NOTE: previous Day photos, game lists/participants, etc. are now under the Tabber in the Links section under the 2015 Day. Click on it to view the previous Days.
On the Vector gaming forums, founder VectorX would post occasional milestones the forums had reached. On one post in particular, he stated that right before the one year anniversary of the forums (on September 10, 2012), the site had hit 4,000 posts. Forum member gamezone responded (possibly as a joke) that September 10 should be known as National Play Your Vectrex Day. VectorX figured that it should be known as an international day to include Vectrex owners all around the world, which the idea took off from there, resulting in the date being settled on later as November 1, 2012 (as the month of November also marked the 30th anniversary of the Vectrex's release in the United States). This Day has been repeated every year since.
Rules/regulations[]
This event took place on November 1, 2024. On this day, the rules required that (mandatory):
Participants played their Vectrex. A "participant" could be either an individual or a representation of a group of some sort, such as a computer club or store, for instance. An alternative for those that did not have a Vectrex or for some reason could not play it could instead list what they played on an emulator or the Vectrex Regeneration app, although those listings must be placed in the Honorable mention section (see Bonuses below).
They had to make a note of what game(s) they played. Their name also needed to be part of the record for this page, which could just include a first name, a full name, or an internet handle that they wished to go by. The names also had to be listed in alphabetical order, whatever the participant chose to use (although this page would be edited as needed). This page can be edited by anyone to input the information themselves or the site founder can be contacted on his user page for help, on the Vectrex section of the Vector gaming forums or via private message on the same site (as VectorX, although an account is needed in order to contact him there if a private message is to be sent), or he can be sent a private message via his YouTube channel or by posting a comment on this page there. He can also be contacted via e-mail through one of those outlets as well if need be.
Bonuses
Participants could also keep a record of the game(s') score(s) that they played as well if they wished to include them on this page.
A photo and/or video of players' score(s), their Vectrex/collection, a drawing or gif or something that was Vectrex-related could also be included. For photos or gifs, it is asked for these to be limited to five per individual, and 10 for any group represented. Any of the preceding can be turned in after November 1st, since this page can be edited any day of the year, but the participant must have played something on their Vectrex on the Day in order for something extra to be included. A link can be provided with the players' name, game and/or score as to what they played. Videos can be linked to ONLY, NOT embedded onto this page, since this would bulk up the page, making it untidy. Any photos or drawings will be placed in a separate gallery after the game listings. Any audio recordings will have to be put up on YouTube or some other hosting place since the Fandom company does not allow soundclips to be hosted on their wikis. Any animated gifs or photos can be posted in the separate Gallery afterwards.
Players can also post a link to their YouTube channel or any other website they have (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) if they wish to promote it, just as long as whatever material on their website is work/family friendly (i. e. a PG-13 rating at most). These will be last in a separate section.
An "honorable mentions" for in-jokes for people or characters that don't actually play their Vectrex is acceptable. These will be listed after the normal link of participants. However, any joke towards any living person cannot be made in a malicious or any damaging way and must be edited out if it is directed at someone and they found it to be offensive and want it to be removed. Also, anything in this section does not count towards actually being played as far as game totals go. And as was also mentioned beforehand, people playing games on a Vectrex emulator or the Vectrex Regeneration app's totals will go in this section.
International Play Your Vectrex Day, November 1, 2024[]
Participants and game(s) played/ and/or comments[]
Darrylb500 played Thrust in honor of Vector War XIV, as I wasn’t able to participate in that yet again! :( Got the highest score though, even though it was unofficial!
Peer--Played Bedlam and Release today in the tournament. I ended up playing some recreational Mine Storm.
Sketcz--Played lots of games today, including Mine Storm, plus a varied mix of retail and homebrew. I mainly wanted to play stuff different from the tournament, apart from Crush of Lucifer, which I played for the previous described reasons. Other games my list of games: Cosmic Chasm (love it), Crush of Lucifer (as above), Hyperchase (great little racer), Tour de France (hate it) HOMEBREW: Beluga Dream (so relaxing), Cantina Band (just a music demo, but I annoy friends by sending them videos of me playing it), Cavern Rescue (love this, like a pseudo-sequel to Cosmic Chasm), Vec_man, Wet Cat, Xmas Cart (two in one ROM; I discovered my NeoGeo controller does not have enough range to grab a present if dropped at the far end!)
VectrexMad! I played Joystick Hero on my VecCab.
Gallery[]
OTTOgd: Flipper Pinball
(Darrylb500; couldn’t participate in Vector War again! :( )
International Play Your Vectrex Day, November 1, 2023[]
Participants and game(s) played/ and/or comments[]
50tbrd I played some games to qualify for Vector Wars -Vyrzon, Star Castle, Web Wars, Narzod, Polar Rescue and Spinball. Also played Heads Up but couldn't win a match in Game 2 or 3. Finally broke into my stack of new games - Side Games, Sea Pup and Samurai plus Vyrzon. Also decided to play Minestorm and Scramble for old time sake. Beat Scramble's first loop for the first time ever. Lastly, I posted a vector file of a Clean Sweep Prototype overlay to the FB group.
cNp: I put on Mutovex Nudes and had it display and play the music whilst I fixed a robot... then I played my favourite Spike Goes Down and then Raid Over Vectrexia which I had shamefully not played since I bought it (I did play the WIP rom of it a while back).
darrylb500: originally I was just going to play Nebula Commander, but then, upon searching through a box for it (one of those deals where, even after two years after you moved, you're still not unpacked! But then, there isn't a lot of room in this house), I ran across Revector, so I decided to give that a whirl too, making this, at least from my standpoint, also "Craig Aker Day", giving tribute to who made these two different, fun, yet, at times, pretty damn intense Vectrex games.
hcmffm Played Count Vecula and made it to room 14.
LimitZer0 I played Wet Cat and thought about how well done it is. A very nice game. I really like that tune. I played the Hera Primera demo. Finally, I played Vectrexagon hoping to beat my high score and was unable to. Have a happy International Play Your Vectrex Day!
mozie Since my wrist is still sore from yesterday's session today iam playing mostly happy Bird and maybe some wet cat later.. Happy international vectrex day all
Peer Played some good old Mine Storm. The original GCE version. Until I was kicked out by the level 13 bug. And lots test runs of Count Vecula in preparation of its upcoming release. And now I played some Spinball.
PlayVectrex For IPYVD'23 I played several games from Vector War: Wet Cat, Vecdrift, Polar Rescue, Fortress of Narzod, Tee Time, Count Vecula, Happy Bird And also one that was released recently: Sea Pup And a cool video of some hacking I've been doing with Sea Pup
vectrexmad My FuryHellhole game (serial number 18) arrived today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So that's what I've been playing today.
Gallery[]
Darrylb500 dubbing this "Craig Aker Day". Also, the Pulchra Morte pin is in regards to a good doom/death metal band :)
(cNp)
OTTOgd: Flipper Pinball
Honorable mention[]
Peer: Not for Vector Wars, but in Vide to check some things related to the Print_Str() issue in Spinball while investigating its disassembled code. Hope that counts for IPYVD.
Trivia[]
Participants were from the U. S. A., Germany, Netherlands and Sweden.
There was an over 100% amount of additional players (12) as compared to the previous Day (only four).
Peer (hspfpj) made an alpha version of his Cave Runner public and played Cave Runner, Solar Quest, Armor Attack, VeCaves, Save the Planet, Rocks'n Saucers, and Hyperchase
Helmut (hcmffm) played Spike, Star Hawk, Asteroid Belt, Hex, Rocks 'n' Saucers, and Save the Planet. Also he tried out Cave Runner.
Gallery[]
(darrylb500) This happens when you reach level 20 on Vectrexians
(darrylb500) Part of the ending message
(darrylb500) Part of the ending animation
(darrylb500) Not my highest, but I beat it
International Play Your Vectrex Day, November 1, 2021[]
NOTE: I still have notes from people that wanted to be included on these Days from this year and the previous, as I know this is all a mess but I'll eventually clean it up!
Darrylb500 (talk) 01:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Founder/Admin
Participants and game(s) played/ and/or comments[]
1. VectrexMad! played Vector Pilot with his Vectrex connected to a 19" Vector Monitor.
International Play Your Vectrex Day, November 1, 2020[]
Participants and game(s) played/ and/or comments[]
1. hcmffm played following games for Vector War X and IPYVD: Bedlam, Fortress of Narzod, Minestorm, Polar Rescue, RipOff, Spinball, Tour De France, Beluga Dreams, Every Day Is Halloween, SpideX, and Vectorblade. I've uploaded a draft of Cosmic Chasm manual².
2. Chris 'cNp' Parsons - very limited for time so I only played 1 game each of Big Blue and Frontier as I was making up new stock and testing PCBs.
3. Darryl M played Cosmic Chasm, Bedlam, Fortress of Narzon, Starhawk, and of course...Minestorm
4. klr650 played Minestorm, Protector, YASI, Vector Patrol, Vectrexagon, Star Castle, and Armor Attack.
International Play Your Vectrex Day, November 1, 2019[]
Participants and game(s) played/ and/or comments[]
limitzer0 I played: Star Trek - 377700 Vectrexagon (Hard) - 109:76 Quartz's Quest - Just revisited it because I liked it so much. Not much time to play with Vector War going on. Vec-Fu - I just like the way this game looks and wanted to mess around in it.
Michielhimself played Mine Storm until his thumb was sore
Munch played Veccy Bird and got 50 points again finishing the game!
A total of 35 games were played this year, with 17 being the original GCE/Milton Bradley games from back in the day, whereas 18 were modern day homebrews. The top games included a three-way tie with Asteroids, Every Day is Halloween and Mine Storm with three players each. In second place was a seven-way tie with Vector Pilot, Polar Rescue, Solar Wars, Fortress of Narzod, Scramble, Release and VeCaves with two players each.
After five years of being the top played game, Mine Storm was actually tied for the first time ever with two other games as the most played game. This also marked the first year ever as well where there was a seven-way tie for second place.
People played from at least four countries, being the U. S. A., Canada, Germany and UK. A total of 14 people played (plus one honorable mention), which was an increase of three from the previous year.
A random drawing of a miniature 3-D printed Vectrex and a replacement control button were donated as prizes. Darryl Minsky won the drawing.
This year's banner was created by Helmut Muller (at right).
This year's banner was created by Vector gaming forums member TrekMD (at right).
User 50tbrd created the Thrust 1.1 overlay download (see previous user list) specifically for release on this Day.
In total, 21 different games were played. The total of the original GCE/Milton Bradley games was seven while the total number of homebrews was 14. The top original games included Mine Storm (with four players total), Berzerk, Hyperchase and Polar Rescue (two each). Homebrews, on the other hand, had only one player each, making this the first time ever since the Day was held to not have a top homebrew.
Brad Bakelmun: played MineStorm up to Level 27. The high score reset after 1,000,000. And the game reset when I completed Level 27.
Chainsaw: Played Tour de France (Time: 1:20:22), Omega Chase (Score: 2720) and first time Dark Tower and died early (Score: Only 3025). All scores submitted to Vector War V.
Rolo: I forgot my Vectrex in the office:-| (Eek! Oh no). But I did some work on a Vectrex controller project and some testing on the JVD-Vectrex debugger. Does that count, too? I will make up for this omission by playing Minestorm and zapping through the 72-in-1.
Gallery[]
Birds Of Prey (Score: 6000)
GAME OVER!
Piepsi Panic playing Star Fire
Star Trek (Score: 88700)
YOU ARE DEAD! (Brecher)
Vector Patrol (BETA)
VecZogs
Vector Pilot Station
Equinox and Debris overlay. Hard to see them together
(Nupoile)
(Nupoile)
(Nupoile)
(geoanas)
(geoanas)
(geoanas)
(geoanas}
(inspcteurclouseau)
Trivia[]
In total, 49 different games were played. The total of the original GCE/Milton Bradley games was 20 while the total number of homebrews played was 29. The top original games included Mine Storm (six players total) and Spike (two), while the most played homebrews included N. E. L. S., BRECHER and Vector Pilot (three each) and Debris, FLAK, Gravitrex, Vector Patrol (beta) and Obsolet (two).
Mine Storm has been the top played original Vectrex game for the fourth year in a row.
Two work in progress games were also played, being Vector Patrol and VecZogs.
Due to the Vector War V contest occurring within the Day time period (from October 30 - November 7), five people played games in accordance with the contest.
Seventeen people in seven countries participated (Switzerland, U. S. A., Germany, U. K., France, Spain, Greece), along with one Honorable mention.
Among other things, a "Vector Pilot Station" was shown in a photo, having the game running, its Vectrex Wrap applied and a Sega Genesis flight stick running through a VecAdapt. Youtube user gliptitude also posted a brief video of a work he did with Art Master, along with homebrewerChris Parsons posting a video in regards to updated work he’s done with his upcoming Big Blue game.
The banner for the 2014-2015 was created by Darrylb500 (at right).
Darrylb500 Played Spike, doing horribly, but I was trying out a specialized Protectoroverlay that 50TBRD made and sent me for helping his Vectrex Wix. And why not? Part of it's purple! :) Did much better on Sectis though, as I hadn't played it in months, then I made it to level 3 with only six Sectis's left! Also played some Sundance and Royal 21.
Rolo, Germany: Ahhh, I forgot about the Vectrex Day this year. Just looked it up and see: It's today! I don't have the system here at the moment:(. -> "mental" participant.
Wiebke (Ger): Was to tired to play and went to bed, but in her heart she has been participating
Gallery[]
Rapetou33
Ready to go with the new Berzerk Wraps applied to my last bare Vectrex
The Spike Goes Down high score competition hots up!
2600 - My new high score on Spike Goes Down : I even got to a new platform type made of mini Space Invaders!
My Vextrex wearing the Vector Pilot Wraps, and my best marks
Centaura Vectrex Army
Mr Coconut rocks!
KilleRotom, International Play your Vectrex Day
KilleRotom's Berzerk score. I never thought I'd crack 10K!
KilleRotom's Mine Storm score. Lots of stupid deaths on this one.
:D The day is almost over but i played my Vectrex in the end!
Me play some art :)
My son playing vectrex
I had good Vectris times
Pac-man plushes discovering the Pac-man clone of the Vectrex
Pac-man plush showing his skills and achieving his high-score
Dustbuster wanted to pay a tribute to Clean Sweep, but wasn't a great player...
Robot Josef (from Machinarium) participated to the International Play Your Vectrex Day!
It seems that Robot Josef is not that unhappy when the human lose in Berzerk...
Trivia/notes[]
The original promotional banner (seen at right) for the first two annual Days was created by Oliver of the Vectrex Museum. The current banner was created by wiki and Day founder Darrylb500, which represents the original Vectrex and its games with Mine Storm, along with representing modern day homebrew games and hardware.
Vintersphrost was the first person to post and participate during the very first Day in 2012, along with also being the first person to post and participate (along with posting the very first video) during the 2014 Day.
Seventeen players from at least seven countries participated this year. This was actually the lowest showing yet in three years of having the Day. However, the number of unique games played was at least 93 – the most ever to date – which was mostly due to wiki user 50TBRD (which his list of games can be seen on a post on this page of the Vector gaming forums). Eighteen of the original GCE/Milton Bradley games were played (along with some sub-variants, such as Pitcher's Duel) while the rest were homebrews.
Participants hailed from the USA, Spain, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, France and the UK.
Several videos were made of the Day (which there were no videos of the previously held event), showing the Beta demo of Vector Patrol, Y* A* S* I being played with the Y* A* S* I overlay and the unfinished/unreleased Joust Evolution demo.
Some unique photo entries included wiki user Rapetou33 displaying part of an order he received from Der Luchs, a FURYEquinox controller, Pac-Man, ghost plushes and a dust buster playing Clean Sweep, along with a Robot Josef plush playing Berzerk. A plush also appeared on wiki user KilleRotom’sVectrex.
A drawing was held by Juan Félix Mateos, with the prize being the 16in1 version of his Mateos Vectrex Rewritable Multigame Cart. Wiki founder Darrylb500 ended up being the winner in the random drawing.
Chainsaw, Zurich, Switzerland: Hyperchase 108.0 and then played around with the Light Pen.
Darrylb500, Houston, Texas, U. S. A. - Mine Storm, 996,824, Mine Field 28 (had to quit to not roll over the score), Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 185,600 (I got screwed! I was docked with the damn starbase!)
gliptitude-Fortress of Narzod (Beat the Wizard on Level 1 [after 3 failed tries]), Score: 7010. Topped that score, however, on one of the failed attempts - 7240. Also played Star Hawk game 2 for 19100 and played through all levels of the Bloxorz demo
hcmffm, Frankfurt, Germany / Shifted / 13230 (tried to beat the official Shifted highscore ) "Australia and Germany are the early birds! O.k., not really, it's the different time zones. ;-)"
jfmateos-Madrid(Spain)/Mine Storm 2I/301200-Level 22/Playing Vectrex with my son and my daughter.
theawesomegamr / Solar Quest: 153350 (got to the level where every enemy follows you!!) / vec fu demo / Pole Position: 35,780 / hexed / y.a.s.i: 2150 / Melody Master (the simon says sort of game): 3! not sure if a Light Pen game counts as a bonus, even though i am terrible at game 2.
My dog played Clean Sweep. Unfortunately I think he was disappointed, thinking that, since it's a Pac-Man clone, that it would be a clone of the arcade game Mouse Trap, where the bones allow you to turn into a dog and eat the cat pursuers. Because he's not a good watch dog, he'd just lick burglars' hands and needs something to stimulate him into being an actual guard dog. (sigh)
Gallery[]
Shane plays Rip Off
Dan Solar Questing
Paula Clean Sweeps
Jodie Starhawking
Chainsaw with Art Master
jfmateos playing Vectrex with his family
Mine Storm - 4 sec exposure.
Vectrex horizontal and vertical output hooked on an oscilloscope (Minestorm)
Vectrex joysticks are hard to find. I built my own:-) (with auto fire on btn 3 and 4)
(Darrylb500)
Alien forces from rare U. S. Mine Storm version
Guddler's terrible Vector Pilot score (only had the game a couple days)
Guddler tinkering with dev stuff via home made FPGA interface.
theawesomegamr's vectrex collection (15 original games, 9 homebrews, and more!)
(Darrylb500)
Shoot, jump, pause, it's all in the game
Vector Patrol on a Kouso!
(nupoile)
(nupoile)
VectrexMad's (low) score for Armor Attack
kosmikVector's Mine Storm ship tattooed by Tattooist Andy Cryztalz of Modern Body Art, Birmingham UK on 1st November 2013
Trivia/notes[]
At least 37 games were played this year, 19 of them being from the original GCE lineup, along with 18 homebrews. (Unofficially at least 38 games were played/20 of them being GCE originals, due to there being mentions/one photo of a Light Pen being used, but that game was not specified.) Twenty five people reported participating this year from various sources, as well as one Honorable mention.
Users that participated reside in Spain, the Netherlands, the U. S., Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK.
The rules were expanded this year to include people that could not play a Vectrex to use an emulator or the Vectrex Regeneration app instead, although whatever was played on those formats must go in the Honorable mention section. However, no users reported to have participated using these alternates.
Mine Storm was the top game again with 10 players, rising up from six official players from the previous year’s Day (which also had an additional six unofficial players last year, due to several not being identified, as per the rules). (Over one fifth of all photos in the Gallery had Mine Storm present in them as well.) The next top two batches of original GCE games included Solar Quest, Star Hawk and Fortress of Narzod with four players each, and Armor Attack, Scramble and Pole Position each had three. The top homebrews included Protector with four players, Y*A*S*I* with three and the Bloxorz demo with two.
Some shakeups occurred with Star Hawk, which only had two players last year, but four this year. On the flip side, Vector Pilot had only one player this year, but had six last year, being the top homebrew then. Three demos were also played (as opposed to none last year), being Vec Fu, Vector Patrol and Bloxorz. Nine more games were played as opposed to last year as well, along with there being one more additional player as compared to last year (25 players to 24 last year). Two videos were also created for last year’s Day, but none were made this year.
There were many firsts this year, as two people (one being 50TBRD) played games with their own, custom-built controllers. 50TBRD also played with a custom War of the Worldsoverlay. Two people had calendars involved with their Vectrex-related photos (one being jfmateos, holding up a calendar page, while another one was created using the Light Pen). A four second exposure was used in a Mine Storm photo, seven Vectrexes adorned another, and someone hooked up a Vectrex to an oscilloscope in another. Alien forces were shown in a photo on a rare version of Mine Storm, supplied by Darrylb500. Guddler provided a photo of his doing some “dev work” with a Space Invaders-like figure on a Vectrex, and the beta version of Vector Patrol being played on a Japanese Vectrex Kousokusen adorned two photos.
KosmikVector repeated his previous year’s action with getting a second Vectrex tattoo, this time being the Minelayer from Mine Storm.
Vector gaming forums member dgo suggested that a random drawing could be held, as he could donate Moon Lander as a prize. Vector gaming forums founder VectorX (/Darrylb500) did the drawing from a web site and posted a video of it, using names of all participants who signed in. KosmikVector was the winner, although the game was lost in the mail and it was never received.
The unrelated websites of ipyvd.com and vectrexday.com were purchased for this event, but no content was added to them, along with the sites disappearing after several months. Similarly, A “German version” of the Day also took place.
The Vectrex collection of the Vectrex Regeneration team :-)
(Darrylb500)
(Alberto 2K's collection)
(Alberto 2K's Debris Revisited score)
(Alberto 2K's Gravitrex score)
(Alberto 2K's Vector Pilot score)
(Alberto 2K's War of the Worlds score)
(KilleRotom)
(hcmffm)
(hcmffm)
Cparsonsuk's son playing with the Light Pen and Art Master
Cparsonsuk's VecWrapped Vectrex with YASI/Protector Cart
Cparsonsuk's Vectorcade (detail)
Cparsonsuk's two Vecs
(Nupoile)
(Nupoile)
(TrekMD)
(TrekMD)
(TrekMD)
(TrekMD)
KosmikVector's tattoo in celebration of "International play your Vectrex" day
(KW Vintage Games)
(KW Vintage Games)
(KW Vintage Games)
Trivia/notes[]
Originally founder VectorX wanted the Day to be a year away (in September, 2013), but talks on his forum moved it back to only November. It was also originally going to be set for September 10, but before it would become finalized to November, VectorX realized the date would only be one day before 9/11, which is the date of remembrance of the worst terrorist attack on American soil for when several planes hijacked by terrorist bombers were flown into several American landmarks in 2001, killing several thousand people in the process. So he moved the date back to September 8 until November 1st was settled on[1]. Similarly, originally if someone took a photo, made a Vectrex-related gif or animation, that was to be done only on November 1, 2012, but this was changed and allowed for these to be done before the said date, just as long as something was played on that day.
Participants on this Day were located in Canada, Germany, Spain, Sweden, England, Wales, and the United States.
The most popular games played were the GCE originals of Mine Storm (six "official" players in all, with 12 total), Fortress of Narzod, Solar Quest and Armor Attack (all with three each), and the most popular homebrews included Vector Pilot (six) and Vectrexians (four). A total of 28 individual games were played.
Due to the Day later being repeated on November 1, 2013, this looks to be an annual event.
.JPG "Birds Of Prey (Score- 6000).JPG (118 KB)")
.JPG "Star Trek (Score 88700).JPG (94 KB)")
.JPG "YOU ARE DEAD (Brecher).JPG (82 KB)")
.JPG "Photo(1).JPG (492 KB)")
