Create your own ’80s anime adventure in Starr Mazer

Wall-to-wall shower scenes for me

I used to skip Sunday school every weekend I could to watch poorly localized episodes of Tekkaman and Robotech and hang out in my pajamas. I loved them, but even at the time something seemed off about them, stilted dialog and confusing transitions between scenes hinted at something lost in translation. I was maybe 10 years old and ballsy enough to think I could do a better job re-writing the series for North American audiences. Now it looks like my hubris has finally caught up with me, Starr Mazer is giving armchair directors everywhere a chance to script their own ’80s space anime.

Unveiled in a spiffy January update video below, Mazer Maker is Imagos Software’s custom editing tool for manipulating Starr Mazer. For a forward facing editing tool, it looks surprisingly robust with all sorts of options for dialog triggers, animation settings, and unique scripting situations. Guess it’s finally time for me to put up or shut up and write that space opera after all.

Imagos also shows off a sort of roguelike SHMUP called Starr Mazer: DSP in the video. I’m not sure I fully see the appeal of a randomized SHMUP (isn’t the whole point of a good SHMUP to be able to memorize everything and 1-credit clear it?) but the promise of a synthed-out retro soundtrack by Alex Mauer makes me want to play it all the same.