Scrolling Shooter Games Menu

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Scrolling Shooter Games Menu is the current Homestar Runner games selection screen. It is styled from the vertical scrolling shooter arcade games from the early 80's. The older games are available from the WWII style fighter, while the newer more advanced games are selected from the fancy space fighters. A 20X6 character describes each game.

Page Title: Shots do NOT hurt other players... yet.

Available Games

• Old Games — So old they are new! Maybe you forgot!
• Trogdor — One armed dragon might! Thrilling level!
• Pop Tire — Bouncing tire Challenge! Begin at once!
• Dungeon Man — Type an adventure! Keyboard to the max!
• Awexome Cross — Rolling Cheat thunder! Grab n go cash!
• SBZone — Avoiding shaped attacks in a Strong Bad Zone!
• Marshie Ween — Switching colored treats! Floating delights!
• Secret Collect — A flashing maze to create many times!
• Rhino Feeder — Mighty zoo animal! Elude a snake!
• Peasant Quest — Robed peasant hero! Text and graphic style!
• Stinko Man - Sidemost scrolling! Stinkoman presents!

Easter Eggs

• Click the center "Games Menu... 1982 Videlectrix" to go to the Videlectrix website.

• Click on the level number to change the backgrounds.

• When you collect one of the power-ups that appear occasionally, the character ship changes accordingly.
  • The available ships are: 1-Up (H Pill), Stinkoman (SB Pill), 20X6 Coach Z (Z Pill), 20X6 The Cheat (The Cheat Texture Pill) and Pan Pan (P Pill).

Fun Facts

Trivia

• When this menu was first released, the information bar at the bottom (score, brand, level) was not there. It was added shortly thereafter.
• This is the first time a 20X6 The Cheat and 20X6 Coach Z have ever been shown.
• You can never get a score higher than 0000 as of 7/29/04.

• Loading the page up with Flash Player 6 will cause the browser to complain about a script in the background making everything run slowly. Tell it to cancel to cause it to cease loading the levels (you'll be on "Level", without any numeric value assigned, leaving a blank screen), to cause the sprite to go haywire (it'll go through every morphing and moving animation over and over and over...) and have some characters say an otherwise unused message ("Trogdor is the Greatest Game! Play 2Nite!").
  • Note: The message "TROGDOR IS THE GREATEST GAME! PLAY 2NITE!!" is actually the default value of the text box. It is replaced with another message when you move the mouse over an item. The text is never seen unless all actionscript is stopped, which happens when you get the "running slowly" dialog box and choose to stop running scripts.

Remarks

• While most of the website fits into a small rectangle with rounded edges, this menu has proportions more like that of an arcade cabinet's monitor, with sharp edges.
• Despite using 20X6 characters, each pill uses the initials of the normal characters (i.e. SB = Strong Bad, not Stinkoman etc.)

Goofs

• When you choose Pan Pan, his mouth moves even though he communicates by bouncing, seen in Under Construction.
• Grab a slow character's pill (Coach Z or PanPan) and go to one of the far sides and quickly scroll to the other side and click on one of the games. Your character's laser will shoot out from where the ship was and the game you clicked on will still explode even if the laser isn't anywhere near it.

Glitches

• When using a seek bar, several odd things can happen. These include:
  • Been taken to completely the wrong game (i.e. when clicking on Stinkoman 20X6, the player is taken to Thy Dungeonman).
  • Some, or all of the enemy ships disappearing.
  • The player is taken to an undefined page, resulting in a 404'd error.

Inside References

• The ships have similarities to the characters they represent and each ship has a different speed. From fastest to slowest: The Cheat, Stinkoman, 1-Up, Coach Z, and Pan Pan.
  • Oddly enough, Pan Pan's pill and ship resemble his present-day counterpart Pom Pom.

Real-World References

• The levels are all inspired by classic video games.
  • Level 1 (landscape) is modeled after Xevious (by Namco, 1982).
  • Level 2 (sea/ships) is modeled after 1941 (by Capcom, 1984).
  • Level 3 (space) is probably a reference to the arcade games Galaxian (by Namco, 1979) and Galaga (by Namco, 1981), though neither game had nebulae.
• The quote for Awexome Cross refers to the sidescrolling shooter series named Rolling Thunder (by Namco, 1986).
• The capsules are from Arkanoid (by Taito, 1986).
• The "Ready!" text that you see when you enter the menu is from one of the NES Mega Man games, that is, it uses a similar font and placement.
• The continually rolling "1982 Videlectrix" bar at the bottom is a reference to a similar animation that appeared in most Atari 2600 games made by Activision.
• The page title, "Shots do NOT hurt other players...yet." is from the classic arcade game Gauntlet.
• The way the dialogue is displayed (along with the person speaking) resembles the Star Fox games.
• The scrollover noise is the jumping noise from the Atari 5200 game Montezuma's Revenge (by Parker Brothers, 1984).

Fast Forward

• You can play as Stinkoman's ship, the Stinkowing, in Level 9 of the game Stinkoman 20X6.

External Links

• View the Games Menu
• View the Flash file for the Games Menu
• View the Old Games Menu
• View the Flash file for the Old Games Menu