The MS-DOS shooter XQuest has a new port for the Sega 32X

Developer haroldo-ok has released a work-in-progress Sega 32X port of the 1994 MS-DOS shooter XQuest. The ROM is available to download for free on itch.io.

I love seeing new 32X games! It's one of my favourite consoles. The add-on had a notoriously short commercial lifespan after launching in late 1994, resulting in an official library of just 40 games. The homebrew community continues to find new ways to utilize its dual Hitachi SH-2 processors, slowly expanding a catalog that Sega abandoned decades ago.

The original XQuest was a shareware title developed by Mark Mackey. It was essentially a PC tribute to the 1987 Macintosh classic Crystal Quest. You control a ship navigating a single-screen arena, collecting crystals while avoiding mines and hostile alien ships. Once you gather every crystal, an escape portal opens at the bottom of the screen.

A standard 320x240 graphics mode

The MS-DOS original relied on standard PC graphics of the era. Mode X VGA is a standard 320x240 graphics mode, which made it a staple for early 90s PC action games. Translating that visual style to the Sega 32X makes a lot of sense. The 32X hardware was designed specifically to enhance the Genesis with better color depth and sprite scaling. It can push far more colors on screen than the base Genesis, making it more than capable of handling a fast-paced 2D arcade shooter with bright, contrasting sprites.

This new port was built using Arena, a framework designed to help developers create games for the 32X. The console is notoriously difficult to program for due to its complex architecture. Developers have to coordinate the base Genesis Motorola 68000 processor with the two 32-bit SH-2 chips housed inside the mushroom-shaped add-on. Tools like Arena help bridge that gap, leading to more projects seeing the light of day.

Work in progress

The itch.io page notes that this is a "vibe port" and is still a work in progress. The core mechanics are intact. Your ship moves with a distinct momentum, requiring you to carefully feather the directional pad to avoid sliding into a mine. The enemies spawn from the sides of the screen and bounce around the arena, forcing you to constantly adjust your trajectory.

During the 1990s, games like XQuest spread through bulletin board systems and shareware floppy disks passed around computer labs. Console players rarely saw these types of small, single-screen arcade games unless they were officially licensed and sold in retail boxes for fifty dollars.

It is always interesting to see PC shareware from the 90s cross over to console hardware from the exact same era. XQuest and the 32X both arrived in 1994, but they existed in completely different gaming ecosystems. Now they finally share a cartridge.