STACK #143 Sept 2016

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GAMES FEATURE

ASTEROIDS

Developer: ATARI YEAR: 1979

Words: Paul Jones

A g ame called Cosmos never made it out of the prototype lab at Atari. The objective to the two- player shooter was to destroy the other player’s spaceship; stationary asteroids displayed on the screen could also be fired at and hit. While Cosmos was left unwanted, part of the game’s concept would spark an idea some two years later. Atari executive Lyle Rains wanted to tap into the popularity of the all- conquering Space Invaders , a game that was successfully extracting coins from pockets all over the world throughout 1978. His Eureka moment came when he pondered the possibility of having the prone asteroids in Cosmos actually move, by incorporating gameplay design based on Spacewar! , the legendary video game created on a PDP-1 computer in 1962 by Steve Russell at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rains ran the concept past programmer Ed Logg, who had a running prototype in just over two weeks. Logg used the same hardware designed for the poorly received coin-op Lunar Lander , opting to use a high-resolution vector display to gain greater speed and more precise gameplay. The game, now known internally as Asteroids , proved so popular with Atari employees during development that Logg had to create a second unit to satiate the demand. The premise was simple: players control a triangular shaped spaceship using two buttons to rotate either left or right. A third button was used to introduce thrust and counteract the zero gravity effect, with a fourth button used to operate the gun. Well-aimed shots reduce large asteroids to medium sized rocks, and these finally become faster moving and more deadly smaller sized asteroids.

a player out of imminent danger, the random respawn position could be even more troublesome. Units began shipping to arcades towards the end of 1979 and Asteroids proved an immediate success. Arcade operators began requesting larger money deposit boxes because the regular fitted size were shorting out from the amount of coins being fed into the units. In popular areas, Asteroids owners were making $1,000 a week, enough to pay off a unit in two weeks. It didn't take long for players to work out a pattern in the game, unearthing a 'cheat' after Asteroids had been in circulation for just three months. Savvy gamers had found out how to ‘lurk’ and remain relatively safe by positioning the spaceship in a specific part of the screen. Embittered arcade owners lobbied Atari for a solution and the company introduced a chip that could be easily installed, eradicating players of all ages, drawn to the dynamic gameplay and distinct booming audio buried deep within the cabinet. Before long it had displaced Space Invaders as the most popular arcade game. A total of 70,000 units were sold in the US with a further 30,000 shipped globally. Asteroids was heavily cloned and ported to a plethora of different systems. It was one of the first games that allowed players to enter their initials to accompany a high score and would go on to influence other successful arcade titles like Defender . The title's simplistic design and addictive gameplay has transcended generations of gamers. Today, the game is still avidly sought after by arcade collectors and can be enjoyed on innumerable desktop emulators. the exploitative strategy. The compulsive Asteroids attracted

When all the asteroids are destroyed, players progress to a new screen with even more asteroids to contend with. Periodically, a flying saucer will traverse the screen firing bullets. A fifth button activates hyperspace: a potential get out of jail card that transports the player to a random part of the screen. However, this is a double-edged sword: while it can get

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