Asteroids

This page is about the arcade game Asteroids. For the planet-like space object, see Asteroid.

Asteroids
Developer	Atari
Publisher	Atari
Designer	Lyle Rains and Ed Logg
Release date	1979
Genre	Shoot 'em up
Modes	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet	Upright and cocktail
Arcade system
CPU(s)	{{{cpu}}}
Sound chip(s)	{{{sound}}}
Video resolution	{{{resolution}}}
Monitor	Vector 256 × 231 (Horizontal) Colors: black and white, Size: 19"
Input	Five buttons
Ports	Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Atari Lynx, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Windows, Game Boy Color
Notes	{{{notes}}}

Asteroids is a popular vector-based video arcade game released in 1979 by Atari. The object of the game is for the player to shoot and destroy asteroids without being hit by the fragments. It was one of the most popular and influential games of the Golden Age of Arcade Games.

Description

Asteroids was inspired, in a roundabout way, by the seminal Spacewar, the first computer-based video game. In the early 1980s a stand-up arcade game version was produced as Space Wars, which included a number of optional versions and added a floating asteroid as a visual device. Asteroids is essentially a one-player version of Spacewar, featuring the "wedge" ship from the original and promoting the asteroids to be the main opponent.

The game was conceived by Lyle Rains and programmed by Ed Logg. Asteroids was a hit in the United States and became one of Atari's best selling games of all time. Atari had been in the process of releasing a vector beam version of Lunar Lander, but demand for Asteroids was so high they simply pulled them apart and converted them over. Today the Lunar Lander version is difficult to find. Asteroids was so popular that video arcade owners usually had to install larger boxes to hold all the coins this machine raked in.

One feature of the game was the ability for players to record their initials with their high scores, an innovation which is standard in arcade games to this day.

Asteroids was the first of several games to use Atari's "Quadra-Scan" vector-refresh system (although a raster-based full-color version was developed for the Atari 2600 home video game system). Later full-color Quadra-Scan games would include Tempest.

Technical Description

The Asteroids arcade machine is a so-called vector game. This means that the game graphics are composed entirely of lines which are drawn on a vector monitor. The hardware consists primarily of a standard MOS 6502 CPU, which executes the game program, and the Digital Vector Generator (DVG), vector processing circuitry developed by Atari themselves. As the 6502 by itself was too slow to control both the game play and the vector hardware at the same time, the latter task was delegated to the DVG.

For each picture frame, the 6502 writes graphics commands for the DVG into a defined area of RAM (the vector RAM), and then asks the DVG to draw the corresponding vector image on the screen. The DVG reads the commands and generates appropriate signals for the vector monitor. There are DVG commands for positioning the cathode ray, for drawing a line to a specified destination, calling a subroutine with further commands, and so on.

Asteroids also features various sound effects, each of which is implemented by its own circuitry. The CPU activates these audio circuits (and other hardware components) by writing to special memory addresses (memory mapped ports). The inputs from the player's controls (buttons) are also mapped into the CPU address space

The main Asteroids game program uses only 4 KB of ROM code. Another 4 KB of vector ROM contain the descriptions of the main graphical elements (rocks, saucer, player's ship, explosion pictures, letters, and digits) in the form of DVG commands.

Legacy

The gameplay in Asteroids was imitated by many games that followed. For example, one of the objects of Sinistar is to shoot asteroids in order to get them to release resources which the player needs to collect.

Due to its success, Asteroids was followed by three sequels:

• Asteroids Deluxe (1980)
• Space Duel (1982)
• Blasteroids (1987)

However, the original game was by far the most popular of the series.

The Killer List of Videogames (KLOV) credits this game as one of the "Top 100 Videogames." Readers of the KLOV credit it as the seventh most popular game.

Ports

Being one of the most popular video games ever, Asteroids has been ported to multiple systems, including many of Atari's systems (Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Atari Lynx) and many others. The 2600 port was the first game to utilize a bank-switched cartridge, doubling available ROM space. Also, a new version of Asteroids was developed for PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Windows, and the Game Boy Color in the late 1990s. Many of the recent TV Games series of old Atari games have included either the 2600 or arcade versions of Asteroids. Atari has also used the game for its other late '90s anthology series. Essentially, if one looks for this game, one will be able to find it somewhere.

Lurking

The small UFO is the key to high scores for many advanced players.

Soon afer the release of Asteroids, some players discovered that small UFOs would be continually sent out when the asteroid count decreased to a certain level. Since these UFOs were worth 1,000 points each - a significant sum on this game - a strategy known as "lurking" soon developed around this. Players would shoot asteroids until there was only one small or mid-sized rock remaining, and then maneuver the ship to a spot approximately one inch from any corner of the screen. Small UFOs would then be ambushed as soon as they emerged, using wraparound fire if necessary. Since each 10,000 points awarded an extra life, players could continue almost indefinitely once the practice had been mastered. [1] The designers abolished this practice in Asteroids Deluxe by causing the UFOs to shoot at the remaining asteroids, thus ending the round.

Record breaking gameplay

In March 2004, Portland, Oregon resident Bill Carlton attempted to break the world record for playing an arcade version of Asteroids, playing over 27 hours before his machine malfunctioned, ending his record run. He scored 12.7 million points, putting him in 5th place in the all-time Asteroids rankings. In November 1982 Scott Safran set the still unbroken record of 41 million points.

Song

In 1982, Buckner and Garcia recorded a song titled "Hyperspace", using sound effects from the game, and released it on the album Pac-Man Fever.

External links

• The Killer List of Video Games entry on Asteroids
• Asteroids at MobyGames
• Atari Times: All About Asteroids
• Category at ODP
• Asteroids fan fiction

Clones

• Asteroids vector clones
• Asteroids clone (Ceres) homebrew written for Sony PSP
• Asteroids-like written in Java
• Asteroids clone written in Flash
• Asteroids-based 3D wireframe written in Flash
• Asteroids-based computer game written in Flash
• Asteroids game with health written in Java
• Argonaut — a Mac-only modernized clone of "Asteroids" with 3D OpenGL graphics
• Agendaroids — X-Window clone for the AgendaVR3 Linux-based PDA
• Vectoroids — SDL-based clone for various platforms (based on Agendaroids codebase)
• Asteroids — static binary translation of Atari's original to Java