Controls:

(Controls can be rebound from the Settings menu.)

Arrow keys - D-pad
Z - A
X - B
C - Start
V - Select

A statement from the Video Memories Project:

Since wrapping up restoration work on Witch Machine back in 2019, the Video Memories Project's inbox has been full of messages from people offering to send us builds of unreleased Game Boy games on which they once worked.

While we can't respond to every message we receive — and we don't have the resources to restore every build we're offered — a team member will always reach out to you if we're interested in your unreleased game build.

As an apology for our radio silence over the past year, we wanted to take this opportunity to finally release a game that we've been working hard to restore!

FALLSTAR was developed by "Team Slime," a group of friends trying to make an arcade shooter that would outshine the very basic ports of big-name arcade titles like Space Invaders and Galaga, which dominated the genre on the Game Boy.

Ultimately, the game's publisher annulled their contract. A company representative explained that they had no interest in challenging industry titans behind the games that Team Slime wanted FALLSTAR to take on. Discouraged from putting more time, effort, and money into the game, the friends cut their losses, halting work on FALLSTAR in the final months of its development and dissolving Team Slime as a corporate entity.

There has been plenty of innovation in the handheld arcade shooter space in the three decades since the Game Boy was released, but our team members keep going back to FALLSTAR. Sometimes it's to try different crew member abilities; other times, it's to take down the bosses that punctuate the game's intelligently generated stages.

Having played the game so much ourselves, we felt compelled to restore and release FALLSTAR for everyone else to enjoy, too!

Credits:

Character art and animation - austinbrook (@austindotorg), jane underscore (@janederscore), victoria lacroix (@arachonteur)
Character design - austinbrook, victoria lacroix, mabel mabel
Cover art - austinbrook
Fake ad copy - blues (@blues_turn_gold)
Gilmore Girls expert - austinbrook
Portrait art - gwen lawson (@reziarts), sid vesper
Programming - victoria lacroix
Audio - austinbrook, victoria lacroix