littleoctagon

I gave up my 2600 collection years ago and got to thinking recently about games I owned. I posted about another game I couldn't quite remember and people here were very helpful in finding out which game I was talking about based on the description, so I thought I would ask about another. I asked for and got this game for Christmas in 1982. I know this because I returned this game and picked up another new game called Megaforce as a replacement (was not disappointed). A year before I got this game, I got into this new thing called Dungeons and Dragons. As a result, all things swords and sorcery became of interest to me. This game's cover art (and title, I seem to remember) suggested it was of this type and as I loved Adventure (who didn't?), I wanted it, badly. I got it on Christmas day and spent several hours trying to figure it out. I seem to remember it trying to emulate going from room to room (as if in a dungeon) except I could never tell what pixel or sprite I was supposed to be (it seemed to have a little dot at the bottom center of the screen...was that my character?) and I could never tell if I killed a monster, hit a monster, or what. In my mind and memory, I am pretty certain I did not even know when my game was over or if the game froze or what the hell was going, in general. The "monsters" seemed to not really move per se, but started as one graphic, switched to another, similar graphic, then another, then back to the original. I read the instructions as well, but these seemed not to match up with what I was seeing on the screen. All in all, for as excited as I was to play something I thought might be like Adventure, this game left me not only severely disappointed but also confused. So, like I said above, I returned it. So I ask here now if anyone can help me figure out what this game was not only because I am curious but because I still wonder what I was doing wrong (if I was doing anything wrong-could it have just been a really piss poor game?) and if I was doing something wrong, I figured that somewhere on the world wide web, there might be better instructions and descriptions of how it might be played AND I might find a way to check it out again and actually play it correctly, heh. Thanks in advance for anyone who takes the time to read this and lend me a hand!

Quadrunner, I think you may be right, I think it might have been fire fly. I say this because I do remember the box being orange and that the box was not the standard square-shaped design (in fact, I remember it barely covering the cartridge). As far as the price and my memory, you may also be right. I could swear that the price on the package was NOT a Kay bee sticker marking it down to 99 cents, but that it was part of the box itself. But maybe it was marked down and the sticker fit so seemlessly on the package that it only seemed to be originally 99 cents, so go figure. Thanks everyone for your help and happy gaming!

I was 14/15 in 1984 and 1985 and lived in an area north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania known as Wexford. My dad used to commute to downtown, driving along McKnight Rd and some days in the summer, I would have him drop me off at one of the malls on McKnight Road on his way to work. In one of these malls was a Kay Bee Toys. Anyway, it was around this time (and years subsequent to it) that the video game crash was happening and at Kay Bee Toys, this was apparent: bins in the front of the store with 50% off (then 60%. 75%, etc.) games. But also at this time I came across something that was brand new to me: a NEW atari 2600 game, in a box (although it was oddly shaped, as far as I remembered), and it's NEW (not marked down) selling price was 99 cents. I bought one immediately. When I got home, I found it to be kinda fun: it was some kind of space shooter that reminded me (in retrospect, at least) as something like Yar's Revenge-although it was not this game and not a ripoff of this game, as I already owned Yar's revenge. I left my 40+ collection of games with a friend (who I lost touch with) years ago but when I read about rare games, I often think of this one, even though I cannot remember its name or producer. Was it some sort of prototype they were selling at a low price to determine popularity? Was it some local game developer trying to see if making a cheap 99 cent game could be profitable? The box was printed in English, so it couldn't have been some foreign game, could it? I don't know and I wish I did. So I posted the local details here (time and region of the country as well store) in the hopes that some other 40-something atari 2600 fan might remember what I am talking about. Thank you in advance if you took the time to read this.