Here’s a rare instance of a home computer game becoming an arcade game. The original version of Brøderbund‘s Spelunker was coded by Tim Martin. The 1985 arcade version was created by a (largely unknown) Japanese team at Irem. And it is a very good conversion and a decent game in its own right.
Capcom‘s somewhat obscure 1991 arcade game, The King of Dragons, is a scrolling three-player fighting game set in a colourful fantasy world.
A.B. Cop is an arcade game developed by Aicom and released by Sega in 1990. The “A.B.” stands for Air Bike. So it’s “Air Bike Cop“. A.B. Cop uses the “Sega X Board“, which originated with 1987’s After Burner.
The Electric Yo-Yo is an obscure arcade game released by Taito in 1982. And, by the looks of it, it uses the same hardware as Qix, because there are similarities to that game.
The 1982 Atari 8-bit version of Galaxian, released by Atari, Inc., is authentic enough, and plays pretty much like the arcade original, even if it does look quite basic in comparison. Where it does outdo the arcade version, though, is in the variety of play modes that it offers.
Pac-Man on Atari 8-bit home computers was first released by Atari Corporation in 1982. The same game was re-released by Datasoft in 1984, and by US Gold in the UK in 1985.
Written by Derek Johnston and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1985, Zone X is a scrolling maze game where you play a radiation suit-wearing scientist collecting plutonium samples and dumping them into containers.
Cavelord is a scrolling action game that was written by Peter Finzel and released – in Germany only – by Ariolasoft in 1985. Thankfully, a fan hack has translated the game into English.
Created by Matthew Trimby and first released by Atari Corporation in 1986, Twilight World is an interesting scrolling platform game for Atari 8-bit machines that still plays great today.
Mr. Ghost – aka “Yuureikun” – is an interesting flick-screen action game, published by System Sacom for the MSX2 in 1989. In it you play a ghost who must make his way through a series of levels, knocking out enemies along the way. An English fan translation makes the game playable outside of its native Japan.
