The Atari 800 version of Rescue On Fractalus was released in 1984 and was the first version available. It was a critical success and drew quite a lot of attention to Atari 8-bit home computers (jealous Commodore 64 owners had to wait almost a year before they got a conversion).
Tag Archives: early
Miner 2049er, Atari 8-bit
The original Miner 2049er fitted into just 16K of RAM, so would run on an Atari 400 (as well as any other Atari 8-bit home computer). It is a very early platform game, written by Bill Hogue in 1982, and featuring the character ‘Bounty Bob’.
Star Trek, ZX Spectrum
Star Trek, released by Mikro-Gen in 1983, is designer and programmer Derek Brewster‘s first commercial game.
Velnor’s Lair, ZX Spectrum
Velnor’s Lair was Derek Brewster‘s first commercial text adventure, and – as text adventures go – it is an excellent one.
Jasper, ZX Spectrum
Derek Brewster‘s Jasper is a decent platform game from the early days of the ZX Spectrum. It was first published by Micromega in 1984.
Jasper himself is a yellow mouse, and his raison d’etre in life is: making it home across 22 screens of obstacles.
Braxx Bluff, ZX Spectrum
Braxx Bluff was released by Micromega for the ZX Spectrum in 1984. It was written by Tony Poulter.
It’s a weird game – of space exploration – well, the exploration of a planet and its surface.
Booga-Boo, MSX
The MSX conversion of the classic Bugaboo (The Flea) has a slightly different title to the original, but the same great gameplay.
Bomb Jack, Arcade
A classic platform game from 1984, Tehkan‘s Bomb Jack is a colourful collect ’em up, with bombs that must be collected in the right order, to get the full bonus.
Antics, ZX Spectrum
This 1983 sequel to Bug-Byte‘s The Birds and the Bees is a simplistic maze game, but with excellent controls as you control a bee (with plenty of inertia), on the lookout for a kidnapped friend (kidnapped by ants, no less).
The Birds and the Bees, ZX Spectrum
The Birds and the Bees is a simple, side-scrolling collect ’em up, with you playing a bee, out collecting pollen from nearby flowers. It was released by Bug-Byte Software on the ZX Spectrum in 1983.