shmups give you the option of having ships of different speeds and shots or in the case of some PC Engine shmups, giving you the option to switch between ship speeds. You'd be surprised how many shmup superplayers can control a fast ship even without a focus shot mechanic.
The game briefly had speed power ups but it didn't really add anything to the game, other than an extra pick up. The dash came in after that as I felt it was a more interesting mechanic. Faster movement is just a stat increase, but the dash can be used for temporary faster movement or to dash through bullets, it also has risk/reward if you fail and is tied to the scoring mechanics by generating score if you dash through bullets.
Another reason is the game is not exactly the same as traditional shmups due to no vertical movement. Likewise a dash mechanic would be harder to integrate in a traditional shmup I imagine.
Had the pleasure to playtest and still want to keep playing! Encourage anyone to give it shot. I've previously bounced off shooters as a genre, but this game just feels so good, I've had the itch to keep replaying since the first demo release.
Lost count of the moments a new mechanic or new stage feature made me laugh in joy and/or frustration to get a little further next time! So much depth to the gameplay. Love it
Very addictive gameplay. Scrolling clouds look awesome. Thanks for this excellent release!!
Game is amazing!