Aztarac was programmed by Tim Stryker and published by Centuri in 1983, and it's one of the few vector games in arcade history to show color on screen instead of the classic monochrome green. The player controls an intergalactic tank with an independent turret — it can move in one direction and fire in another — to defend outposts against waves of enemy ships, all through a circular plastic lens that enhanced the vector effect. Very few units were made — the more serious estimates put it under 200 — which turned Aztarac into one of the most coveted pieces among vector hardware collectors. A required stop for understanding how far Centuri's technical experimentation went before the vector genre faded out.
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