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ID Category [?] Severity [?] Reproducibility Date Submitted Last Update
08162 DIP/Input Trivial Always Dec 22, 2021, 10:42 Dec 22, 2021, 20:49
Tester jkburks View Status Public Platform MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To Steve Coomber Resolution Fixed OS Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
Status [?] Resolved Driver
Version 0.238 Fixed in Version 0.239 Build 64-bit
Fixed in Git Commit b25d44b Github Pull Request # #9028
Summary 08162: skydest: Up and Down joystick inputs are reversed
Description The control lever diagram on a surviving instruction card confirms that the up & down inputs in MAME are reversed.
Steps To Reproduce
Additional Information It was brought up in the recent MameHaze live stream that the vertical joystick controls in Sky Destroyer might be reversed. I will upload a photo of the instruction card that confirms this to be true. The joystick diagram reads:
上昇 (ascending)
下降 (descending)
This is the same control layout shown in the Famicom manual:
https://archive.org/details/sky-destroyer-famicom-manual-only/page/n3/mode/2up

The instruction card photo is partial and obscured by the collector. This person claims (in the twitter source) that the instruction card is from a location test.

Several sources, including Moby Games, and the English + Japanese Wikipedia articles list May 1985 as the release date for Sky Destroyer. Unfortunately none of these pages cite a source for this information. The Famicom release is confirmed as November 14, 1985.

It is notable that Taito's arcade advertisements for 1985 do not contain Sky Destroyer. No sales flyer appears to be available, and it did not get a formal submission to Game Machine as a new title. The game does not appear on the list of titles shown in the Taito booth at the October 1985 Amusement Machine Show in Tokyo. It is possible that Sky Destroyer received a limited release in Taito owned game centers during 1985, but confirmation is lacking.

We do know that Sky Destroyer got a wide arcade release in late 1985 because the title appears in Game Machine’s Best Hit Games 25 list. This is an earnings and popularity survey of about a dozen or more participating arcades. These range from small independent shops to large corporate owned locations (Sega, Taito etc.) The data set is very small, but still useful.

Sky Destroyer
Dec. 15, 1985. 3rd place debut
Jan. 01, 1986 7th place
Jan. 15, 1986 23rd place
Feb. 01, 1986 16th place
Feb. 15, 1986 22nd place
Mar. 01, 1986 11th place
Mar. 15, 1986 17th place
Apr. 01, 1986 14th place

Sky Destroyer fell off the chart by mid April. These numbers would suggest that the game had a four month run with decent earnings, and that the timeframe coincides with the home release on the Famicom. The confirmed dates suggest that the arcade version may not have been released until a month after the Famicom cartridge...
Github Commit
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Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems skydest
Attached Files
jpg file icon sky_destroyer_card.jpg (337,229 bytes) Dec 22, 2021, 10:42 Uploaded by jkburks
Sky Destroyer Instruction Card
jkburks
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No.19585
Steve Coomber
Tester
Dec 22, 2021, 18:02
edited on: Dec 22, 2021, 18:31
Thanks for the information. I just spotted another issue. If the cabinet is selected to 'upright' instead of 'cocktail', the display is shown upside down. Note that the 'flip screen' DIP switch does not correct this.