| Space Eggs | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publisher(s) | Sirius Software |
| Programmer(s) | Apple II Nasir Gebelli [1] Atari 8-bit Dan Thompson |
| Platform(s) | Apple II, Atari 8-bit |
| Release | 1981 |
| Genre(s) | Fixed shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Space Eggs is a fixed shooter video game for the Apple II computer programmed by Nasir Gebelli and published by Sirius Software in 1981. A port to Atari 8-bit computers by Dan Thompson was released the same year. [2] Space Eggs is an unofficial version of the arcade video game Moon Cresta . [3]
The player moves a ship from side to side across the bottom of the screen while trying to avoid colliding with or being shot by the aliens attacking above. Each level pits the player against multiple aliens of a particular class, which become more difficult to destroy as the levels progress.
The game begins with a view of the player's three ships docked together. The first ship, which is the smallest and has only one cannon, splits off from the others and gameplay begins. If an alien touches the ship or successfully hits it with a bomb, the ship is destroyed and replaced by the next one in the set. The second and third ships have progressively wider wingspans and two cannons each. The game ends when all ships are lost.
Aliens begin as harmless, multi-colored "eggs" bobbing randomly above the ship, and must be shot to release the creatures within. There are four classes of aliens: [4]
In the first four waves, all eggs hatch to the same creature. In subsequent waves, eggs hatch random creatures. The wave resets to 1 when the player dies.
If the ship is in the second stage (medium width), and the player has scored at least 1,000 points, an opportunity to dock with the first stage will be given. The ship descends from the top of the screen and must be caught by lining up with the ship precisely. If successful, the merged ship will have 3 cannons. [4]
Space Eggs reached the top spot on Softalk's best-selling software list. [5]
The Addison-Wesley Book of Atari Software 1983 gave it a "B" rating, calling it "cute and challenging." [3]
Xenophobe is a video game developed by Bally Midway and released in arcades in 1987. Starbases, moons, ships, and space cities are infested with aliens, and the players have to kill the aliens before each is completely overrun. The screen is split into three horizontally-scrolling windows, one for each of up to three players, yet all players are in the same game world.
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Sirius Software was a California-based publisher of video games for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, and VIC-20. Most games were written for the Apple II, then ported to other systems. The company was founded in 1980 by Jerry Jewell and Terry Bradley and released over 160 games before folding in 1984. Sirius also developed games for the Atari 2600 which were published in 1982 and 1983 by 20th Century Fox Video Games. Fox's failure to pay Sirius resulted in company's downfall. Nasir Gebelli wrote some of the early hits from Sirius, establishing his reputation as an Apple II game programmer.
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Nasir Gebelli is an Iranian-American programmer and video game designer usually credited in his games as simply Nasir. Gebelli wrote Apple II games for Sirius Software, created his own company Gebelli Software, and worked for Squaresoft. He became known in the early 1980s for producing fast action games for the Apple II, including 3D shooters.
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Gorgon is a clone of the arcade game Defender, a horizontally-scrolling shooter, for the Apple II. It was programmed by Nasir Gebelli and published by Sirius Software in June 1981.
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