Gameplay
The player's goal is to solve a maze consisting of a series of hallways and rooms. The rooms either are empty, contain puzzle pegs, or have a bonus game that allows the user to collect more points. Each level has its own individual bonus game. [5]
To solve the maze, players have to collect keys called "puzzle pegs" [6] that are designed as shapes to find their corresponding sockets. Only one peg can be held on to one at a time. [7] After placing all the pegs correctly, the player is able to go on to the next level through a now unlocked door. As the levels advance, the pegs begin to appear more similar to confuse the player. The pegs are placed randomly each time the game is re-booted. There is a time limit in which to finish the maze. Although players are not penalized for exceeding the time, they receive bonus points for each second under the time.
This must be done all the while avoiding the Alien stalker which roams the maze. If it gets too close to the player character, the player has to start again. There are two parts to each maze, a safe part, and the part where the creature is, separated by doors. The creature's proximity is indicated is by the beeping he makes. The louder and faster, the closer it is. In the more advanced mazes, there are also large squares that slide out of a wall into the adjacent wall which must be avoided in order for the player to progress. The third maze introduces one-way doors, which disappear once the player character goes through them.
Starpath was a U.S. company known for creating the Starpath Supercharger in August 1982. The company was founded under the name Arcadia Corporation in 1981 by Alan Bayley, Robert Brown, and Craig Nelson. It changed its name to Starpath shortly after for trademark reasons because Emerson Radio Corporation had released a video game console named the Emerson Arcadia 2001.
The Starpath Supercharger is an expansion peripheral cartridge created by Starpath, for playing cassette-based proprietary games on the Atari 2600 video game console.
Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and published by Sega. In North America, it was distributed by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct five frogs to their homes by dodging traffic on a busy road, then crossing a river by jumping on floating logs and alligators.
Berzerk is a multidirectional shooter designed by Alan McNeil and released for arcades in 1980 by Stern Electronics of Chicago. Following Taito's Stratovox, it is one of the first arcade video games with speech synthesis. Berzerk places the player in a series of top-down, maze-like rooms containing armed robots. Home ports were published for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Vectrex.
Mouse Trap is a maze video game developed by Exidy and released in arcades in 1981. It is similar to Pac-Man, with the main character replaced by a mouse, the dots with cheese, the ghosts with cats, and the energizers with bones. After collecting a bone, pressing a button turns the mouse into a dog for a brief period of time. Color-coded doors in the maze can be toggled by pressing a button of the same color. A hawk periodically flies across the maze, unrestricted by walls.
Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park is a 1984 action/platform game based on the Cabbage Patch Kids franchise. It is the first and only game in the Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures series.
1982 was the peak year for the golden age of arcade video games as well as the second generation of video game consoles. Many games were released that would spawn franchises, or at least sequels, including Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mr. Do!, Zaxxon, Q*bert, Time Pilot and Pitfall! The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, for the third year in a row, while the year's best-selling home system was the Atari 2600. Additional video game consoles added to a crowded market, notably the ColecoVision and Atari 5200. Troubles at Atari late in the year triggered the video game crash of 1983.
Dragonstomper is a video game developed by Stephen Landrum for the Atari Video Computer System and released by Starpath. The game follows the adventures of a dragon hunter who is given a quest by the king to defeat a dragon and reclaim a magical amulet that was stolen. The player makes their way over the countryside, vanquishing various adversaries and gaining gold and experience. After achieving enough strength, the player can enter a shop in an oppressed village where equipment can be purchased, soldiers hired, and special scrolls obtained to defeat the dragon in its lair.
Montezuma's Revenge is a platform game for the Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Apple II, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, IBM PC, and ZX Spectrum. It was designed and programmed by Robert Jaeger and published by Parker Brothers in 1984. The game's title references a colloquial expression for diarrhea contracted while visiting Mexico.
Summer Games is a sports video game developed and published by Epyx based on sports from the Summer Olympic Games. Released in 1984 for the Commodore 64, it was ported to the Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari 8-bit computers, and Master System.
Wizard of Wor is an arcade video game released in 1981 by Midway. Up to two players fight together in a series of monster-infested mazes, clearing each maze by shooting the creatures. The game was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, Commodore Max, Atari 2600, and Atari 5200 and renamed to The Incredible Wizard for the Bally Astrocade. The original cartridge came with a cash prize offer to the first person to complete the game.
The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Rivendell was a video game scheduled to be released in the winter of 1983. Parker Brothers was set to publish it, and advertised it in their 1982 and 1983 catalogues as a game that would be released on the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit computers. The game was originally advertised under the name Lord of the Rings, and in one case as The Lord of the Rings I. It was described as an adventure of getting Frodo from the Shire to the door at Moria, a description which was later changed in the 1983 Parker Brothers Video Games catalogue to have Rivendell as the adventures end point instead. The same catalogue was first time the game was ever referred to as The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Rivendell, and was the last advertisement the game ever received. The game was never released, and it was believed that little or no work was done on the game's coding.
Stella is an emulator of the Atari 2600 game console, and takes its name from the console's codename. It is open-source, and runs on most major modern platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Stella was originally written in 1996 by Bradford W. Mott, and is now maintained by Stephen Anthony.
Tutankham is a 1982 arcade video game developed and released by Konami and released by Stern in North America. Named after the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, the game combines a maze shoot 'em up with light puzzle-solving elements. It debuted at the European ATE and IMA amusement shows in January 1982, before releasing worldwide in Summer 1982. The game was a critical and commercial success and was ported to home systems by Parker Brothers.
Tunnel Runner is a first person maze game released by CBS Electronics in 1983 for the Atari 2600. It was programmed by Richard K. Balaska Jr. Tunnel Runner is one of three CBS games for the Atari 2600 with an additional 256 bytes of RAM in each cartridge, a feature promoted by CBS as "RAM Plus." The other two RAM Plus games are Mountain King and the port of Omega Race.
Oystron is an action game developed for the Atari 2600 by Piero Cavina and released in 1997. It is one of the earliest hobbyist-written games for the console. The game, Cavina's first, was initially made available as a freeware 4 KB binary file designed for use on the Starpath Supercharger and with Atari 2600 emulators. It was later released in cartridge form by XYPE, a group of Atari 2600 homebrew developers.
Lady Bug is a maze chase video game produced by Universal and released for arcades in 1981. Its gameplay is similar to Pac-Man, with the primary addition to the formula being gates that change the layout of the maze when used, adding an element of strategy to the genre. The arcade original was relatively obscure, but the game found wider recognition and success as a launch title for the ColecoVision console.
Sword of Saros is an action-adventure game for the Atari 2600 equipped with the Starpath Supercharger peripheral. The game was only sold via mail order by Starpath and few copies were made. It was programmed by Jon Leupp and Stephen Landrum.
Zenji is a puzzle video game designed by Matthew Hubbard and published by Activision in 1984. It was released for the Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, MSX, and ZX Spectrum. Hubbard previously wrote Dolphin for the Atari 2600.
Fireball is a Breakout clone video game developed by Arcadia for the Atari 2600. The game was released on cassette tape and required the Starpath Supercharger add-on to play.
