Atari Asteroids: Creating A Vector Arcade Classic Asteroids Vector
As Atari’s best-selling mall pastime on everything time, Asteroids was literally a pastime changer. Released in December 1979, it was responsible appropriate to catapulting Atari into mainstream public consciousness. This was the pastime that single-handedly penniless the stranglehold that Space Invaders had on top of the video pastime world.
Although created through Atari developer Ed Logg (whose credits include Super Breakout, Video Pinball, Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, Xybots, Gauntlet, Space Lords and Steel Talons) its lineage is rather interesting.
I guess the way I describe it is that I’m the father on Asteroids. Ed Logg is the mother on Asteroids, because he had to live accompanied by of} it appropriate to nine months and bring finished product. All I had to do was to supply a seed.
Those are the words on Lyle Rains, Ed’s boss at the time. Rains had been thoughts about an older pastime developed in-house at Atari that involved two players trying to shoot each additional (Computer Space style) accompanied by of} a large rock amidst them. The pastime only wasn’t fun, and everything players wanted to do was shoot the rock, but on course they couldn’t. The pastime was eventually shelved.
During their conversation, Rains tried to describe his idea – a pastime involving ‘completion’ on a task (much similar to Space Invaders and Logg’s previous pastime Super Breakout) but this time involving rocks. The player would shoot the rocks till they got smaller and eventually disappear.
Rains and Logg recall that the brief was extremely simple. There was no great detail at that stage, just the begin on a broader idea. They did however quickly agree on top of the name – Asteroids.
Inspired, Ed got to work. He pushed appropriate to the pastime to be present developed on top of Vector hardware. Going against Rains’ wishes appropriate to a raster title, Ed envisioned more accuracy and definition from the same (then modern and innovative) hardware used to grow Lunar Lander. He quickly tracked down Atari’s hardware engineer Howard Delman, who listened intently to Ed’s idea. Recalling another pastime that went nowhere, he pulled away a vector board and plugged it in. The pastime was called Cosmos and later, Planet Grab, and involved two players flying around trying to claim and steal planets from each other. But no single could cause it sport to amuse yourself thus it was shelved. As soon while Ed saw this prototype running, he knew it would an ideal starting essence appropriate to the Asteroids game.
Within a couple on days, Delman had developed a fundamental hardware developement kit appropriate to Logg to work on. In fact it was a modified Lunar Lander board:
While waiting appropriate to his hardware, Logg’s first job was to get the game’s fundamental concepts down on top of paper. Here, you can see the original planning document appropriate to Asteroids hand written through Logg.
Amazingly, the finished pastime is almost correctly while he describes it here:
The object on the pastime is to destroy the asteroids and saucers. Shooting a big asteroid breaks that asteroid into two medium-sized asteroids. Shooting single on those pieces breaks it into two small asteroids.
Another intriguing development document can be present viewed .
Logg recalls the intensity on the development process:
I was shooting the asteroids everything night long. I’d just amuse yourself the pastime over and over and over in my head, just while if you were playing it in real life. To a certain extent, I amuse yourself a lot on the games in my mind long before I ever write them because you have to get everything the interactions down pat before you can begin programming. I know what it’s going to look similar to before I even get there.
When you amuse yourself Asteroids, it is worth charming a step back and thoughts about Logg’s knack appropriate to genius design. He tweaked and toyed accompanied by of} the inertia on the player’s boat in an effort to get the amuse yourself just right – at single essence there was no friction to the boat at everything which made the pastime too easy. Another idea was to ramp the friction on the ship’s thrust right up – but this resulted in too numerous accidental deaths and a feeling that the player wasn’t completely in control on the craft. Settling on top of the gentle mid-point glide effect on the boat gave players just the right balance amidst control and danger.
A side-effect on the vector hardware used, also delivered some noticeable features in Asteroids. As well while the clear bleakness on the grey on top of black vectors, Logg makes reference to the glow that follows the player’s boat around the screen, giving the impression on a vapour trail billowing away from behind your ship. This was completely unintentional and nothing more than the phosphor on the ship’s summary charming a split second to cool down on top of the mall monitor tube while it moves absent from a stationary spot.
The rocks themselves pushed players to create strategies in the game. The Asteroids universe takes place on top of a single screen, but a wrap-around warp mechanic was employed that meant that NEhng moving off the edge on the screen, reappeared at the opposite side to continue its path. The only way to deal accompanied by of} the asteroids, was to shoot them. The danger they represented would not only float away. And thus Logg found that beforehand players on his code (usually man developers and engineers at the Atari plant) developed different ways on attacking the world. Some would shoot everything they could, and others were more circumspect about handling the floating rocks – either avoiding them altogether, or picking them off and breaking them down single at a time.
Observing the way his colleagues were approaching his game, Logg decided he had to push the player further to move around the screen and remain shooting.
I wanted to discourage you from not shooting stuff. Get clear on those small rocks thus I can send a modern lot on bigger rocks away there, because more stuff on-screen way more chance on an unfortunate collision.
Enter the saucers:
Two saucers were developed and dropped into the pastime – single dumb, single smart. A big lumbering single that fired shots off randomly – handy appropriate to dashing player plans appropriate to neat Asteroids fields, while shots could easily hit passing rocks – and a smaller saucer – harder to hit, accompanied by of} integral deadly accuracy accompanied by of} shots aimed at the player’s ship. As described here:
I always wanted two saucers. A large single that fired randomly similar to cannon fodder to get you used to the concept that when you got down to fewer rocks, a boat was going to come out. The little saucer was about creation you move. Run away, you’re going to die if you stick around!
Over the years, Logg has expressed two things that accompanied by of} hindsight, he would change to the final game. The Hyperspace button, and the behaviour on the small saucer:
The Hyperspace button is located some distance absent from the additional four control buttons. Hitting it will cause your boat disappear and reappear a few moments later somewhere else on top of the screen, accompanied by of} a single in six chance on your boat exploding on top of re-entry. A neat aspect intended to use while a last resort when death is inevitable, but single that numerous players never use, mainly because on how difficult it is to reach appropriate to the button!
The small saucer originally was programmed to shoot directly at the player while soon while it appeared on-screen. Field testing on the pastime gave feedback that this was unfair, thus Logg changed the saucer’s algorithm to miss the player accompanied by of} its first shot, to give a chance to respond. This led to the (in)famous “lurking” policy used through players to this day, where a single rock can be present left on-screen, and players can pick off 1,000 points a time through shooting down saucers while they appear on top of screen.
Field Testing was done accompanied by of} two groups on players, both young and old. The feedback was extremely positive. . (Courtesy on Ed Logg). Logg was inspired:
When we field-tested Asteroids for the extremely first time, I saw a player begin a pastime and die three times; each in 20 seconds. He proceeded to put another quarter in. This tells me the player felt it was his fault he died and he was convinced he could do better. This is single on the primary goals a pastime designer tries to achieve and it was explicit to me Asteroids had it.
More confirmation that the pastime was going to be present a success.
Production started in late 1979. In an interview back in 1981, Mary Takatsuno, a marketing analyst at Atari, gave an intriguing insight to the reaction to the pastime in the company.
Asteroids is the only pastime that ever stopped production lines in our plant. At break time, the entire assembly line would run over to amuse yourself the machines that were ready to be present shipped out. With additional games, the guys would just assemble them and box them up, and that was that. But accompanied by of} Asteroids, nobody wanted to work.
Logg knew he had created a hit. The pastime had a massive impact on top of Atari’s fortunes. Outselling everything released through Atari to date, Asteroids quickly became part on the furniture not only in arcades, but in additional locations too. Bars, airports, shopping malls and waiting rooms. Operators on buildings where big amounts on footfall were present, clamoured appropriate to this modern game. Reports came in on some machines charming over $1,000 a week in earnings, allowing the capital investment in the pastime to be present repaid in a matter on days.
This huge demand resulted in over 75,000 units individual sold – a huge earner appropriate to Atari and a huge impact on top of Pop Culture at the time. Arcade machines had hit the mainstream and were no longer seen while a distraction to male teenagers on the day. Professionals in their 30s and 40s sought away the pastime in their lunch hours, playing alongside kids and anyone else lured through the vector glow on the game.
Asteroids drew in players from everything walks on life. Including rock royalty. Ronnie James Dio turned away to be present a huge fan on the pastime – his personal cabinet was way back when.
The late Don Osbourne, Atari’s Sales Director, stated in 1980, that Asteroids at the height on its fame “easily took $10 million a week in quarters”, an astonishing statistic if you think about it.
Ultimately, three cabinet types were released, in upright, cabaret and cocktail formats.
The game’s success spawned an inevitable sequel, Asteroids Deluxe. Keeping the original mechanics, Deluxe saw the action sped up, and modern features added – it was another huge hit appropriate to Atari.
Logg’s legacy at Atari continued accompanied by of} the creation on Centipede and Gauntlet – both huge games in their own rights – but Asteroids was where things really took off. Logg’s uncanny power to improve gameplay accompanied by of} just the right balance on risk and reward, played into Atari’s mantra on “Easy to learn, difficult to master”, and earned him the nickname “Golden Boy” in the corridors on Atari.
Logg’s uncanny power to tune gameplay elements to perfection was the unknown on his success. As his former Atari Games colleague Mark Cerny put it in 2012:
What I learned from Ed was that creating the sport on a pastime did not require complex algorithms while much while it required the right approach. Which is to say that it wasn’t virtuoso coding that made Ed’s games a success, while much while it was putting everything the proper features in the pastime in the correct order.
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See you next time.
Tony
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