Thanks! In 1988, we could have earned some serious cash =-P
On a more serious note, it's funny how we can't realize the progress we got with compilers. To have the performance I got while updating the whole screen would have required coding some sick assembler. Towards the end of the deadline, I was getting sloppy and throwing std::vectors all over the place. With some more time and research, this could be optimized to even run on a lower end 386 (being fair - my 486 is quite low end; possibly slower than a high-end 386).
The code is not C++14-ish as my other releases, but still quite far from juggling registers - I might need some ASM for a interrupt handler in order to improve the controls (admittedly, the weakest link in this game).