| Firebug | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Muse Software |
| Publisher(s) | Muse Software |
| Designer(s) | Silas Warner [1] |
| Platform(s) | Apple II |
| Release |
|
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Firebug is an Apple II game written by Silas Warner and published by Muse Software in 1982. [1] The game was released on cassette tape and on floppy disk. [2] Warner previously created Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple II in 1981. [1]
The player controls a "firebug," a 3-by-3-pixel square with a tail stretching behind it. The player picks up gas cans—each represented by a single pixel—and drops a can by pressing the joystick button. The end of the player's tail glows white, and ignites any gas can that it is adjacent to, including cans the player had dropped. Once a gas can ignites, it burst into colorful flames, which ignites any walls they touch.
The goal is to burn down the highest possible percentage of the walls on the level, and escape down the stairs to the next level without touching any flames with the body of the firebug. Tail collisions with fire are expected and ignored. As the game progresses, each level features tighter mazes of walls, increasing the penalty for player mistakes; and the player's tail is shortened, causing player-dropped gas cans to explode sooner.
Firebug uses the Apple II's lo-res graphics mode, which displays 16 colors but has a resolution of only 40 wide by 48 high. Hence, the game looks more colorful than hi-res Apple games, but the low resolution gives a crude appearance, even by the standards at the time of release.
Johnny L. Wilson reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World , and stated that "Firebug seems to have the ingredients necessary for a successful arcade game: interesting graphics, sufficient challenge, moderate strategy, and ample flexibility. Indeed, "ash" far "ash" this reviewer is able to "ash-certain," this game is an "ash-set" to an "ash-tute" arcade lovers "ash-sortment" of games. Unab-ash-edly." [3]
In Microcomputing, Jim Hansen wrote "Neither I nor my kid-game testers found Firebug a game worth playing more than once or twice at most." [4]
In 1982, the city council of Kentwood, Michigan asked dealers to not to sell the game because they felt it encouraged arson. [5]
Asteroids is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade video game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-molded plastic case, Rod Holt developed the switching power supply, while Steve Jobs's role in the design of the computer was limited to overseeing Jerry Manock's work on the plastic case. It was introduced by Jobs and Wozniak at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, and marks Apple's first launch of a personal computer aimed at a consumer market—branded toward American households rather than businessmen or computer hobbyists.
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The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it one of the first consoles with backward compatibility. It shipped with a different model of joystick from the 2600-standard CX40 and Pole Position II as the pack-in game. Most of the announced titles at launch were ports of 1981–83 arcade video games.
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