Games

The first installment and an introduction with six short stories to the Interactive Fiction franchise.

An asteroid is on collision course with Earth and it's up to the player to prevent the inevitable catastrophe. "Mission Asteroid" is the third text adventure with graphical illustrations by Sierra. But due to its easy difficulty level it was released as number zero in Sierra's Hi-Res Adventure series. The game's parser only understands simple one- or two-word commands.

Maneuver your humanoid through the electrified mazes of robot filled rooms. You many kill off the first group of robots but initial success does not mean survival...future groups begin firing at your! Added danger lurks when Evil Otto enters. He can jump the maze walls and squash you if you linger too long!

The player controls a small spaceship is at the bottom of the screen. Like most Space Invaders-type games of the period, the ship can move left and right (but not up or down), and can fire one bullet at a time. The ship may not fire again until its previous shot has detonated.

In Skiing, your goal is to ski to the bottom of the mountain in the shortest time possible. The mountain is treacherous with plenty of trees and moguls in the way! There are two different modes of gameplay. In slalom mode, there are a series of gates you need to ski through; missing any will result in a penalty to your time. In downhill mode you just need to ski to the bottom as fast as possible. Each mode includes five different skill levels which affect the length of the course (and the number of gates in slalom mode.)

A baseball game from Midway.

In Fishing Derby, two fishermen sit on opposite docks over a lake filled with fish (and a shark that passes through). Using the joystick the player is able to move his line left right and up and down in the water. When a fish is hooked, the line slowly comes up to the surface of the water. Pressing the fire button on the joystick reels in the fish faster. However, if both fishermen have fish hooked, only one person can reel theirs in (the one who hooked theirs first). The shark that roams the water will try to eat hooked fish before they surface. The objective for both fishermen is to reach 99 pounds of fish first. There are six rows of fish; the top two rows have 2 lb. fish, the middle two rows have 4 lb. fish, and the two bottom rows have 6 lb. fish. The more valuable fish sit at the bottom, but they are harder to bring in as they run a higher risk of being eaten by the shark. The game's two variants are simply single player and multi-player. In both games the objective is to reach 99 lb. of fish first.

The goal of the game is to shoot at targets, while carefully avoiding running out of bullets. Three rows of targets scroll across the screen in alternating directions; these include rabbits, ducks, owls, and bonus items. If a duck target crosses the bottom row without being shot, it will come to life and begin flying down toward the player. Any ducks that reach the bottom of the screen in this manner will eat some of the player's bullets. Objects also periodically appear among the targets that will give the player extra bullets or points when hit. A spinning wheel with eight pipes sits above the rows of moving targets; these pipes and all targets must be shot in order to complete the round. At the end of each round, the player receives bonus points for all bullets remaining in his supply. He then plays a bonus round, where a large white bear with a target walks across the screen. Each time the bear is shot, it rears up for a second, then begins walking more quickly in the other direction. The object is to shoot the bear as many times as possible until it escapes off the screen. Following the bonus round, the next wave begins. Later bonus rounds add more bears to the screen. In higher levels, there are more duck targets and fewer extra bullet targets, putting a premium on accurate shooting. The game ends when the player runs out of bullets.

A spaceship fights against wave after wave of alien demons.

It's you versus the robotic armada of the Merciless Monstroth, a one-eyed tentacled entity bent on conquest. Use your laser base to take out the enemy cannons and the robots, being careful that you shoot them when their barriers don't block you and when they're not shooting at you! Get shot and you lose your laser base, but as long as you have barriers, you can run under one of them and convert it into another laser base to continue the fight. Run out of them and it's only a matter of time before you become a victim of the Merciless Monstroth. The unusual part of this game is its scoring: if you destroy the robotic armada plus Merciless Monstroth, you earn a point; but if the armada destroys you and all your bases, Merciless wins a point. The game ends when either you or Merciless wins ten points.

Targ is a one or two player shooter game released by Exidy in 1980. Your town is invaded by Targ riders, you must manouvre the heroic vehicle Whummel to destroy them. From time to time, a Spectar comes into screen, and can be destroyed for extra bonus. Action takes place into a 9x9 grid, "Crystal City", where the player's vehicle must avoid and chase down 10 enemy wedge-shaped vehicles. When all enemies are destroyed, you are awarded an extra bonus and can access the following level. Two players can alternate in the game. You use a 4 way joystick to control the Whummel, and a pushbutton to fire at enemies. Progressing in the gameplay causes the Targs to become faster and smarter, for a fast and furious gameplay. A small trivia on the game and characters name: apparently, Targ stands for Target, Spectar stands for Special Target. This game has a sequel, always released in 1980, Spectar.

Up to 4 players compete for the best mining claims in the solar system. Politics and sabotage can be used to your advantage in order to set the course for your family for the next hundred years.

You have in your hand one of the most exciting video games ever designed. One word of caution: this game takes a little time to learn because it's so challenging. It's very tricky. So, please read these directions and give yourself some practice time. Then you can aim for the World Record. Game 1: Straight-ahead Dragster, one or two players. Game 2: Steerable Dragster, one or two players. Your Joystick Controller is both the clutch and gear shift for your Dragster; the red button is your gas pedal. Use left Joystick for the top car; right one for bottom car. Hold Joystick with button at the upper left. To shift gears, clutch by pushing Joystick to the left and shift by letting the Joystick spring back to the center. Your car starts each race in neutral (N). There are four gear positions--1, 2, 3, 4--and you must clutch and shift between each gear. You cannot downshift. When the countdown reaches 0, you can start. If you drop into gear too soon, before the end of the countdown, EARLY will appear on the screen and you have to wait for the next race. You can clutch during the countdown, but you cannot drop into 1st until the countdown reaches 0. The object of Dragster is to beat your opponent across the screen, or to race against the clock for best time.

Asteroids clone

Rally-X is a maze & driving arcade game, that was released by Namco in 1980 and licensed to Midway Games for US manufacture and distribution in 1981. It was ported to the SG-1000 in Taiwan.

An arcade sci-fi shoot-'em-up by Data Est, where a lone ship must defend the planet Terra from alien forces.

Also known as "Mad Rider" and "HWY Chase", Mad Alien is one of Data East's earliest arcade games. It's also the first game released on their cassette-based hardware. The gameplay is a mixture of Space Invaders and Monaco GP.

An Asteroids clone released on the Apple II. After Atari applied legal pressure, the game was rebranded as Planetoids.