GORF

Galactic Orbital Robot Force

GORF Resources - Files, Downloads and Photos

Edited Video - just showing Jamie Fenton’s Ms. GORF

Ms GORF was programmed in Nutting's Terse 78. Which is like Forth with extensions for Nutting.

The files are available here http://bitsavers.org/bits/Nutting_Assoc/MSGORF.zip

Ok here's the scoop, the full rundown and all the details I have: If you have not seen Jamie Fenton on the video, "Before The Bubble Burst", you must watch it.

Jamie not only talks about MsGORF but shows it playing on a development system. Unfortunately due to the games crash of '83, MsGORF was never finished; the game discs are, as Wikipedia describes, stored in a museum.

But I heard that Jamie spoke in a games conference only a few years ago about her hope of reviving it.

So I emailed her and asked for permission to get hold of the discs. She agreed. I contacted the museum who sent me the files.

There are several complications, GORF was written in Forth, but MsGORF was written in an early version of TERSE. Jamie sent me the TERSE manuals - See below.

One of the Ms GORF disks needs to be reread, the one labelled 'Ms Gorf - GORF4A ' From the LabelDysan # 802067

These seem to be 5 1/4 inch floppies, but from looking at the image files it looks to be the same format as the Terse 8 inch floppies( 2 heads, 77 tracks, 2 sectors per track with a sector size of 1024

bytes ) for a total size of 308K bytes. I got a feeling they just used the 1771Floppy controller with an

80 track 5 1/4 floppy drive on a later version of the IceBox Keeping the same 8 inch format.

A couple of people are interested in working on it. Currently I believe no work is in progress. The main person who knows how to do this (Tim Giddens) is working on other projects first. Brendon Parker is interested but is a graphics designer not a programmer. The Computer Museum said to contact a guy called Frank Palazzolo. He said he hasn't looked at this stuff in about a year, but got as far as getting MAME to boot the disk with the GORF binary on it.

Frank had disassembled and figured out how terse worked.

There are a few problems with trying to get Ms GORF rebuilt. Firstly, there wasn't a since disk with the

whole game on it.

It appears you'd load all of the patterns from one disk, then the game code from another.

Another problem is the mix of 8 and 5 inch disks.

It appears the 5 inch disks came from different hardware that was related to astrocade/zgrass

Jamie Fenton writes, "One of the issues with reviving Ms. GORF is that hardware configuration changed a few weeks before the project was cancelled. We used a form of collision detection that depended on monitoring the write-cycle (if a certain value was written over another value, declare a collision). There were other strange details that I can't remember."

I am hopeful this will get completed. If anyone has the knowledge please let us know.

GORF Arcade Manual & Schematics

28 Page GORF Combat Manual

GORF ROMS for MAME https://www.freeroms.com/roms/mame/gorf.htm

GORF Tester ROMS - this is a zip file so take normal precautions

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B1RD3ZVsBNn6aqBJsw9zou22MQxJWwYl/view?fbclid=IwAR0T4kT2GiaYFqLIdshQwNBXsCwIFlC1BXUrT2OXVEcbkQ-llh-Nes6yOXc

GORF Wav files https://sampleswap.org/filebrowser-new.php?d=SOUND+EFFECTS+and+NOISES%2FVIDEO+GAMES%2Fgorf%2F&getall=1

GORF Video of Attract mode https://archive.org/details/arcade_gorf

GORF Combat Manual https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=2837

GORF T Shirt https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/1832979-gorf

GORF Laughter Mp3

GORF features speech. Here’s what it says in Attract mode :
1) Insert Coin!
2) I am the Gorfian Empire.
3) Long Live Gorf!
NOTE : Move the controller any time during the attract mode to trigger the speech.

Ready to play mode :
1) Long Live Gorf!
2) Push a player button.

Mission start-up :
1) Prepare yourself for annihilation, [rank]!
2) You will meet a Gorfian doom, [rank]!
3) Survival is impossible, [rank]!
4) You cannot escape the Gorfian robots!
5) I am the Gorfian Empire!
6) I am a Gorfian consciousness.
7) Gorfian robots...Attack! Attack!
8) Robot warriors, seek and destroy the [rank]!
9) My Gorfian robots are unbeatable!
10) Gorfians take no prisoners!

Player loses a ship :
1) Got you, [rank]!
2) Bad move, [rank]!
3) Some galactic defender you are, [rank]!
4) Another enemy ship destroyed!
5) Your end draws near, [rank]!
6) Ha ha ha ha!

Player loses last ship :
1) Too bad, [rank]!
2) Bite the dust, [rank]!

At game over :
1) Gorfians conquer another galaxy.
2) You cannot escape the Gorfian Robots.
3) All hail the supreme Gorfian Empire!
4) Try again; I devour coins!

Player destroys Flag Ship (and advances in rank; [new rank] denotes where Gorf speaks the player's new rank) :
1) Nice shot! You have been promoted to [new rank]!
2) For hitting my Flag Ship, you have been promoted to [new rank]!
3) In the Gorfian chronicals, you have been promoted to [new rank]!
4) Next time will be harder, but for now you have been promoted to [new rank]!
NOTES : These phrases may not be easy to hear over the loud explosion of the Flag Ship. The Rank lamp on the bezel moves over to the next rank as soon as GORF begins speaking.

GORF has 3 hidden names:

GORF is Frog spelled backwards, and Jamie Fenton (GORF’s designer) was called Frog at university.
George Gomez hid his surname on the design on the back of the joystick.
On the Upright Arcade Machine Glass Bezel, on the left hand side it says MIDWAY 873. This is the Model Number for GORF as shown on the Arcade Manual, so the 3rd hidden name is actually GORF’s own model number.

Play GORF right now at www.gorf.cc

The videogames crash of 1983 was far-reaching and caused many projects to be cancelled, including Ms GORF.

Bad games, such as ‘ET’ and ‘Pacman’ on the Atari 2600 are commonly cited as examples of what caused the crash and around this time many poor games and countless home computer systems came to market.

But let me ask the question, would MsGORF have ever been successful?

The most successful game of the Golden era was ‘MsPacman’ which sold around 120,000 cabinets. Average games typically sold 1,000 – 5,000 units.

GORF (designed by Jamie Fenton) sold around 30,000 units, making it a highly successful game, which earnt it its place as a classic game from The Golden era.

Jamie Fenton later designed (with David Nutting), ‘The Adventures of Robby Roto’, which sold just under 2,000 units, making it, as far as sales are concerned, a middle of the road game, and with Jamie’s previous success it was hoped sales would have been better.

So given production numbers, and its time and space in the market, if I were to guess I would say MsGORF would have sold a relatively low number of cabinets and I am guessing Bally Midway / Nutting Associates, must have thought this or else they would have continued.

Ms GORF seems to have elements of ‘Robotron’ (using 2 joysticks) and ‘Star Castle’. Sean Schonherr released a video clip, “Before the Bubble Burst: Jamie Fenton, Game Designer 1982”. In it we see photos and clips of Jamie playing MsGORF on a prototype setup, using a modified GORF control panel that has two joysticks. The game looks frantic, in a good way. It has the look of a game with speed. It is not complete and has sounds missing; perhaps speech would have been added later.

One thing that strikes me, is that it is nothing like GORF. Sure, it has the orange GORF characters, the ship and elements of the Space Warp level, but it’s an entirely new game. I love GORF and am not sure that this would have felt the similar enough for me to think of it as a sequel in the same way that Ms Pacman was to Pacman, Stargate to Defender, Space Invaders Part 2 was to Space Invader and so forth.

Ms Pacman was a progression from Pacman, those that know the history will talk of plenty of Pacman clones, and tell the story of how Crazy Otto became Ms Pacman, but regardless of the background, Ms Pacman just feels like a continuation and an improvement on Pacman. Likewise, Space Invaders Part 2 is like Space Invaders, just with minor improvements.

So, couldn’t GORF2 have been a continuation and just gone for small improvements?

With the benefit of hindsight, I believe so, as I know that MsGORF was shelved due to the games crash.

So, this brings me to my motivation for writing; in retrospect what should the sequel to GORF have been? How could it have been presented to be popular and sell to the market in the height of the games’ crash of 1983?

I am poorly equipped to truly answer as I am not a game developer, and I have no experience of ever having brought a game to market. I am, however a very keen and perhaps even obsessive player, who wonders, what could have been? and regarding MsGORF perhaps what will still be?

I believe small changes and improvements on popular games sold well and with GORF no real changes were ever made. There was an update to the GORF Romset, although this was purely to make the game harder so players wouldn’t last so long on one coin.

When GORF lost popularity, the old GORF cabinets were never really used by arcades, some were badly converted into other games such as Arkanoid and Rygar (a kit was sold for this purpose). But many cabinets were eventually scrapped as the GORF cabinet was unsuitable for most conversions. There are many reasons for this: the monitor is vertical, it needs complete re-wiring, the bezel has writing rather than just artwork, the joystick is optical and has a trigger rather than a joystick with separate buttons, and the cabinet design is very distinct. In short it was not easily converted to play other games, which should have meant it there was a demand at the time to convert these cabinets into a GORF sequel.

I think not 1 but 2 sequels could have followed. The first being very cheaply made, with very small differences. GORF part 2. A way for Arcades to keep money coming in from their GORF cabinet until the full GORF 2 game was released.

For hardware, the Astrocade board set that was used for GORF and Robby Roto, (dating back to 1978) was already dated when these games came out. I think it would be sufficient for GORF part 2, leaving the program largely untouched, just with some tweaks, such as a couple of lasers within the Astrobattles level, perhaps some different taunts. Chuck in a new bezel and marquee and voila.

For GORF 2 I think a hardware change would have been necessary, with the original program essentially being written for it, so the gameplay, graphics and gameplay remained consistent.

A conversion kit would have sold well and could have been cheap to produce also. It could have consisted of new larger side art stickers, a new marquee, reading GORF II, a new bezel with different names for the rankings, and a different colour upper bezel, perhaps using some UV lights, taking inspiration from the Tron cabinet. The rest of the cabinet, including the joystick and control panel I would leave well alone. Its shape is distinctive and recognisable.

For me, the sequel needs speech, GORF is known for its taunts, and that should be accentuated and built upon in the sequel, with more of the same and some additional insults: Nice try, Is that your best?, Is that all you’ve got? Your skills are laughable hahaha,

The scrolling attract mode introduction text should remain in the same font, and format, just with different wording, regarding The Gorfian revenge, perhaps a different colour – The Gorfian orange rather than yellow.

The 5 levels should I think also remain, just with changes to reflect the improving technology of the time. The gameplay and fast pace being of paramount importance.

Many players didn’t understand GORF’s the firing method, of the previous shot disappearing. I think to attract new players the previous shot should no longer disappear, even though for more experienced players the system works very well. Perhaps from Mission 15 the control method could change so that beginners are not affected but the skill element remains for more experienced players.

Enemies that appear on one mini game could be incorporated into others. For example, I would increase the number of lasers attack craft, and bring them into other levels.

Perhaps Astrobattles could force you to go under the enemy from time to time rather than being able to just hide at the side. If one laser moved at the top from left to right in the earlier rankings, and then 2 lasers, one each side that could move down to fire faster, and perhaps a laser craft could move to gaps in the middle of astrobattles to fire.

Laser attack is great as it is, maybe it could have scrolled slightly as does Juno First. But again, resembling Laser Attack not Juno First. Essentially old GORF gameplay with some fun tweaks. Maybe 3 lasers, or even 4 on later levels would work.

Galaxians has been revisited so many times, Galaga arguably being the best know derivative. I would keep the GORF craft and movements the same. Possibly making the entire level run a tad faster. Possibly with different colour of aliens rows that move in slightly different formations, both the original level and new level being in the game.

Space warp could have 2 warp circles where enemies spawn rather than just 1. Space warp for new players that miss a lot can feel slow and to new players ‘the most boring level.’ Perhaps something to keep the feeling of speed going. The aliens currently on GORF move in a circle, perhaps this could change to a figure of 8. The bullets currently fire wherever you were last, this could change to a different firing pattern.

The flagship could just benefit from some more graphics and an even bigger explosion. Perhaps the flagship firing in different ways. Maybe the cabinet lights could flash at that time too.

So that’s it, my dream, a sequel to GORF. We missed it in the early 80s, I always looked out for it in arcades.

As for MsGORF, well to revive the original TERSE program, that was on a development system I understand will require a lot of work.

But to reprogram from scratch on a different system in 2021, why not? Jamie Fenton wants it to happen. How long would it take someone to program from scratch using her videos, artwork, notes from the harddrives and from her memory?

I have no idea who will program it, nor for what system. Personally, I would like to see someone’s interpretation of it with Jamie’s help in an arcade cabinet. Imagine that, the game that is released 40 years after being shelved. The lost and recovered classic of a bygone era.

There are other sequels to GORF, which we can see here GORF Pluz http://www.classicgaming.com/jfpn/gorfpluz_preview.htm and screenshots of GORF 2000, but I have still never played a sequel to GORF. I can still dream.

GORF Countertop by Bally Wulff. Distributed by Gunter Wulff Apparatebau GmbH-Berlin

Matthew Garrett on English TV Channel 4, Collector’s Lot - around 1999

UK Video Arcade Collector’s Meet 1.95 “The Gorfian Meet”

GORF Ex- World Champions

Todd Rogers used to hold the official record for this game with 653,990 points. Then Keith Swanson from 2011 - 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfnRI8_PNYU

and now Matthew Garrett. His Easy Set Record of Mission 953 with a score of 1,543,160

GORF World Record by Matthew Garrett from England.Arcade Version 3 Ships, 1 Bonus at Space Captain.The only person to reach Mission 500 on 1 life, (meaning h...

And his Hard Set World Record of Mission 107 with a score of 167,100 :

3 Life Game, 1 Bonus Ship, Score 167,100 Mission 107

and the Medium Difficulty version. Highscoresaves 2.0 high-score.

GORF anthology video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCtHQuxi-Qs

Gorf for Gameboy Advance is a remake of Gorf made by Jess Ragan.

GORF Gameboy Advance Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs8lir1Dhrs

GORF Atari Jaguar - God Earth Troopers Pluz (known as GORF Plus back in the day before the name got changed due to copyright issues IIRC) was to be a cartridge, rather than a CD.

Steven Scavone & Terance Williams’ GORF Classic

http://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=2738

Video of GORF on Jaguar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16TZa_-GW7o

A Star Trek tie in was originally planned by Midway, but when this idea fell by the wayside, the Enterprise sprite was reused as the Flag Ship.

A GORF appears in the 1982 movie 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' and in the 1983 movie 'Joysticks'.