Episode 140: The 49 Ways of Sinistar

Host Frank Cifaldi is joined by documentarian, historian, hacker, and all around cool guy SynaMax to talk about their documentary Resurrecting Sinistar: A Cyber-Archaeology Documentary. The 1983 top-down space shooter arcade game’s unique 49-way joystick allowed players to pilot their spaceship to prevent a giant skull, Sinistar, from forming. SynaMax interviewed developers, restored cut content, and emulated the game itself to better explore the challenges the development team faced due to limited storage and to highlight the importance of source code preservation. SynaMax recently hosted a panel with said developers at the annual classic arcade game show California Extreme - a panel Frank, sadly, missed!  You can listen to the Video Game History Hour every other Wednesday on Patreon (one day early at the $5 tier and above), on Spotify, or on our website. See more from SynaMax: YouTube: youtube.com/synamax Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/synamax.bsky.social Patreon: patreon.com/synamax Video Game History Foundation: Email: podcast@gamehistory.org Website: gamehistory.org Support us on Patreon: /gamehistoryorg