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A
game 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.
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 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 the
exploitative strategy.
The compulsive
Asteroids
attracted
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.