Attack of the Mutant Camels is Jeff Minter‘s 1983 tribute to the then popular The Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600.

This first ‘Camels‘ game is about flying around giant camels in a small spaceship, shooting them occasionally. Even less occasionally bringing one down. Just like in The Empire Strikes Back, the best-selling overrated video game from 1982…

In Attack of the Mutant Camels you can turn collisions with camels on or off (they default to off); the camels turn different colours the more you shoot them, and each one takes about 30 to 50 hits to destroy. Which is a lot in the context of a game such as this.

It’s fun for a short while, but like the original The Empire Strikes Back that it’s based on: Attack of the Mutant Camels suffers from limited gameplay so gets boring quickly. It’s more of a novelty game than something serious, like Iridis Alpha.

The Jeff Minter ‘Camels‘ series would continue though. With Revenge of the Mutant Camels in 1984 and Return of the Mutant Camels in 1987. And its influence also held sway over something like Batalyx too, which had similar gameplay elements.

More: Attack of the Mutant Camels on Wikipedia