Star Castle Arcade is a 32K game that pushes the boundary of what's possible on the Atari 2600. Star Castle is a 1980 vector arcade game produced by Cinematronics. The game involves obliterating a series of defenses orbiting a stationary turret in the center of the screen. Chris Walton and Thomas Jentzch have created a fantastic port of Star Castle for the Atari 2600, one of two versions of Star Castle developed in parallel. This new version contains many improvements over the previously released version of Star Castle.

The object of Star Castle is to destroy an enemy cannon which sits in the center of three concentric, rotating energy shield rings while avoiding or destroying 'mines' - enemies that spawn from the core, pass through the energy rings, and then home in on the player's ship. They can stick back to the shield if the player maneuvers in such a way that a ring is between the ship and the mines. The player-controlled spaceship can rotate, thrust forward, and fire small projectiles. The cannon's shields are composed of twelve sections each, and each section takes two hits to destroy. Once a section is breached, rings beneath it are exposed to fire.

AtariAge and homebrew authors Chris Walton and Thomas Jentzsch are sponsored a label contest for Star Castle Arcade, and we received many great entries! The winning label design was designed by Jordi Cabo, and his design will be featured on the Star Castle Arcade cartridge, manual and box. You can view all the submitted entries here.

While on a routine Stellar Cartography mission, UESC Rains experienced a malfunction and warped into an asteroid field in an unknown sector of space. Unable to get a bearing to safely warp out, the ship must blast the asteroids into smithereens to prevent imminent destruction. To make matters worse, the local inhabitants are xenophobic and have sent warships and Magna-Mines to eliminate the alien (that's you!) threat.

If you're a fan of the arcade games Asteroids or Asteroids Deluxe you'll love Space Rocks. While Atari released a version of Asteroids for the 2600, it pales in comparison to what Darrell Spice, Jr. has crafted in his version. Space Rocks is a 32K game that takes full advantage of our Melody Board resulting in a game that pushes the Atari 2600 hardware to its limits. The graphics, animations, and sound effects are well above what is typically experienced on the 2600.

AtariAge and homebrew author Darrell Spice, Jr. sponsored a label contest for Space Rocks, resulting in over 50 fantastic submissions from the talented AtariAge community. The winning entry, pictured to the left, was submitted by Dave Dries, whose artwork will appear on the label, manual and box for Space Rocks. We also chose three runner up labels, from Brian Ostrowski, André Bolfing, and Nathan Strum. You can learn more about the contest and view all the submitted labels here.

Andrew Davie and Thomas Jentzsch worked on an Atari 2600 port of Boulder Dash® for almost a decade. Together these two Atari 2600 veterans have used their insight and sophisticated knowledge about the Atari console to bring to life a faithful rendering of the classic, action-puzzle game (first released on the Atari 8-bit computer platform in 1984) from First Star Software, Inc. Game-play, sounds, and graphics have been faithfully reproduced, culminating in a game for the Atari 2600 unlike any previously seen.

If you're not familiar with Boulder Dash®, the Wikipedia Entry for the game contains a wealth of information. And of course, First Star Software also has an informative Boulder Dash® page describing the various versions of the game released to date and history of the game. In short,

"The game's protagonist is called "Rockford". He must dig through caves collecting gems and diamonds and reach the exit within a time limit, while avoiding various types of dangerous creatures as well as obstacles like falling rocks and the constant danger of being crushed or trapped by an avalanche, or killed by an underground explosion."

AtariAge and First Star Software, Inc. hosted a box and label design competition for Boulder Dash®, resulting in a variety of great entries from the classic gaming community! The winning entry was submitted by André Bolfing, and graces all 250 copies of Boulder Dash® that have been produced for sale in the AtariAge Store. You can learn more about the contest and view all the winning entries here.

The War Continues...

After the successful elimination of the terrorists and their missile silo complexes, we have heard through various sources that they have relocated, and have doubled their security! Once again you must invade enemy territory and prevent the missile launching aimed at Washington D.C. and stop the terrorists once and for all!

Make your way through five different terrains in search of the Depot where you will pick up Fail-Safe clues. One letter in the code, in it's correct position, appears in the center of your fuel gauge. The sixth terrain is the most dangerous of all - the missile silo is heavily guarded by all enemies, including a mine field! If you make your way past that, you will have to enter the four-digit hexadecimal code to stop the launch and save the world. Do that, and you will start over in a more difficult environment. Otherwise...

AtariAge and Bob DeCrescenzo sponsored a contest to create original artwork for FailSafe. Congratulations to Jah Fish and Nonner242, whose winning artwork appears on all copies of FailSafe sold in the AtariAge Store. You can view all the contest submissions here.

Those of you who keep tabs on the Atari 2600 homebrew scene may be familiar with Incoming! We first posted news about the game back in 2001, and author Ben Larson announced a final version of the game earlier this year. If you've ever played Artillery Duel on the 2600 (not to mention many similar games on various systems and computers over the years), then you'll be right at home with Incoming! Ben has addressed many of Artillery Duel's shortcomings with Incoming!, resulting in a much improved gameplay experience!

AtariAge and Ben Larson sponsored a contest to create original artwork for Incoming! The winning entry was submitted by Holger Bommer, whose artwork will be used for both the cartridge label as well as the cover of the Incoming! manual. You can view all the contest submissions here.

Will you lead? Find the answer by travelling through the 20 tunnels of Lead, where you'll have to fire at incoming enemies, dodge deadly asteroids, scramble past menacing sentinels and catch wandering satellites to survive, and finally prove to yourself that you can do it.

Lead is a fast paced action game created by Simone Serra, whose first Atari 2600 homebrew release was the unique collection of puzzle and rhythm games in Sync. AtariAge and Simone Serra sponsored a contest to create original artwork for Lead. The winning entry was submited by Hernán Callo, whose artwork will be used for both the cartridge label as well as the cover of the Lead manual. You can view all 74 contest submissions here.

Ken Siders has been hard at work creating his next Atari 7800 homebrew masterpiece: b*nQ! Fans of the classic arcade game Q*bert will immediately recognize the origins of b*nQ, and Ken has done an amazing job of bringing it to life on the 7800. If only more games of this caliber were released for the 7800 "back in the day", the system may have had a longer shelf life! This is Ken's second release for the Atari 7800--his first, Beef Drop, is a dead-on port of the popular arcade game Burgertime and has been very popular with 7800 fans.

AtariAge and Ken Siders sponsored a contest to create original artwork for b*nQ. The winning entry was submited by Darrin Rose, whose artwork will be used for both the cartridge label as well as the cover of the b*nQ manual. You can view all 45 contest submissions here.