This game was finished at MNetwork in the 1980's, but not released until much later. In 2000, Intellivision Productions released this game complete with a simple box and manual. It is still available from their web site. Swordfight requires two players, which is possibly why the game was not released in the first place.
The game was inspired by designer Brad Stewart’s experience with helping a hot air balloon’s ground crew, while he was in college, and was planned to be a race between two balloons (with a 2-player option). Although the artwork depicts WWI-era biplanes/triplanes, none were planned.
The playing area is 2 screens high and 27 screens wide.
Although nearly finished and showcased at the Winter CES in 1983, the game was never released.
Atari 2600 fans Chris Walton (cd-w), Fred Quimby (batari), Bob Montgomery (vdub_bobby), and Zach Matley (Zach) submitted several 1K entries for the 2005 Minigame Competition. They have now teamed up to release their seven 1K games in a single 2005 Minigame Multicart, complete with an on-screen menu that allows easy selection of the games as well as instructions.
The included games are: Hunchy, Jetman, Nightrider, Zirconium, Rocket Command, M-4, and Marble Jumper
Fall Down pits the ever-opposed forces of Red and Blue against each other in an ultimate battle to capture scrolling platforms! The first player to fall past a platform captures it and scores a point. Taking time to collect power-ups can give some advantage, but taking too long only results in death at the top of the screen. Watch out, because as you progress, the platforms slowly accelerates!
A homicidal maniac has escaped from a mental institution. On Halloween night, the killer returns to his home town to wreak havoc! You are babysitting for a family in a large, two story house. Somehow the vengeful murderer has gotten inside! Can you protect the children and yourself from the fury of his knife?
Poor Teddy. He's had a bad dream and now he wants his mommy. How about giving him a hand? Steer him toward the magical stardust ladders. Help him avoid the nasty dream demons who try to block his path. (Mom's sending special kisses to help him out too.) Now if the little guy can just make it up a couple of big mountains, he'll get a big bear hug.
Quite simply, the objective of Mogul Maniac is to get through the open and closed gates and down the mountain as quickly as possible without breaking anything on or around your body...
You're second in the grueling competition of an all-day MotoRodeo. Your customized truck, a cherry little number, speeds through the dangerous obstacle course. You quickly break through a brick wall, rumble through a muddy ditch, and jump high into the air. You grin widely as you land on a Plymouth, crushing it beneath the weight of your monster truck.
Up till now, you and your opponent, Trucker Tom, have been neck and neck throughout the competition, but you've just pulled ahead. Your truck paid its dues during the early part of the competition, but you're confident that you've got the skills needed to outmaneuver Tom as you race for the finish line.
Your adrenalin pounds. You psych yourself up for the few remaining obstacles. You're only slightly ahead of Tom, but there are still a few more walls and cars to crush. Good thing you learned quickly to jump the mud which is slowing Tom down.
You rev your engine, add a burst of acceleration, and jump the last mud hole as you race for the finish line. Trucker
Piece Of Cake?--no way!! So you thought your first day on the job was going to be easy? Well, you not only have to learn the fine art of baking cakes, but you also have to master it in a big hurry. This is a production operation, and business is booming! It's actually a very simple job--at first. You simply take a freshly baked cake from the oven and drop it on a platter which is moving on a conveyor belt. Top that with a cherry, and you will be rewarded for your artistic endeavors. You must stack them correctly however, or--splat!! As your skill progresses, so does the conveyor speed, so keep cool, and try not to earn the dubious title of "butterfingers." Being a top notch bakery chef requires adeptness and a calm temperament, so if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!
Many game companies in the 1980's held contests in an attempt to boost sales of their games and give their fans something fun to compete for. For example, there is Activision's Enduro: Race for Riches, Data Age's Bermuda Triangle Replica Artifact, and Parker Brothers' Super Cobra Flight Jacket. Not surprisingly, Imagic also held several contests, one of which is "Defend Atlantis".
Unfortunately for Imagic, there were a lot of good Atlantis players. In fact, more than four individuals maxed out the score, so Imagic had to figure out a way to decide who the top four would be. They created a special contest version of Atlantis, that they called Atlantis II, that these top scorers would use for a tie-breaker.
Atlantis II is basically the same as Atlantis, except that it's faster, harder, and lower scoring. Contestants were sent a letter telling them that they qualified for this shoot off. They were to recieve in the mail the Atlantis II cartridge, along with the snorkeling set and t-shirt.
According to Imagic, "We'v
When the Personal Computer Museum first discovered Extra Terrestrials, the find itself was enough to send shockwaves through the Atari community. Not only had a previously unknown (but commercially released) title surfaced but it has also been recognized as the only Canadian developed Atari 2600 game. The group was hoping to capitalize on the video game market that was booming at the time. They had hoped to get the game out for the 1983 Christmas season, but delays in the programming precluded that and the game missed the Christmas window. After it was finally finished in early 1984, Peter remembers taking the game out to retailers door to door to purchase copies of the game. They had no distributor, and by then the video game market had collapsed.
Okie Dokie was the first original homebrew game written for the Atari 2600 by Bob Colbert. Okie Dokie is a fast moving puzzle game that challenges you with 30 preset puzzles and 435 random puzzles. It seems simple enough, turn off all of the squares. Well, there's a catch! Every time you select a square, it gets "flipped" -- if it was on it turns off and visa versa. To complicate things further, any square directly to the left, right, above, or below the square is also "flipped."
The goal is to complete the chosen course as fast as possible without going OUT OF CONTROL. In each course you must maneuver through a series of Space Buoys, pop ten Space Balloons, and safely park in the Dock.
An incomplete ROM of this game was rediscovered in 2001. Supposedly there was a finished version of the game that was ready to be ported to the Atari 800 by Apollo programmers. The box scan was taken from a prototype shown at the 1983 Las Vegas CES.
Red Sea Crossing was created by an independent programmer in 1983 and was discovered by the seller at a garage sale in 2007.
"It turns out this game was not even known to exist until I found it," the seller wrote in the auction's description. "An AtariAge member used the internet to track down the programmer and I spoke with him and got some more information. He said from what he could remember he advertised it in a local religious magazine but couldn't remember the name. In August of 2011 another AtariAge member found the original ad laying to rest that the game was indeed released in 1983."
Planet of the Apes, later released as Revenge of the Apes, is a video game originally developed in 1983 by 20th Century Fox for the Atari 2600. Planned as the Planet of the Apes franchise's first video game, it was still in the prototype phase when Fox shuttered its game division during the video game crash of 1983. It went unreleased and was assumed lost until 2002, when collectors identified a mislabeled cartridge as the missing Planet of the Apes game. It was completed and released as Revenge of the Apes by Retrodesign in 2003.
Space Cavern is a 1982 shooter video game for the Atari 2600 developed and released by Games by Apollo. Players control a spaceship commander who has landed on a planet and must defend the ship against its hostile creatures. Games by Apollo founder Pat Roper was impressed by the game Demon Attack and tasked Apollo member Dan Oliver with making a game very similar to it. The game was later rereleased as Space Canyon.