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Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it. It runs fine on an Everdrive or similar flash cart if you want it on real hardware in the meantime. I can't help with self-built carts, I'm afraid — official physical editions are planned for next year, and those will be properly tested.

I didn't use a game engine, but I did use DevkitSMS which is a collection of tools and libraries: https://github.com/sverx/devkitSMS

Thanks! Yes, it's planned for next year.

Thanks! I don't have the original game file anymore. It's possible I could remake it in the future though.

Thanks! I would still like to do it this year but no plans yet. I'm currently working on finishing another game for SMS.

Thanks! Yes, a physical version is still planned for Astro Climber, hopefully later this year.

Thanks! And well done!

I hope to produce more physical copies in the future. I'll announce it here if so. Thanks!

Thanks! I'm not aware of it, I was inspired by games like Ice Climber and Bionic Commando.

Nice! Thanks for sharing.

That's great! Some fantastic games there, I hope everyone enjoys it!

I'm not sure what other shipping options there are. You could query it with 2minds through their website above or on X.

Otherwise, I'm hoping to arrange another physical run (from a new publisher) next year.

Thanks!

A physical version of Astro Climber is planned for 2026.

Thanks! There are 3 continues, so you only need to restart if you lose all those too. Also the first 9 stages account for less than 5 minutes of play time, with the entire game around 20mins (depending on re-tries).

As the credits state, he made the art and I programmed it.

I believe that the power base doesn't work correctly with the publisher's (2Minds) cartridge but does work with other converters. See this post: https://x.com/ichigobankai_/status/1936773641192058926 

No, I've had no reports of crashing. What's your setup?

Cool, thanks for playing!

The manual is in English and is included with the game, but thank you.

Thank you!

Thanks! Yes, the English one is included in the zip with the game.

Great, thanks! I'll look out for it.

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.

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.

The manual is in English, it's in the zip file.

The Brazilian Portuguese manual is downloaded separately.

Great! There's an Alpha Demo here if you'd like to try it: https://badcomputer0.itch.io/frontier-force-alpha-demo

Thank you!

Yes, it's a game made for the SEGA Master System. If your device can play SMS games then it should work fine.

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.

Lol thanks for playing! Don't worry, you can do it with practice!

It's too early to answer.

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.