The elusive Space Demon Upright

CptnSteve

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So every couple of years my old thread gets bumped and people talk about Space Demon again. A somewhat obscure game made by Fortek and licensed by Nintendo in the early 80's. It predates radarscope and donkey kong it appears and it is a spiritual successor to Space firebird.

I have seen a few of the cabaret machines and a few of the cocktails but even they seem to be rare. What I have never seen, besides the one I own, is a dedicated upright machine. I can't find a Space Demon flyer that may show the different cabinets, not even one from Japan. it has been speculated that the machine was never released in this form outside of Japan, an din the 80's Japanese cabinets that didn't make a lot of money in the arcades were quickly converted to more profitable games. This would be a prime candidate for a DK conversion due to the cabinet color. But again, I've never heard of anyone seeing one in the wild, converting one in the past or anything other than a cabaret or a cocktail that used to be in a pizza place in the Seattle area.

I have been asked to have the artwork vectorized so that people can reproduce the cabinet, but the other problem is hardware. This game doesn't play right on Mame and the sound board which controls a lot of the game visuals is really hard to find. Short of converting a Space Firebird sound board, I also don't know of ways to make it work with Nintendo hardware.

So until I can get some additional information around the cabinet I tend to be very cautious about removing the game from storage and I won't be sending off my art to get converted just yet.

What I would like to know is has anyone ever seen one of these before. Ever. Anywhere?

If not I think I'm going to have to start diagramming out the schematics and figuring out how to get some spare parts made for my electronics.

Here are a couple of pics. People have said the game isn't fun to play, but I disagree. I think it is a decent galaxian style game that came out in the middle of the market being flooded with such games.
 

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I absolutely love this cabinet. Call me a completionist, but i'd really like to add one of these alongside my Sheriff, SFB, and Heli-fire one day. Even if it is a repro. (Don't get me started on how bad i'd like a Sky Skipper too haha.)

I really hope, just for preservation sake at least, you make an attempt sooner rather then later to have the artwork documented and scanned. If its not too much to ask a full public flickr gallery showing the in and outs of the cab, under the CP, the PCB arrangement, etc.

For something like this, i'd almost argue that the art package be given a small blemish, or identifier of some sorts to distinguish it as a repro set, just in case.

...All we need now is to find an actual Space Launcher upright in the wild. That would be NUTS :D
 
This cabinet never had side art. It is 100% original and was in a warehouse for 25 years. I don't know if sure at was intended on this but it was definitely never applied to the side of this one
 
So every couple of years my old thread gets bumped and people talk about Space Demon again. A somewhat obscure game made by Fortek and licensed by Nintendo in the early 80's. It predates radarscope and donkey kong it appears and it is a spiritual successor to Space firebird.

I have seen a few of the cabaret machines and a few of the cocktails but even they seem to be rare. What I have never seen, besides the one I own, is a dedicated upright machine. I can't find a Space Demon flyer that may show the different cabinets, not even one from Japan. it has been speculated that the machine was never released in this form outside of Japan, an din the 80's Japanese cabinets that didn't make a lot of money in the arcades were quickly converted to more profitable games. This would be a prime candidate for a DK conversion due to the cabinet color. But again, I've never heard of anyone seeing one in the wild, converting one in the past or anything other than a cabaret or a cocktail that used to be in a pizza place in the Seattle area.

I have been asked to have the artwork vectorized so that people can reproduce the cabinet, but the other problem is hardware. This game doesn't play right on Mame and the sound board which controls a lot of the game visuals is really hard to find. Short of converting a Space Firebird sound board, I also don't know of ways to make it work with Nintendo hardware.

So until I can get some additional information around the cabinet I tend to be very cautious about removing the game from storage and I won't be sending off my art to get converted just yet.

What I would like to know is has anyone ever seen one of these before. Ever. Anywhere?

If not I think I'm going to have to start diagramming out the schematics and figuring out how to get some spare parts made for my electronics.

Here are a couple of pics. People have said the game isn't fun to play, but I disagree. I think it is a decent galaxian style game that came out in the middle of the market being flooded with such games.

Would love to buy one if I can ever get someone to sell one.

My guess is the game was put on test in the area since Nintendo is up near Seattle and similar to Sky Skipper and others, was pulled. I saw a Space Firebird upright at a SMith's Food King in North Las Vegas growing up. Never seen another one of those either.

That was a wild lineup:
Esh Aurunmilla (after they converted Interstellar)
Space Firebird
Ms. Pac-Man
Polaris cabaret
Donkey Kong Jr.
 
Surprisingly, both my cocktail and mini came out of Las Vegas. Who knows how they got there, but I found lots of great rare games in Vegas. My Space Stranger 2 came from the same operator as the Space Demon.
 
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Its alive! Works great. Seems that my power supply took a crap on me so I swapped in the one from my Space Fever and it's working great. so I'll be cleaning up the control panel, printing some art for the control panel instruction card and the bezel instruction card and will have this at the Pacific Northwest Arcade show in 2 weeks.

The window for the artwork is slightly larger than Donkey Kong and Jr. 12 mm wide by 16mm high. (approx. 4 3/4 inches wide by 6 1/4 high)
 
I absolutely love this cabinet. Call me a completionist, but i'd really like to add one of these alongside my Sheriff, SFB, and Heli-fire one day. Even if it is a repro. (Don't get me started on how bad i'd like a Sky Skipper too haha.)

I really hope, just for preservation sake at least, you make an attempt sooner rather then later to have the artwork documented and scanned. If its not too much to ask a full public flickr gallery showing the in and outs of the cab, under the CP, the PCB arrangement, etc.

For something like this, i'd almost argue that the art package be given a small blemish, or identifier of some sorts to distinguish it as a repro set, just in case.

...All we need now is to find an actual Space Launcher upright in the wild. That would be NUTS :D

I would love to see more pictures and video!
 
I was just looking at this thread: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=405260

And noticed that the Helifire has a very similar bezel. Looks like the same screens, but different colors.

823a2cffac07e85dde37862700f9826f.jpg


3017087231_3559d59abb.jpg


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