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Season 2, Round 3 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club will last about two weeks. This round ends on Sunday, February 18, 2017 at 10pm MST (aka Monday, 2am GMT). The game being played this round is Space Mission, a game released in 1982 for the Emerson Arcadia 2001. The game is very simple, but the manual makes it seem overly complicated. The object of this game is to collect parts of a four-piece spaceship and put them together in the correct order. Space Mission is extremely simple, but there are many frills (such as a 3D-tube launch of your drone ship) that do not affect how the game is played. Brett Weiss's mini-review of Space Mission from his book Classic Home Video Games, 1972-1984: A Complete Reference Guide, published in 2012, sums up this game very well: "The player's mission in Space Mission is to rebuild a four-piece space station within about two minutes. This is done by launching a 'droneship,' guiding it towards each piece of the station, loading each piece onto the ship, and placing the pieces in a specified pattern. Naturally, alien spaceships will attack. To ward off these pests, players must switch control to a 'commandship,' which can destroy the aliens with laser missiles. This is yet another classic videogame that contains spaceships that look like TIE Fighters, but the space station element does add an unusual twist to the first-person shooter genre." Here are three screenshots of Space Mission: Here is a video with gameplay of Space Mission uploaded to YouTube by "GameAnthology" on March 9, 2013. Here is the front of the Space Mission box: Here is the end-label of the Space Mission cartridge: Here is the front of the Space Mission cartridge: Here is the back of the Space Mission cartridge: Here is the Space Mission keypad overlay: Here is some alternate cartridge artwork from two various non-U.S. releases of Space Mission. I think that this cartridge is for the Arcadia 2001 in Australia: Here is the box for the release of the game on a generic MPT-03 console: I'm really beginning to enjoy the various different artwork for the non-Emerson release of Arcadia 2001 console game. Space Mission - Quick-Play Rules Play Space Mission on real hardware (PAL, NTSC, and any Arcadia family systems) or use the WinArcadia or MAME emulator. There are no gameplay options for this game. Just press the Start button and begin playing. Every game lasts two minutes. We're playing for the highest score with the lowest time. This may make scoring a little difficult; we'll see how this works out during the full round. I'll make adjustments to the scoring if it seems necessary. Visit the Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central website for cartridge images and Arcadia emulators: https://amigan.yatho.com/ Here is a direct link to the Arcadia 2001 ROM images ("SpaceMission.bin" is the filename for Space Mission): https://amigan.yatho.com/games.rar Here are some Space Mission notes from James Jacobs' Emerson Arcadia 2001 Gaming Guide: http://amigan.1emu.net/agg/index.html#smission Post pictures of your high scores here. Space Mission - General Overview I'm using Ward Shrake's "Director's Cut" of his Arcadia 2001 section of the Digital Press Collector's Guide 7 (published in August 2002) for most of the information that is in this section. I'm including Ward's information about Space Mission on two difference systems, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, and the Sheen. Through-out the world Space Mission is also known as Mission Spaciale, Raumfahrt and Weltraum-Abenteuer. Space Mission - Emerson - 4k cart. 1982. #1019. Cartridge #9. Space Mission - Sheen - #M4. - One player game; uses left side controller. Game by "UA Limited". "Object is to assemble a spaceship in space," according to game instructions printed on the rear of the cartridge. Label art shows space ships from the movie "Star Wars". You appear to be looking over the shoulder of an "Imperial Pilot" inside a "TIE fighter". Looking out the round front window, you can see the "Death Star". The "TIE Pilot" is apparently firing on the "Millennium Falcon" space ship. High quality scans of Space Mission box, manual, and cartridge are here: https://archive.org/details/SpaceMissionEmersonArcadia2001 Here is the manual's cover: For complete information about this game, visit the above URL link at archive.org. I've included the important points from the manual here (including some broken English terms): Space Mission Instructions Video Game Instructions for Emerson Arcadia 2001 Cartridge No. 9, Part No. 1019 Object of the Game Your mission is to build a space station in the limited 2 minutes time. The space station is divided into 4 pieces and each piece is floating in space. You have to launch a "DRONE SHIP" to "LOAD" (PICK UP) and "UNLOAD" (DROP) the pieces at the appropriate spot to build the station, while you are at the bridge of a Mother Ship. There will Alien Fighters Firing at your DRONE SHIP. Steer your DRONE SHIP to keep away from the gunfire. If the DRONE SHIP is destroyed by the gunfire, another can be launched. There is no limit to how many DRONE SHIPS can be launched. While building up your space station, you can shoot your laser gun at the Alien Fighters. However, you can shoot your laser gun only when your DRONE SHIP is unloaded. Mission will fail if you can't build the station in the limited 2 minutes time. Score will be given if mission is completed within minutes, according to the following formula. SCORE = 100 x (MINUTES LEFT) + 1 x (SECONDS LEFT) + 10 x (ALIEN FIGHTERS DESTROYED) + 100 To Start the Game Press POWER Switch to "ON" Position, the red POWER light will be lit. Press "RESET" button, the "SPACE MISSION" will shown in screen. The upper Left corner shows the space station to be built (see fig. 3). Press "START" button to start the game. To Play the Game Once the game has started, you are at the bridge of the Mother Ship and have a 360 degrees view of space. Steer the Mother Ship by pressing the control disc in direction you want to fly. To fire Laser Gun - Press "FIRE" button on the overlay Laser Gun will keep firing as long as you press the "FIRE" button. Press disc to steer the Mother Ship and aim at the Alien Fighters. To launch Drone Ship - Press launch button. A close up take- off view of the Drone Ship will be shown and take off engine sound will be heard. To Control the Drone Ship - Use control disc to steer the Mother Ship. Both Drone Ship and Mother Ship move. Press "STEER" button on the overlay and use the stick control to control direction. This allows you to steer the Drone Ship only. The Mother Ship will stop moving. To pick (LOAD) the space station pieces - steer the Drone Ship to the piece you want to pick up, then press "LOAD" button. When the piece is loaded it will change color. Carry the piece to the desired place and drop it by pressing "UNLOAD" button. Try to bring it to connect to the piece you want to join. If "UNLOAD" button does not release it then try to match it closer to the other piece. Continue this action until the 4 pieces have been put together in correct order (according to original view, see fig. III). To review the status and score of the game, press "SCAN" button on the overlay. This will show you the time left and status of Alien Fighters. To return to the bridge view, press "BRIDGE" button. (This will not function when the Alien Fighter is firing.) If you complete the assembly of the space station within 2 minutes time. A "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" will appear and your score will be revealed. Congratulations! If you fail to complete the assembly in the two minutes time, try again. Good Luck and Happy Space Mission. NOTE: This is the way the assembled Space Station should look after you have successfully put all the pieces together. Space Mission Gameplay Options Space Mission has no gameplay options. Just start collecting the parts of the ship and put them together in the correct order as quickly as you can. Space Mission (Scoring) We are playing for the highest score with the fastest time. 10 points are awarded for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc. Space Mission (Bonus Points): There are quite a few ways to earn bonus points this round: Space Mission - Video Review - (2 Points) - I didn't find any reviews of this game. Maybe because the game is so short? I'd really like to see some quality video that talks about the gameplay. Because of the time it takes to make a "proper" video review, anyone who reviews Space Mission will earn two points. Space Mission - Documenting Bugs - (1 Point) - As we've been discovering for ourselves, Arcadia games can be flaky. If anyone finds any problems, and documents them, then they will earn one bonus point. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Space Mission - Backstory - (1 Point) - Space Mission doesn't provide a backstory. I guess one isn't needed for this game, but it might be fun to write one anyway. Write a background that may have been included with the game in 1982 and you'll get a bonus point. Summary What is it with the Arcadia 2001 and timed games? Were these sorts of games easier to create? I completed a full game of Space Mission today for the first time. There isn't much to this one. I wouldn't say that this game is bad-- it just seems like a missed opportunity because it's far too short. There could have been so much more to this game if a little more time had been spent on it. But, like nearly all other games on this console I've played so far, time spent on gameplay was not a "luxury" granted to Arcadia 2001 games. It's time to start playing Space Mission. This game is very short-- you'll complete your first game nearly before you start playing it. I'm curious if playing this game against other people will make it feel a little more competitive and keep me coming back for just one more game to shave off a second or two or maybe to score a few more points. If you've not played in a high score club round before now, then now's the time to join in! Have a fun third round, everyone! Adam

Season 2, Round 1 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club will last about two weeks. This round ends on Sunday, January 21, 2017 at 10pm MST (aka Monday, 2am GMT). The game being played this round is Space Vultures, a game released in 1982 for the Emerson Arcadia 2001. Space Vultures is based on Taito's 1980 space-themed arcade game Phoenix (released in America by Centuri). Here are screenshots of levels 1 and 2: There are only a limited number of videos of anyone playing Space Vultures. In the few videos that I watched, it doesn't appear that players know that a shield can be used. Here is an example of one person playing the game (under emulation, I think): Here is the front of the Space Vultures box: Here is the end-label of the Space Vultures cartridge: Here is the front of the Space Vultures cartridge: Here is the back of the Space Vultures cartridge: Here are the two keypad overlays for Space Vultures: As is the case with nearly all Arcadia artwork, there is a weirdness going on here that is just about inexpressible. In this case, it appears as though there is a pterodactyl versus (yet another) Millennium Falcon-like spaceship. Ah, Arcadia Artist-- where are you? I want to know the story behind these box covers! Space Vultures - Quick-Play Rules Play Space Vultures on real hardware (PAL, NTSC, and any Arcadia family systems) or use the WinArcadia or MAME emulator. The only gameplay option for Space Vultures is being able to choose which is the first screen you play first. Choose to play the first screen by pressing start just once. Shoot all the small hawks on the first screen and all the mother hawks on the second screen. We're playing for highest score. Visit the Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central website for cartridge images and Arcadia emulators: https://amigan.yatho.com/ Here is a direct link to the Arcadia 2001 ROM images ("SpaceVultures.bin " is the filename for Space Vultures): https://amigan.yatho.com/games.rar Post pictures of your high scores here. Space Vultures - General Overview I'm using Ward Shrake's "Director's Cut" of his Arcadia 2001 section of the Digital Press Collector's Guide 7 (published in August 2002) for most of the information that is in this section. I'm including Ward's information about Space Vultures on three difference systems: Emerson Arcadia 2001, Leisure-Dynamics and the French PrestigeMPT-03 release: Space Vultures Emerson Confirmed. 6k cart. 1982. #1014 (7). Unauthorized clone of "Phoenix" coin-op. One player; left side controller. Long cart. See the non-U.S. section for notes on the missing mothership stage. Space Vultures Leisure-Dynamics Confirmed. 6k. #MC1013 (7). Long cartridge. Unauthorized clone of the "Phoenix" coin-op arcade game. Missing the arcade game's "mothership" stage for legal reasons. Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests there is a version of the game somewhere that includes the missing boss level. In June of 1982 Hanimex told the U.K.-based magazine "Computer and Video Games" that they planned to have a copy of "Phoenix" ready for the initial launch of this system. LANDMARK: Atari's initial survival plans in 1982 centered on protecting their exclusive rights to "Pac-Man". This forced consumers to buy their inferior version of the game, even though many better versions did exist at the time. ("If you can't beat them, have them disqualified"?) Atari spent much of 1982 setting legal precedents regarding "Pac-Man". Many competitors were already reeling from unexpectedly slow (or no) sales during the Christmas 1982 season. Atari tried to finish them off by buying up more arcade game rights, and barring any of their competitors from being able to make good clone games. One of the second-wave of licensed games was "Phoenix". A number of companies wanted to make a home version, but once Atari bought legal copyrights, they KNEW they would be sued if they put out an infringing version of the game. Imagic tried it anyway with their "Demon Attack" game for the Intellivision. Atari sued them, citing the boss stage as the reason. Other "birds in space" games were implied to be OK, since Atari did not go after games that did not have a mothership stage. Hence the removal of this stage by the makers of this console and its games. I say "removal" since it is clear that there were no technical reasons the level could not be included. "Red Clash" has a mothership stage in it; it may even be re-used raw assembly code from "Space Vultures". SV only used 6k of code, with 2k still available. This doesn't sound like much at first, but consider that "Crazy Gobbler" fit into less space than 2k. The game "Hobo" had 5 different screens and "Jumpbug" had 12 screens, and neither of those games used more than 8k of space. German collector Stefan Piasecki collected for the TVG console back in the day, and he reports hearing the rumor even then that the game included the mothership stage. He suspects magazine reports or internal literature had described an earlier version of the game (made before Atari bought the arcade game's rights), which is why shop owners told him that the stage was there. If you look at the Emerson console's box art, you will see it implies the inclusion of a mothership stage. The use of EPROMs instead of ROMs in the USA is suspicious in itself; it implies a last-minute game code change. The recent confirmation that these games were all written in assembly language, likely shoots down the idea that the missing boss stage is merely hidden inside the existing code, simply lying dormant and unused. (See also "American Football".) Last but not least… an MPT-03 catalog for the Prestige company appears to show a screenshot of the boss stage of this game. Olivier Boisseau correctly states that this may have simply been a faked screenshot, with nothing to back it up. But it also is just as possible that it is an accurate rendering of a game that once existed and was nearly ready for its final release. With so many other arcade clones showing up in two different versions -- an early one that was a blatant arcade clone and a later one that was a post-lawsuit, "watered down," legalized version of the first game -- it stands to reason that this game likely suffered a similar fate. The point to all this is simple… Ward wants people to keep their eyes open, so we can find and archive the full ROM version. Vautour de l'espace MPT-03 (Prestige) Unconfirmed. #MG-322. AKA: "Space Vultures". A catalog by Prestige shows a screenshot of the last stage -- the mothership -- of the arcade game. See "Space Vultures" notes. High quality scans of Space Vultures box, manual, and cartridge are here: https://archive.org/details/SpaceVulturesEmersonArcadia2001BoxScan02Back Here is the manual's cover: For complete information about this game, visit the above URL link at archive.org. I've included the important points from the manual here (including some broken English terms): Space Vultures - Video Game Instructions for Emerson Arcadia 2001 Cartridge No. 7, Part No. 1014 Object of the Game Watch out!! VULTURES from space are attacking your ROCKET. At start, either one of scenes, SMALL HAWKS or MOTHER HAWKS, can be chosen. Avoid the dropping bombs from the enemy VULTURES and their collidings. Fire your ROCKET to destroy them. An energy shield is provided to your ROCKET only in the combat with the SMALL HAWKS. When your ROCKET is energized, the firing from the SMALL HAWKS and their colliding cannot destroy your ROCKET. Five consecutive ROCKETS are provided to you for each game. The purpose of the game is to score as many points as possible by hitting the VULTURES. To Play the Game There are 2 different scenes of play that can be selected, SMALL HAWKS by pressing "START" button once or MOTHER HAWKS by pressing "START" button consecutively twice. However a second scene with 3 MOTHER VULTURES (See Fig. 4) will appear after all SMALL HAWKS in first scene have been destroyed. Fire your ROCKET by depressing any "FIRE" key on keyboard or squeezing any Action Switch located at the side of the hand controller (See Fig. 1A and Fig. 2) to destroy the VULTURES. To avoid the deadly bomb and collision, move your ROCKET left/right and up/down using the control of the disc/joystick on hand controller. In the combat with MOTHER VULTURES, you can control your ROCKET to move left/right only. If your firing hits the MOTHER HAWK'S wing or wing tip, the wing or wing tip becomes a SMALL HAWK which cannot be destroyed and do not attack you. But they will come back to attack you and can be destroyed in another scene after all MOTHER HAWKS have been killed. You have to hit the MOTHER HAWK'S body or another wing again, otherwise it is still alive and continues to attack you. While the combat with the SMALL HAWK, your ROCKET can be energized to protect itself being destroyed. Simply depress any "ENERGY SHIELD" button on keyboard. The color of your ROCKET will change to blue for a few seconds. A next energy shield can be set up after a short interval. The time of interval increases as your scoring point increases. Your firing or collision can destroy the enemy HAWKS but the collision does not increase the score. To maintain highest score on the screen, merely press "START" button for the next game. The highest score will displace on the bottom right corner so next player can challenge. Do not depress "reset" button, otherwise all scores will be wiped out. To Freeze (Pause) the Game This game has a freezing ability so that you may FREEZE the game whenever it is necessary until you come back to continue to play it again. Use right hand controller for freezing or unfreezing action. To FREEZE the game, press any FREEZE key on keyboard and all action will be freezed including the sound. Decrease the volume level of your TV if necessary. For UNFREEZE function, press any UNFREEZE key on keyboard and action will be resumed immediately. If volume has been decreased while freezing, be sure to increase the volume of TV back to desired level before unfreezing the game. Scoring Small Hawk (stationary) 5 points Small Hawk (flying) 20 points Mother Hawk (body) 25 points Mother Hawk's wing tip 5 points Mother Hawk's wing 10 points Space Vultures - The Mysterious Missing Mothership Level The Prestige Video Computer Game MPT-03 console, released in France, had a release of Space Vultures called Vautour de l'espace. Prestige published a game catalog that has a picture of the missing mothership level from that game. I used this tiny picture as a basis for my mothership "level" (a still image, really) that I released to the Arcadia Yahoo group on June 9, 2002. This "stage" is on most Arcadia multicarts. In 2002, Olivier Boisseau (I think), added a Prestige catalog to the old-computers.com website. Back then, scans were very low resolution. Here are the low-res scans that I used as the basis for my silly mothership creation: Here is a screenshot of the Mothership level from the screen I created: When "mothship.bin" is run on a real Arcadia, it sometimes comes up in 13-char mode instead of 26-char mode. Basically, it looks weird; like this: Turning the machine on and off again, or pressing the reset button, will fix the problem (this does not happen under the MESS emulator). The 2650 source code and other files for this mothership are available in this zip archive: Space Vultures - Mothership (2002)(Adam Trionfo)(Arcadia-MPT-03).zip Check out the bonus points area below for various ways to earn bonus points with this mothership level. Space Vultures Gameplay Options Space Vultures has a few gameplay options, but we're just playing the game on the default setting: just press start once to play (if you press it twice in a row then you'll start on the second stage; don't do that). Space Vultures (Scoring) We are playing for the highest score. 10 points are awarded for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc. Space Vultures (Bonus Points): There are quite a few ways to earn bonus points this round: Space Vultures - Video Game Play - (1 Point) - I didn't find any proper gameplay video this game being played on real hardware (I'm pretty sure that all the videos of this game that I did find were made using emulation). Anyone who makes a video of a complete game being played on real hardware will earn one point. Please make sure to show that there is an energy shield available (press buttons 1, 4 or 7 on the left controller). Space Vultures - Video Review - (2 Points) - I didn't find any reviews of this game. I'd really like to see some quality video that talks about the gameplay. Anyone who reviews Space Vultures will earn two points. Note that a video review has the extra point built-in that would otherwise be awarded for a gameplay video. Space Vultures - Documenting Bugs - (1 Point) - As we've been discovering for ourselves, Arcadia games can be flaky. If anyone finds any problems, and documents them, then they will earn one bonus point. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Space Vultures - Backstory - (1 Point) - Space Vultures doesn't provide a backstory. I guess one isn't needed for this game, but it might be fun to write one anyway. Write a background that may have been included with the game in 1982 and you'll get a bonus point. Space Vultures - "Play" Mothership Level - (1 Point) - Anyone who tries out my mothership level on real hardware or under emulation (and provides a screenshot) gets a bonus point. This is dead simple; everyone should get this point. Space Vultures - Play and Integrate Mothership Level (10 Points!!!) - Special Note: This programming challenge is open for all of season 2 (which is all of 2018!!!). Somewhere out in the world there may be a prototype of Space Vultures that has the mothership level built into it. Anyone who builds the mothership level into Space Vultures in a gameplay style like the arcade game Phoenix, and makes this missing third level fully playable in no more than 8KB, will get ten bonus points. Hell, maybe even more bonus points-- this might be negotiable, as this isn't a trivial task! This isn't a simple undertaking, but it might be fun to do for those very few people with the proper skill set! Summary I first played Space Vultures in about 2002. I didn't find it to be a great game, but it isn't bad either. It's simple and it works. I also don't recall any bugs, but it's been a long time since I've played this game for anything more than a few passing moments. Fifteen years ago I was hooked on Space Vultures for a little while. That's why I devoted some time to creating the static mothership screen. I wish that I had the programming chops to get this missing level into the game. I think if you give this game a chance that you'll have fun with it. So, give it a go; what can you lose? This season is just starting, so jump right in from the beginning of round 1 and have some fun beating the feathers out of these space birds! Adam

Season 2, Round 2 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club will last about two weeks. This round ends on Sunday, February 4, 2017 at 10pm MST (aka Monday, 2am GMT). The game being played this round is Alien Invaders, a game released in 1982 for the Emerson Arcadia 2001. Alien Invaders is based on Taito's 1978 space-themed arcade game Space Invaders (released in America by Midway). For such a very simple game, there really is a huge amount of information in this post. You don't need to read it all (just pick up the controller and start firing-away at the baddies!), but if you're interested in the game's history, then you'll enjoy this post. Here is a screenshot of the game with all the alien invaders on the screen: Here is a catalog (I'm not sure for which console family-- maybe the Arcadia 2001?), that has a description of the game and artwork that I've not seen anywhere else: Here is the description for the above page of the catalog (from the "tea" reference, maybe this is from an English console release?): Seventy space invaders are fast on their way towards your city, and you can be sure they're not dropping in for afternoon tea! You have just five minutes of accelerated computer time to blast the nasties and save your city from certain destruction. There are three fortresses, behind which your missiles are safe. But watch out! These invaders are smart! If you hide there too long, they'll bombard the castle walls, so keep moving around or the evil space critters will get you, and we wouldn't wish that on anyone! Here is a video with gameplay of Alien Invaders uploaded to YouTube by "GuiasInfojuegos" on March 3, 2013. The sound in this video seems a little different from what I hear on my NTSC system. Maybe because it's being played on a PAL console? Here is the front of the Alien Invaders box: Here is the end-label of the Alien Invaders cartridge: Here is the front of the Alien Invaders cartridge: Here is the back of the Alien Invaders cartridge: The American release of Alien Invaders has no keypad overlays. Yup, you guessed right! This artwork is just plain weird! I guess no Emerson Arcadia artwork should surprise me by now. At least this art doesn't appear to resemble a Millennium Falcon. Hey, Arcadia Graphic Artist! Can you hear me? I want to interview you! I haven't really looked much into the non-American releases of Arcadia games for the Arcadia HSC, but I was curious if any of the games have better artwork-- and some of them surely do. The following pictures of boxes and cartridges all come from James Jacob's website, Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central ( This website supports all of the Signetics 2650-based machines (Interton VC 4000, Elektor TV Games Computer, et al.). Here is alternate box and cartridge artwork for a release of Alien Invaders for the Emerson Arcadia 2001 (where was this released?): Here is the box for the German Schmed TVG 2000 (an Arcadia family console): Here is the box for the Swiss Intervision 2001 (Ormatu family console): Here is the box and cartridge for the release of the game on a generic MPT-03 console: Here is the cartridge for the Australian Sheen Home Video Centre 2001 (Ormatu family console): Alien Invaders - Quick-Play Rules Play Alien Invaders on real hardware (PAL, NTSC, and any Arcadia family systems) or use the WinArcadia or MAME emulator. There are no gameplay options for this game. Just press the Start button and begin playing. Every game lasts about three minutes, no matter how many lives you have left. We're playing for highest score. Visit the Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central website for cartridge images and Arcadia emulators: https://amigan.yatho.com/ Here is a direct link to the Arcadia 2001 ROM images ("AlienInvaders.bin" is the filename for Alien Invaders): https://amigan.yatho.com/games.rar Post pictures of your high scores here. Alien Invaders - General Overview I'm using Ward Shrake's "Director's Cut" of his Arcadia 2001 section of the Digital Press Collector's Guide 7 (published in August 2002) for most of the information that is in this section. I'm including Ward's information about Alien Invaders on two difference systems, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, and the Bandai Arcadia. Alien Invaders is also known by at least four other names: Alien, Alien Invader, Invasion aus dem Weltall, and Les envahisseurs étrangers. Alien Invaders Emerson 4k cart. 1981. #1003 (Cart #8 ). Short case. One player game; uses left side controller. Unauthorized clone of the coin-op arcade game "Space Invaders". One of the earliest games and it shows. Not a game to impress potential new console fans with! Alien Invaders Bandai 4k. Bandai #3. One player game; uses left side controller. Short cartridge. Clone of the "Space Invaders" coin-op. Manufacturing codes found printed on masked ROMs made by Signetics show this is one of the earliest carts written for the console. Without much effort, we researchers found carts dated "8103" and "8108"… in other words, weeks 3 and 8 of 1981. To put that in perspective, realize that Emerson said in an official U.S. trademark application that their first use of the console name was in March of 1982; 15 months later. Even so, the program's history goes back even farther, in some form. Back in the days of the Arcadia 2001's "prequel" console -- the "Interton VC-4000" and its clones -- Signetics had released assembly code listings of a short "Space Invaders" game, to show consumers how to write programs for that console. This Arcadia program is likely a ported and updated version of that much-earlier Interton game. It is very interesting historically because of all that, but from the point of view of a potential new console buyer during 1982, this game and others like it most likely hurt potential console sales, big time! The graphics looked awfully simple when compared to next generation machine's games, even though they were not bad compared to many earlier contemporary clones of the "Space Invaders" genre. I may go so far as to say it had the same effect on people that the Atari 2600 version of "Pac-Man" often had… to make a potential console buyer think that, "if this is the best this console can do, then I do not want to buy it." Most people had seen various better versions of the game. The white background was off-putting and not visually appealing. Sluggish game play did not help matters much. Later games proved this was NOT all the console could do, but in some markets, buyers saw the new machine show up in stores briefly, then disappear into bargain-bin and closeout sale obscurity alongside machines like the Timex Sinclair. Having seen games like this, most modern collectors figured they knew why. A handful of modern collectors saw the later games and liked them, but until 1999 or so no one knew for sure that games on MPT-03 consoles were ROM-compatible with Arcadia machines. Anyway, we can only hope that retro-gamers figure out good games can be done on this console, despite the impression of games like this. High quality scans of Alien Invaders box, manual, and cartridge are here: https://archive.org/details/AlienInvadersEmersonArcadia2001 Here is the manual's cover: For complete information about this game, visit the above URL link at archive.org. I've included the important points from the manual here (including some broken English terms): Alien Invaders Instructions Video Game Instructions for Emerson Arcadia 2001 Cartridge No. 8, Part No. 1003 Your city and 6 missile launchers are under attack by 70 "invaders" who were launched by their "MOTHER SHIPS." The object of the game is to shoot down ALL THE INVADERS & THE MOTHER SHIPS before they destroy your missile launchers. You have 5 minutes of accellerated computer time showing (actual time is approx. 3 minutes) to accomplish this task. At the end of the game your score will appear at the top of the screen. It will remain in the computer memory as "HI" score until someone "beats" it. The next Higher Score will automatically replace it. This game can be played by as many consecutive players as desired. The "HI" score will remain on display as long as each successive game is triggered by the "START" button if power has not been turned "OFF." IN ORDER TO "ERASE" the HI-score you can either push the "POWER" button or push the GAME RESET BUTTON. To Begin Play You will hear musical notes and first see the MISSILE LAUNCHERS, THE CITY and THE DEFENSIVE CASTLES, in red, yellow, green and black colors. You will also see time 5.00 and 000 HI. Slowly the mother ship will appear below "000" and you will see the "INVADERS" being launched by the mother ship. The game is ready for ACTION. How to Play Since this is a "ONE PLAYER AT A TIME" game, the Left Hand Controller will be used. Pick up left hand controller with "Disc" towards you. The controller has 4 functions. Move the missile launcher to the left — depress left side of Disc (9 o'clock) Move the missile launcher to the right — depress right side of Disc (3 o'clock) Stop the missile launcher — release Disc. Fire missile - Depress side button (either one) or press digit #2. Press Start Button 1. The invaders will start moving and shooting at the missile launchers. 2. Press "Disc" for evasive action. The missile launchers can move left or right. You have 3 fortresses behind which your missiles are "safe". However, the invaders can penetrate your "FORTRESS" cover one block at a time. You can also shoot thru the fortress at the invaders. Every time your missile hits the fortress it also destroys 1 protective block. Shooting You will see on the screen a black missile on top of launcher. To shoot, squeeze either Action Switches or press # 2 on keyboard. After each missile is launched the next missile will be loaded and ready to fire. You will notice that as the invaders descend on the city- the buildings will shrink accordingly. As you hide your missiles behind their defensive castles the invaders will seek out that particular castle and "bomebard" it. So keep your missile launcher on the move. If you merely try to hide behind the "castle", the invaders will "get you". Scoring Whenever your missiles hit the invaders you will hear a "hit" sound and it will show on your score. The points are: Hit yellow invader 1 point Hit green invader 2 points Hit red invader 3 points Hit black invader 4 points Hit Mother Ship 9 points At the end of the 5 minutes, for each missile launcher you have left you receive an additional 10 points per launcher. At the end of the game your score will show. If it is the highest score, then it will also appear next to "HI." The HI score for the competition can only be removed if the RESET button is depressed or the power is turned off. Time 1. Invaders will move faster and will start descending as time goes on. 2. The game ends when all missile launchers have been destroyed or the time runs out. To Play Next Game If you wish to retain the HI-score then merely depress the "START" Button. Then continue. If you wish to erase the HI-score then merely depress the "RESET" button. The high Score will show a blank and your next score will become the Hl-score. Pausing the Game? Unlike most Arcadia 2001 games, there doesn't seem to be a "freeze" feature in this game. Alien Invaders Gameplay Options Alien Invaders has no gameplay options. Just start shooting at those terrible attackers. Alien Invaders (Scoring) We are playing for the highest score. 10 points are awarded for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc. Alien Invaders (Bonus Points): There are quite a few ways to earn bonus points this round: Alien Invaders - Video Review - (2 Points) - I didn't find any reviews of this game. I'd really like to see some quality video that talks about the gameplay. Because of the time it takes to make a "proper" video review, anyone who reviews Alien Invaders will earn two points. Alien Invaders - Documenting Bugs - (1 Point) - As we've been discovering for ourselves, Arcadia games can be flaky. If anyone finds any problems, and documents them, then they will earn one bonus point. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Alien Invaders - Backstory - (1 Point) - Alien Invaders doesn't provide a backstory. I guess one isn't needed for this game, but it might be fun to write one anyway. Write a background that may have been included with the game in 1982 and you'll get a bonus point. Summary Oh, man! Games on the Arcadia family can be so weird. Alien Invaders seems like a test case or demo game for a point-of-sale kiosk. Why would the programmers limit the game to a maximum time of three minutes? There were so many strange choices made for this console. It seems that all or most of the games were made in a rush to get them out to the companies that were selling these games all around the world. According to Ward Shrake, Alien Invaders was manufactured in the first month of 1981. That means it was programmed in mid-to-late 1980. The story behind this "1982" game console is still yet to be written! Who designed the Arcadia 2001 and when was it first created? That's enough thinking about this console's unusual roots. It's time to start playing Alien Invaders. If you've not played in a high score club round before now, then now's the time to join in! Have a fun second round, everyone! Adam

Arcadia HSC Season 1: Final Standings Season 1 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club ended on December 21, 2017. Here are the final total points (including bonus points) for the Rounds 1-6 and the additional round 7 catch-up points: 1st James Jacobs 60 2nd Tempest 33 + 24 = 57 3rd BallyAlley 56 4th Darrin9999 14 + 23 = 37 4th Mark Canon 37 5th Skylar Canon 22 6th Christopher Tompkins 12 7th Milo Canon 14 8th Chris++ 10 Congratulations to James for winning the first season of the Arcadia High Score Club! Special notice to Tempest who worked his way up from fourth place to second place from points awarded in the catch-up round. He pushed me from second place down to third place. That's cool; it's all about the fun of playing the game! Catch-up round points were awards in a way that did not disrupt the other player's previous scores. This was done to make it easier on me, so that I would not have to recalculate all people's scores. Darrin9999 got an additional 23 points in the catch-up round. Tempest got an additional 24 points in the catch-up round. It's possible that I'm confused with some people's AtariAge handles and their names. If I've got you on the above list more than once (under a different names, handle or alias), then let me know. I'm doing all of this adding by hand. For season 2, I need to work out a system to use a spreadsheet to do these totals semi-automatically. Highest Scores (Rounds 1-6) Round 1: Cat Trax - Mark Canon - 60,000 Round 2: Space Attack - James Jacobs - 12,460 Round 3: Escape - Darrin9999 - 17,440 Round 4: Funky Fish - Tempest - 112,275 Round 5: Space Raiders - James Jacobs - 4,160 Round 6: Brain Quiz - Ballyalley and Tempest - 10 Note: Round 6 was a participation-only round. Maximum points were earned for playing all three games (and Hangman with two players). Top Scores for Rounds 1-6 Here are the final high scores for each of the six rounds. This doesn't include bonus points, which are included in the final tables. Round 1: Cat Trax Scores Mark Canon 60,000 (NTSC) James Jacobs 37,960 (PAL) Milo Canon 27,940 (NTSC) Darrin9999 25,580 -- Catch-Up Round Adam Trionfo 22,400 (NTSC) Christopher Tompkins 21,400 (NTSC) Tempest 19,060 -- Catch-Up Round Skylar Canon 17,700 (NTSC) Round 2: Space Attack Scores James Jacobs 12,460 (PAL) Tempest 12,010 * Catch-Up Round Adam Trionfo 9,120 (NTSC) Mark Canon 8,960 (NTSC) Skylar Canon 8,560 (NTSC) Darrin9999 6,110 * Catch-Up Round Milo Canon 4,800 (NTSC) Round 3: Escape Scores Darrin9999 17,440 * Catch-Up Round Tempest 15,140 * Catch-Up Round Chris++ 12,170 Mark Canon 10,640 James Jacobs 9,750 BallyAlley 7,110 Christopher 3,870 Round 4: Funky Fish Scores Tempest 112,275 Skylar 91,225 James Jacobs 90,125 Darrin9999 61,800 Mark Cannon 64,825 BallyAlley 44,925 Round 5: Space Raiders Scores James Jacobs 4,160 Tempest 2,885 Ballyalley 2,195 Darrin9999 1,615 Round 6: Brain Quiz Scores This was a participation round; there were no "proper" scores. Playing the three games earned points like this: Mindbreaker = 3 Points, Maxit = 3 Points, Hangman ("One-player") = 2 Points and Hangman (Two-player) = 4 Points Ballyalley 3 + 3 + 4 = 10 Tempest 3 + 3 + 4 = 10 James Jacobs 3 + 3 + 2 = 8 Final Rounds (Including bonus points) Round 1: Cat Trax (Final Table) 1st Mark Canon 60,000 (NTSC) 10 points 2nd James Jacobs 37,960 (PAL) 9 points 3rd Milo Canon 27,940 (NTSC) 8 points * Darrin9999 25,580 7 points -- Catch-Up Round 4th Adam Trionfo 22,400 (NTSC) 7 points 5th Christopher Tompkins 21,400 (NTSC) 6 points * Tempest 19,060 5 points -- Catch-Up Round 6th Skylar Canon 17,700 (NTSC) 5 points Round 2: Space Attack (Final Table) 1st Adam Trionfo 9 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 12 points !@# 2nd James Jacobs 10 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 11 points @ * Tempest 9 = 9 points -- Catch-Up Round 3rd Mark Canon 8 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 9 points @ 4th Skylar Canon 7 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 7 points * Darrin9999 6 = 6 points -- Catch-Up Round 5th Milo Canon 6 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 6 points Round 3: Escape (Final Table) 1st Mark Canon 9 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 = 11 points !$ * Darrin9999 10 = 10 points -- Catch-Up Round * Tempest 10 = 10 points -- Catch-Up Round 2nd Chris++ 10 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 10 points 2nd BallyAlley 7 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 8 points # 3rd James Jacobs 8 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 8 points 4th Christopher 6 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 6 points Round 4: Funky Fish (Final Table) 1st - Tempest 10 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 13 points -@$%- 2nd - Skylar 9 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 10 points -@--- 3rd - James Jacobs 8 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 9 points -@--- 4th - BallyAlley 5 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 = 8 points -@-$% 5th - Darrin9999 7 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 7 points ----- 5th - Mark Cannon 6 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 7 points -@--- Round 5: Space Raiders (Final Table) 1st - James Jacobs 10 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 11 Points -@- 2nd - Tempest 9 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 10 Points -@- 3rd - Ballyalley 8 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 9 Points -@- 4th - Darrin9999 7 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 7 Points --- Round 6: Brain Quiz (Final Table) Ballyalley 3 + 3 + 4 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 12 Points !@-$---*(- James Jacobs 3 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 = 12 Points !@#-%-&-() Tempest 3 + 3 + 4 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 10 Points !@-$------ Everyone, this was a really fun first season. I wasn't sure who would play the mostly-unknown Arcadia 2001 console. Thanks to those special classic console lovers who participated. I'll see you all in season 2, round 1 soon, where we'll be playing Space Vultures, a clone of the arcade game Phoenix. Adam

As of today, December 22, 2017, the first season of the Arcadia High Score Club is wrapping up. The first two rounds were played on the Arcadia Yahoo Group. During season 3 of the Arcadia HSC, the rules were posted to both the Atari Age forums and the Yahoo group. The current round (round 7) gives everyone a chance to catch-up on games they haven't played yet or games that they would like to play again for a higher score. Here is a link to the catch-up round rules: http://http//atariage.com/forums/topic/273285-catch-up-round-for-arcadia-2001-high-score-club-season-1-round-7/ It has become important for non-Yahoo group members to be able to see the rules for the first two rounds, so I'm posting them again here on the AtariAge forums. The following rules for the second round's game, Space Attack, were originally posted on October 10, 2017 to the Yahoo group. If you're a Yahoo groups member, then you can read the rules here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/arcadia2001consoles/conversations/messages/2586 Here is the original post: Season 1, Round 2 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club will last about two weeks rather than one week, as I'm going to try to get some players from the AtariAge forums to play along with us. This round ends on Sunday, October 22, 2017 at 10pm MST (aka Monday, 2am GMT). The game being played this round is Emerson's cartridge #2, Space Attack, a "slide and shoot" game, similar to Galaxian. Here is a screenshot of Space Attack being played on my NTSC Emerson Arcadia console: Here is the box for Space Attack: Here is the cartridge for the Emerson version of Space Attack: Space Attack - Quick-Play Rules When Space Attack begins, your ship ("missile launcher") appears off-screen on the right-side. This is a weird quirk of this game and is normal. You can't play until you move your ship left onto the screen; be careful not to move left and run right into an enemy or their missiles. Play Space Attack for high score on real hardware (PAL, NTSC, and any Arcadia family systems) or use the WinArcadia or MAME emulator. If you're using WinArcadia for emulation to play this Space Attack, then I recommend turning off the extra graphics that give the game additional stars. To do that, choose Options > Graphics and then uncheck "Enhance Skies." Visit the Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central website for cartridge images and Arcadia emulators: https://amigan.yatho.com/ Here is a direct link to the Arcadia 2001 ROM images ("SpaceAttack-A.bin" is the filename for Space Attack): https://amigan.yatho.com/games.rar Post pictures of your high scores here. There are no options for this game, so everyone will automatically be playing by the same rules. Use the right-hand controller to play the game. The fire button shoots your missile. You can "freeze" (pause) the game by pressing the left-hand column of keys. You can "un-freeze" the game by pressing the right-hand column. Space Attack - General Overview I'm using Ward Shrake's "Director's Cut" of his Arcadia 2001 section of the Digital Press Collector's Guide 7 (published in August 2002) for most of the information that is in this section. Space Attack. Emerson. Confirmed. 4k cart. 1982. #1013 (2). Unauthorized clone of the arcade game "Galaxian". One player game; uses right side controller. Long cartridge. Game by "UA Limited. Emerson family labels depict unlicensed spacecraft from the "Star Wars" series of movies: a "Snow Speeder" and the " Millennium Falcon". Ward's guess is that this game was likely the second game the console's makers intended to release at launch time, to help to sell the global public on their new game console. Reviewed by Electronic Games magazine in November 1982; see the time line FAQ for the full text of that article. There is also a June 1982 article from a U.K.-based magazine there. That article openly used the name Galaxian when saying they intended to make a clone. A hidden ASCII message found inside the ROM code of this game: "To my wife Daisy and my son Jonathan From Choi Andrew Jul 1982 Galax.002". This is interesting on a number of levels. The date is barely one year after this same person put a message in the Interton VC-4000 game "Shoot Out," dated March of 1981. This may show that there was a big rush to get the initial Arcadia 2001 games all finished up. The "Galax.002" name is pretty obviously a reference to the arcade game Galaxian. Space Attack - Manual High quality scans of Space Attack box, manual, and cartridge are here: https://archive.org/details/SpaceAttackforEmersonArcadia2001 (I don't think that there is an overlay for this game; it certainly doesn't need one.) For complete information about this game, visit the above link. I've included the important points form the manual here: What Space Attack is All About The goal is to score as many points as possible. Points are gained by shooting down the invading enemy space ships with your missiles. The enemy space ships will fire rockets back at your missile launchers which you must avoid. Watch out for enemy space ships that will try to crash into your missile launcher. On the bottom-left side of the screen is located a fuel gauge to indicate the fuel of the missile in combat. When the gauge is indicating empty, a warning signal is heard. If the missile launcher continues fighting when the gauge indicates empty, the missile launcher explodes and the next one continues the combat. The number that is located on the bottom right side of the screen indicate the group of attackers, after group 1 is eliminated the second group of attacker appears on the screen and the number change to 2. The firing from the enemy space ships will be more and more intensive as the group number becomes greater. How to Play Space Attack This is a one player game which uses the RIGHT Hand Controller. Press "START." The enemy space ships will move and fire rockets at your missile launcher. Some of the enemy space ships will fly directly at your missile launcher. Avoid the incoming rockets and the enemy spaceships by moving your missile launcher to the left or right, using the disc or joystick control. Fire your missiles at the enemy spaceships by pressing the Action button on the side of your controller or keyboard buttons at middle column. The missile launcher will be eliminated when a missile hits it, or when it collides with a space ship. Another missile launcher will automatically appear. You start with three missile launchers. The missile launchers you have left are shown at the bottom-right corner. The game ends when all your missile launchers are destroyed. When your missiles have shot down all the enemy spaceships, a new squadron of spaceships appears and you continue to shoot them down. You receive an extra missile launcher as a bonus if you reach 5,000 points. Scoring Summary In formation In Flight 1st Row 2 Ships 60 points 200 points 2nd Row 5 Ships 50 points 100 points 3rd Row 7 Ships 40 points 80 points 4th Row 9 Ships 30 points 60 points 5th Row 9 Ships 30 points 60 points 6th Row 9 Ships 30 points 60 points If the final score is the highest achieved it will be automatically transferred to the upper-right side score when the "START" button is pressed for a new game. If it is not the highest score it will disappear. You will erase the Hi score if you push either the "RESET" or "POWER" buttons. You may enjoy demonstration mode by pressing the "Select" push button until the bottom/right side of the screen appears D1. Then the demonstration mode will begin automatically. Space Attack Gameplay Options There are no gameplay options for this game. Simply turn the game on and start to play it. That's easy enough, right? Space Attack (Scoring) We are playing for the highest score. 10 points are awarded for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc. Bonus Points There are a few ways to earn bonus points: Space Attack - Video Review - (1 Point) - Although I found examples of gameplay footage for this cartridge, I couldn't find any reviews. Anyone who makes a video review of Space Attack will get a bonus point. Space Attack - Documenting Bugs - (1 Point) - Arcadia games can be flaky. If anyone find any problems, and documents them, then you'll earn one bonus point. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Space Attack - Backstory - (1 Point) - I can't believe that Space Attack doesn't have any backstory at all. Anyone who writes a storyline for this game will get a bonus point. Are you a human on a mission to save Earth, or an alien on a mission to destroy it? Are you a lost pilot trying to find your way home, or... well, use your imagination and entertain us all! Summary of this Round As you play Space Attack, your energy level depletes pretty quickly. I've not played this game much yet, but from what I've played so far, I have not been able to complete a level without blowing up when my ship runs out of energy. I really don't like this feature of the game. Is there a way to gain energy, or to lose it more slowly? The first round of the Arcadia HSC was an experiment. We had six players, which was better than I expected. Can we get more people to compete this time? If you know of anyone who might like to compete in this round, then please let them know to stop by and play with us. I asked Albert on AtariAge if he'd start an Arcadia HSC forum, but I have not heard back for a week [or now, in late December]. Even if I don't hear back from him, then I'm going to just post the HSC rules for round two in the general classic gaming section in a couple of days. As always, as you play Space Attack, post pictures of your scores as the round progresses. You don't have to be a great game player (or even a good one) to participate; this is just a fun way to get us to play our Arcadia/MPT-03 game consoles-- which is what they're for, right? If you've not played in a round before, then now's the time to join in! Have a fun second round, everyone... and blast those baddies! Adam

As of today, December 22, 2017, the first season of the Arcadia High Score Club is wrapping up. The first two rounds were played on the Arcadia Yahoo Group. During season 3 of the Arcadia HSC, the rules were posted to both the Atari Age forums and the Yahoo group. The current round (round 7) gives everyone a chance to catch-up on games they haven't played yet or games that they would like to play again for a higher score. Here is a link to the catch-up round rules: http://http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273285-catch-up-round-for-arcadia-2001-high-score-club-season-1-round-7/ It has become important for non-Yahoo group members to be able to see the rules for the first two rounds, so I'm posting them again here on the AtariAge forums. The following rules for the first round's game, Cat Trax, were originally posted on October 2, 2017 at 8:50pm to the Yahoo group. If you're a Yahoo groups member, then you can read the rules here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/arcadia2001consoles/conversations/messages/2556 Here is the original post: Season 1, Round 1 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club will last about one week. This round ends on Sunday, October 8, 2017 at 10pm MST (aka Monday, 2am GMT). The game being played this round is Emerson's cartridge #1, Cat Trax, a maze game similar to Pac-Man. Here is a screenshot of Cat Trax being played in the WinArcadia emulator: Here is the box for Cat Trax: Here is the cartridge for the Emerson version of Cat Trax: Here is the keypad overlay for Cat Trax: Cat Trax - Quick-Play Rules Play Cat Trax on real hardware (PAL, NTSC, and any Arcadia family systems) or use the WinArcadia or MAME emulator. Visit the Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central website for cartridge images and Arcadia emulators: https://amigan.yatho.com/ Here is a direct link to the Arcadia 2001 ROM images ("CatTrax.bin" is the filename for Cat Trax): https://amigan.yatho.com/games.rar Post pictures of your high scores here. Play using the default settings Game 1 (warp and gates available) and Option 1 (three tunnel exits on each side of the screen). Remember, fire button "warps" you to random location in maze. You can open gates using any of keys in left-most column (1, 4, 7) and you can close gates using any keys in right-most column (3, 6, 9). For those that don't want more details, then you're set to play-- for more information (including how to earn bonus points), then read on... Cat Trax - General Overview I'm using Ward Shrake's "Director's Cut" of his Arcadia 2001 section of the Digital Press Collector's Guide 7 (published in August 2002) for most of the information that is in this section. Cat Trax is a 4KB cartridge released in 1982 in a long case. It uses the left-side controller. The game is by "UA Limited." This game was intended to be the Arcadia 2001 console group's legalized version of Pac-Man. It was not the first version made; Crazy Gobbler was apparently written before Cat Trax. The November 1982 Electronic Games had a positive review of this game, in which they note that it was barely finished at that time. Cat Trax is one of three games known to have been ported over to the Atari 2600 VCS console by "UA Limited" in 1983. (See also Funky Fish and Pleiades). Cat Trax - Manual High quality scans of Cat Trax box, manual, cartridge and keypad overlays are here: https://archive.org/details/CatTraxfortheArcadia2001 For complete information about this game, visit the above link. I've included the important points form the manual here: In Cat Trax, three dogs chase a cat around a maze. In this game, you have the ability to somewhat control the maze by opening and closing gates using the keypad on the Arcadia's controller. You can also turn the tables on the dog by turning into a dogcatcher. Object of the Game 1. The game is about 3 Dogs chasing after a Cat. 2. There are 4 different games plus 8 additional options which make a total of 32 possible play combinations. Games and options will be described later in more details. 3. The purpose of this game is to score as many points as possible. 4. Points are achieved when the Cat eats the Catnip (Dots), apple, fish and Dogs themselves, (see VI. Scoring) 5. Each game can be run with 3 Cats continuously. 6. Initially the Cat will be chased by the Dogs. However, it can turn the tables by eating a fish appears randomly in the middle of the screen for a certain period. Then the Cat will change into a Dog Catching Truck and a countdown timing will appear inside the upper past of the doghouse. Within the countdown period, the Dogs can be caught by the Dog Catching Truck and they will be sent back to stay in the doghouse automatically until the countdown timing is finished. 7. When the Cat eats a fish at the first frame, the countdown timing unit will start from 5.0 (actual timing is about 30 seconds). However, if the Cat succeeds to clean up all Catnip (Dots), a second frame will be continued. At this second frame, the countdown timing unit for the Dog Catching Truck starts from 4.0 (actual timing is about 25 seconds). In the third frame, the countdown timing unit for the Dog Catching Truck starts from 3.0 (actual timing is about 20 seconds). And from the forth frame onward, the countdown timing unit will always start from 2.0 (actual timing is about 15 seconds) until the game is over. 8. The apples and fish will appear at random. When eaten by the Cat you get additional points (See VI. Scoring). They will then reappear at random at a later time. 9. You have 3 Cats to run for each game. After all Cats being eaten by the Dogs, the game is over. The highest score will store in the computer memory and appear on the top right of the screen. If it is not the highest, then it will disappear when the Start button on the console is being pressed. Cat Trax Gameplay Options We will be play using the default settings: Game 1 - Warp and gates available Option 1 - Three tunnel exits on each side of the screen. Cat Trax (Scoring): We are playing for the highest score. 10 points are awarded for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc. If more than ten people play, then I'll figure something out... Bonus Points There are a couple of ways to earn bonus points. Cat Trax - Video Review - (1 Point) - Although I found examples of gameplay footage for this cartridge, I couldn't find any reviews. Anyone who makes a video review of Cat Trax will get a bonus point. Cat Trax - Documenting Bugs - (1 Point) - Arcadia games can be flaky. If anyone find any problems, and documents them, then you'll earn one bonus point. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Summary I asked if anyone wanted to compete in an Arcadia 2001 High Score Club, and a few people answered the call. Think of this first round as an experiment. We'll Play Cat Trax for a week and post pictures of our scores as the week progresses. You don't have to be a great game player (or even a good one) to participate; this is just a fun way to get us to play our Arcadia/MPT-03 game consoles-- which is what they're for, right? I hope that this round gets people who love to talk about the Arcadia console family, but don't play it much to grab their (possibly) dust-covered old friend, plug it in and play a few rounds. For those who don't have a real console, or who don't own this particular game, then play along with us using emulation. Have a fun first round, everyone! Adam

Season 1, Round 4 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club will last about two weeks. This round ends on Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 10pm MST (aka Monday, 2am GMT). The game being played this round is Funky Fish, an unreleased game (in the United States) for the Emerson Arcadia 2001. Funky Fish is a home port of a hard-to-find arcade game released in 1981 by Sun Electronics. I was able to get high resolution scans of the Funky Fish box, manual, cartridge and overlays for the Italian GiG Electronics Leonardo game system (a member of the Arcadia family), so that's what I'm presenting here. Special thanks to Mark Canon for scanning his own material for this rare game. Funky Fish was also released for Monaco Leisure's Tunix Home Arcade (New Zealand), Schmid TVG-2000 (Germany) and possibly also for a Hanimex system (but I'm not sure exactly for which console or country). Leonardo's cartridge #23, Funky Fish was also supposed to be released for the Emerson Arcadia 2001 game system as cartridge #4, but the game remained unreleased in America. Here is a screenshot of Funky Fish being played on an NTSC Emerson Arcadia console: Here is a three minute YouTube video of Funky Fish being played by "GuiasInfojuegos." He published this on March 3, 2013: Here is the box for Funky Fish: Here is the cartridge for the Leonardo version of Funky Fish: Here are the overlays for Funky Fish: Sometime in the (I think) early 2000s, AtariAge.com released an Atari 2600 version of Funky Fish that had been found in prototype form. It had been programmed in 1983. Here are the front and back of the Atari 2600 release of Funky Fish: Funky Fish - Quick-Play Rules Play Funky Fish for high score on real hardware (PAL, NTSC, and any Arcadia family systems) or use the WinArcadia or MAME emulator. Other than for a two-player game, Funky Fish has no gameplay options. Visit the Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central website for cartridge images and Arcadia emulators: https://amigan.yatho.com/ Here is a direct link to the Arcadia 2001 ROM images ("FunkyFish.bin" is the filename for Funky Fish): https://amigan.yatho.com/games.rar Post pictures of your Funky Fish high scores here. Use the right-hand controller to play the game. The fire button, or any button on the gamepad, shoots your weapon. You can "freeze" (pause) the game by pressing the bottom-most button on the left-hand column of keys on the left controller. You can "un-freeze" the game by pressing the bottom-most button on the right-hand column. Funky Fish - General Overview I'm using Ward Shrake's "Director's Cut" of his Arcadia 2001 section of the Digital Press Collector's Guide 7 (published in August 2002) for most of the information that is in this section. Funky Fish - 8k cart. 1983. Tunix #28. Licensed port of an obscure arcade game. Emerson catalogs from 5/82 and 7/82 say this game was "coming soon" but the game was never released in the USA. It was released by a handful of companies in non-U.S. markets. Those catalogs said; "Copyright 1981 Sun Electronics Corporation, Licensed by Tehkan International Corporation". The Tunix cart we archived came in long cart form, with a front label similar to the catalog's artwork. There may or may not be a rear label; Tunix carts in general were never very consistent from batch to batch. There is a hidden message found inside the program at $0FBB - 0FFB: "GAME COPYRIGHT 1983 UA LTD; GRAPHICS COPYRIGHT 1983 CHRIS CAPENER". Michael Davidson tracked Mr. Capener down, and we managed to ask him a few questions just before press time. He says that he wrote this game on contract with "UA Limited". He had never programmed that console before. He was given a Signetics development system, some manuals, and some example programming routines. He had three months to learn how to program the console, and to write the game from scratch. He says he wrote all of the game; he was not sure why the hidden message was worded like it was. LANDMARK: This game was later ported over to the Atari 2600 game system. We know this because Bill Esquivel, an Atari 2600 collector, found a 2600 cart with this title on its label. He said in a May 17, 1998 Usenet post on "rec.games.video.classic" that the 2600 game's title screen says "funky fish, round 1, lic tehkan corp 1983 ua ltd." See also "Cat Trax" and "Pleaides" for more intriguing info on other games ported over from the Arcadia to the 2600 in 1983 by UA Limited. Chris Capener did not know anything about this port; we asked. High quality scans of the Funky Fish box, manual, and cartridge are here: https://archive.org/details/FunkyFishGiGElectronicsLeonardoArcadia2001FamilyBoxScan01Front For complete information about this game, visit the above link. I've included the important points form the manual here: Funky Fish Cart #23 for the Leonardo Video Game Instructions Introducing Funky Fish Don't be fooled -- at first glance Funky Fish may look like an innocuous creature from an uneventful environment, but look closer! Beneath the calm surface of the water a determined power struggle is in progress! His underwater world is populated with fascinating organisms -- and all of them can paralyze him at a touch! Naturally, Funky Fish has to be armed to survive in this ecosystem, and he is -- he can spit a poisonous dart at will with deadly accuracy. The cast in this submarine drama reads like a biology lesson, but it's much more exciting than that! Funky Fish vies with pink Asymetra and blue Photogyra for water space, but don't worry -- you don't have to remember the names, just remember that they're deadly! Now you no longer need be merely an observer outside the fish tank, with Funky Fish you can actually participate in the action! Your family and friends are going to enjoy the opportunity of being underwater without a bulky oxygen tank, too! It doesn't take long to become an expert, and when you are you can chalk up some really big points. Just read the instruction booklet and then have fun being in the swim! How to Play Funky Fish begins the conquest for mastery of the tank's ecosystem in the middle of five underwater sectors, the outside two of which are uninhabited in Round 1 only. You can see which sector you're in by watching the pink indicator in the top right of your screen -- white means occupied and blue means empty. OK Funky -- start swimming! You're in the sector controlled by the blue Binaria species. Listen and you'll hear the noise of the adult Binaria pulsating as she releases lethal Microns into the water. You can see that Funky has no ears, but he can hear vibrations in the water through his sensitive skin. Spear those little Microns with your poisonous dart and eat them when they become cherries! You have to be agile and avoid contact with any of the organisms, because with one touch your flesh shrivels and only your skeleton remains! After Funky devours six Binaria Microns, the adult Binaria transforms into a single cell containing a high concentration of energy. Swim in immediately and absorb energy -- watch it register on the horizontal indicator at the top left of the screen. Once your energy is renewed you start scoring for as long as the Binaria energy countdown lasts. Fix your beady eye on the countdown in the top middle of the screen and watch your score take off as soon as your energy is replenished! Now you're full of pep for the next sector! You can go either way -- let's go right for now, and encounter the pink Asymmetra. Don't forget that all organisms are lethal, even though they look so cute. Do the same to the Asymmetra as you did to the Binaria, and when you see the energy cell, go for it -- because if you run out of energy you lose a fish! If you've survived so far, well done! Now swim to the next sector, which is back to the left, and prey upon the pink Protozon Microns in the same manner. If you make it through Round 1, the other six Rounds have an added challenge. Poisonous pink seahorses float up from the depths at random -- so stay alert! All the following Rounds have all five sectors occupied with organisms, and the two extra ones are the blue Photogyra in the far right area and the blue Cytozoa in the far left! Have a look at the table under "Variations of the Game" for more data, because the odds change in each Round as the level of difficulty increases. So now you know what to do, you can concentrate on maximizing your score and have a lot of fun in the process! Variations of the Game Funky Fish can be played with one or two players at a time. The bottom line of the initial display tells you which version is in operation, and can be changed by pressing the SELECT button. One Player Game Use the right-hand controller for moving Funky Fish around. The present score is on the second from top line on the right hand side of your screen, and the Hi-score is displayed on the left side. Two Player Game Each player must complete the Round in turn before you can progress to the next one. The second from top line on your screen displays the scores of both players simultaneously. A small fish next to either of the scores will indicate who the current player is. The number of fish remaining for each player is shown on each side of the top line on your screen. In both versions of Funky Fish, the area between the scores shows the number of remaining Microns of the species just eaten. When an adult organism transforms into an energy cell, its countdown will take the place of the number of Microns until it reaches 0. The table below will outline variations in the game as the Rounds progress -- not quite as easy as you thought, is it? Round Number of Adult Number of Speed of Organisms Microns Microns 1 3 6 x 1 2 5 6 x 1 3 5 8 x 1 4 5 10 x 1 5 5 10 x 1.33 6 5 10 x 2 7 5 10 x 4 Don't forget the deadly sea-horses from Round 2 onwards! Starting the Game Press START and the game begins. If you want to see a demonstration of the game, press START and wait. After about ten seconds the Demo Mode will automatically take over and shows an example of Round 2 action, with Funky Fish firing darts at random. To stop the Demo Mode press RESET. For "Freeze" press "Clear" and for "Unfreeze" press "Enter" on the left hand controller, or refer to the overlay provided for the controller. This is either a one-player or a two-player game. Press select to choose which game while the initial display shows on the screen. For one-player game use right-hand controller only. Using the Controllers Press the disc or move the joystick in the direction in which you want Funky Fish to swim. For instance, move it to the left if you want Funky Fish to swim to the left, or right for right, up for up and down for down. Press any button the controller, including the red ones, and Funky will spit his deadly dart. He has a limitless supply of darts. Freezing the Game Rrrrrring -- rrrrring! Rrrrrring -- rrrrring! Oh no -- that's the telephone ringing right in the middle of a game! Don't worry, Funky Fish has a unique feature -- just press FREEZE (CLEAR) on your left hand controller and the game stops instantaneously and waits for you to deal with the interruption. When you're ready again press UNFREEZE (ENTER) on your left hand controller and the action and sound continues where you left off. If necessary you can also reduce the volume on your TV until it's time for you to play again, but don't forget to turn it back on! Scoring The computer will score for you automatically, and retain the highest score in its memory bank for you or your friends to challenge in the one-player game. To keep the highest score on the screen, just press the START button for the next game. If you press the RESET button all scores will be wiped out. If you can get your score up to 30,000 a bonus fish is awarded. Now see what the Microns are worth: Round Points for Each Micron 1 100 2 100 3 100 4 100 5 200 6 500 7 1000 Tips to Keep Funky Fish in the Swim The quicker Funky can spear and eat the Microns the better -- he uses up less energy and then has more time to increase his score while in the energy cell. Watch out -- sometimes those crafty organisms release two Microns close together! Shoot twice before getting too near in case you miss one and it wipes you out! Eat up the cherries as fast as you can -- occasionally they just disappear! While in the energy cell keep a lookout for seahorses -- you're still fair game as far as they're concerned! Happy playing! Interview with Chris Capener, Programmer of Funky Fish Ward Shrake posted this "interview" with Chris Capener, the programmer of Funky Fish, to the Arcadia Yahoo group on November 28, 2002. This is the entire text version of the interview, including Ward's introduction and comments. The following is an edited interview with Chris Capener, who (among other cool things) programmed the game "Funky Fish" for the Arcadia 2001 family of consoles. The interview was originally conducted in April 2002 by two people (Ward Shrake and Michael Davidson) across multiple back-and-forth e-mails, making it necessary to edit the raw texts for clarity, space and orderly sequence, to become the interview below. All of Mr. Capener's comments are included here; nothing was held back if it had anything to do with the Arcadia 2001's history. To keep this text on-topic as much as possible, much of the back-story about the Arcadia 2001 console group's history was intentionally left out. Interested readers can read up on that through other sources, such as the recently printed book -- the "Digital Press Collectors Guide" (version seven) -- or on the "Yahoo! Groups" message boards where we hobbyist game researchers meet. Please note: often enough, it has been this game researcher's experience that a person's memory of long-ago events may at times be partially inaccurate, even if they had correct information to begin with, which is not always the case. I therefore mildly caution readers to take this interview as a good starting point for continued research, and not as finished "Gospel". For instance, Mr. Capener once says that "UA Limited" may have been a "contract manufacturer for Emerson". While UAL may have indeed been a contractor of some sorts, recent research makes it appear unlikely that Emerson was in charge of much of anything. Emerson was a (rather late) licensee in the United States, and that appears to be all. Philips, Signetics, and UA Limited were really the decision-making companies behind the global spread of this console and its game carts. But they may all have allowed or encouraged misleading information by various global licensees, making modern research difficult even when you are talking to a person like Chris Capener who helped write part of the console group's game software library. Enjoy the interview! We continue to be grateful to Mr. Capener for talking to us. -- Ward Shrake, November 2002 -- [Matt Reichert acquired an original copy of the hard-to-find cartridge game called "Funky Fish," made by Tunix of New Zealand for their local version of the Arcadia 2001 game console. He graciously loaned it to Ward Shrake for archiving purposes. Ward dumped the game's ROM image, then as is his habit, he looked through the ROM code for any hidden ASCII text messages. Such a message was found; it reads exactly as follows.] "GAME COPYRIGHT 1983 UA LTD; GRAPHICS COPYRIGHT 1983 CHRIS CAPENER". [Ward Shrake then passed this information to a small group of amateur video game history researchers he knew from the Internet. Michael Davidson then set out to see if he could track this named individual down, using the Google search engine and other resources. When Michael had successfully located the correct individual, he asked some brief initial questions. Mr. Capener's full response to Michael is as follows.] "Yes, I worked on Funky Fish and Jumpman Jr. (ColecoVision). UA Limited was a Hong Kong based company. I think they did OEM electronics manufacturing for various companies. So, I believe they were the contract manufacturer for Emerson. Funky Fish was the reason I first came to Silicon Valley. I had a three month contract to write the game for the Arcadia console. I took a leave of absence from my current job and moved out to the San Jose, CA area. During that time I met a programmer at StarPath and took a job there when Funky Fish was done. StarPath was later bought out by Epyx, where I ported Jumpman Jr. from the Commodore to Colecovision. All these games were written in assembly language. So porting meant playing it on one console and then writing the code and re-creating the graphics for the target system. Once I was here in Silicon Valley, I never went back." [Feeling he was not entirely sure what questions to ask next, Michael then turned the interview over to Ward. Ward introduced himself to Mr. Capener, noting that he was then writing the Arcadia 2001 section of the "Digital Press Collectors Guide" and would like to include whatever information he could get, in version seven of that printed book. The press deadline for that version was just a few weeks away, so Ward attempted to prioritize his questions and keep them relatively light. Ward first asked about the source materials that were supplied to Mr. Capener, during the conversion process from an original arcade game, to a cartridge game that would run on a home gaming console.] "This goes back a long time. I remember having the arcade game and some notes to work from." [Ward then asked about the specific hiring process, explaining that we researchers have only a very limited amount of knowledge about the currently mysterious "UA Limited" company, who seem to have been responsible for much of the Arcadia's game library.] "A former college roommate was related to an officer (president?) of UA. He approached me with the contract offer." [When asked about the hardware and software tools and training materials that were made available for writing the game, Mr. Capener responded as follows.] "I had a development system from Signetics with manuals for the processor and chipset of the console. I did not have contact with any other programmers. It was pretty much learn as you go. I believe that some utility routines and sample code came with the development system." [Figuring it was a long-shot but worth asking anyway, Ward asked if Mr. Capener knew anything about the overall licensing process itself, as it applied to other UAL games. Also, if he knew anything about the three games - Funky Fish, Cat Trax, and Pleiades -- that were later ported by UAL to the rival Atari 2600 machine, sometime during 1983.] "Sorry, I have no information on licensing or other ports of the games." [Ward asked for a clarification on the game ROM's hidden ASCII text message.] "I am not sure why the copyright is stated the way it is. Certainly the graphics had to be re-interpreted for the different resolution of the Arcadia. Perhaps since this was a port, it was felt that the overall copyright covering the game concept and game play should remain with UA. But I do know that I was the only one working on the port and that I did also write the code. (Except for the supplied utility routines.)" [Ward asked for a more specific date of creation, since most of the games for this home console were done in either 1982 or 1983, making a detailed timeline hard to create.] "As far as I can reconstruct, the port was done in the late summer/early fall of 1982." [Ward then asked for clarification on the actual hardware and/or software that made up the "development system from Signetics" mentioned above, but never got an answer on that. He was not overly surprised at its absence, given the way information about this console group was originally handled by those who were behind making it all. It seems that these secretive people-in-charge felt that "compartmentalization" was often a wise policy? In other words, sub-contractors or other non-insiders were rarely given much more information than they each really needed. Each separate outsider we meet seems to have been given a few pieces of the global puzzle, but they seldom had more. Some may be surprised, when they find out what consoles are now proven to be related to others, or to hear how widely these consoles managed to spread, globally. Modern researchers are only piecing things together as well as we have, because the Internet makes Global information-sharing much easier than it once was. In any case, at this point Ward felt that he ran a real risk of being a nuisance if he kept questioning Mr. Capener much longer. The book's press deadline was also rapidly approaching, so Ward decided to just leave Mr. Capener alone for awhile. Later, if and when we are able to uncover more raw information from other sources, maybe we will have additional good questions to ask? For now, it seems we're better off saving up for a "Round Two" when we have run out of sources like outside contractors to find more puzzle pieces. It is this author's opinion that until we compare notes from many such sources, we won't have enough new information ourselves, to be able to ask well-educated questions. An example of this is the three ported games that went to the rival Atari 2600 in 1983. It is still a mystery how "Cat Trax" ended up being included on an overseas, perhaps Atari-made "2600 Jr." console, which had 128 games built into it from the factory. The true relationships between the Elektor computer, the Interton VC-4000, and the Arcadia console groups are still cloudy, since people that worked on one machine rarely saw the others, thereby making things like identifying a "development system" difficult at best. So Ward now thanked Mr. Capener again for his time and answers, and left him alone.] End of interview Funky Fish Gameplay Options Funky Fish has no gameplay options. Play it in either one or two player mode. Just insert the cart, turn on the system and press the Start button and you're ready to go. It doesn't get any easier than that! Funky Fish (Scoring) We are playing for the highest score. 10 points are awarded for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc. Funky Fish (Bonus Points): There are quite a few ways to earn bonus points this round: Funky Fish - Video Review - (1 Point) - I did find gameplay footage of this game, but I couldn't find any video reviews. Anyone who makes a video review of Funky Fish will get a bonus point. Funky Fish - Documenting Bugs - (1 Point) - Arcadia games can be flaky. If anyone find any problems, and documents them, then you'll earn one bonus point. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Funky Fish - Backstory - (1 Point) - Funky Fish, as presented in the manual for the Leonardo version of the game, has plenty of background material already provided. Remember when manuals weren't readily available on the Internet? Then we had to figure-out the games for ourselves and come up with our own ideas for why we were supposed to be doing. What's the deal with Funky Fish? According to you, what's his motivation? Funky Fish - Atari 2600 Version - (1 Point) - Play the Atari 2600 version of this game and earn a bonus point. Funky Fish - Arcade Version - (1 Point) - Play the arcade version of Funky Fish and earn a bonus point. Summary Though I have played Funky Fish before, I'm not overly familiar with it. During this round I look forward to learning its ins and outs. I'm also going to compare it to the Arcade version and to the 2600 home port. We didn't get any players for round three of the HSC from AtariAge.com, but I'm hoping that this round attracts a few additional players/competitors. Are you one of them? As always, as you play Funky Fish, please post pictures of your scores as the round progresses. Not only does this help you not forget to play the game, but it gives other player's a challenge to try to beat your score. If you've not played in a round before now, then now's the time to join in! Have a fun fourth round, everyone... and don't be worried if this is your first round of play. We've all got to start somewhere, right? Adam

There is an Emerson Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club that is running on the Arcadia 2001 Consoles Yahoo group. You have to be a member to view or post on that group, so I'm opening the HSC to AtariAge forum users too. If you're interested in joining the Arcadia Yahoo group, then you can join the other 128 members here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/arcadia2001consoles/info Season 1, Round 3 of the Arcadia 2001/MPT-03 High Score Club will last about two weeks (although, as I post this here on AtariAge, there is only about one week left). This round ends on Sunday, November 5, 2017 at 10pm MST (aka Monday, 2am GMT). The game being played this round is Emerson's cartridge #3, Escape, a game that is similar to Berzerk. Here is a screenshot of Escape being played on an NTSC Emerson Arcadia console: Classic Game Room published a video review of Escape on January 17, 2017: Here is the box for Escape (I nominate it for worst Arcade 2001 box art): Here is the cartridge for the Emerson version of Escape: Here are the overlays for Escape: The Emerson manual doesn't have a game description for Escape, but I found one in a Tunix game catalog that looks like this: This is the game's description from the Tunix catalog: You're trapped in a maze of electrified walls surrounded by aliens who can attack you from eight different directions. Then your troubles really begin! A death-dealing, indestructible spinner appears on the screen and it's aiming straight for you! The spinner is capable of penetrating the electric walls and is immune to all bullets. Help! It doesn't look like you've got a chance. Points are won when you destroy Escape - Quick-Play Rules Play Escape for high score on real hardware (PAL, NTSC, and any Arcadia family systems) or use the WinArcadia or MAME emulator. Play Game 2, Option 2. For more on options settings see that section below. Visit the Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central website for cartridge images and Arcadia emulators: https://amigan.yatho.com/ Here is a direct link to the Arcadia 2001 ROM images ("ESCAPE.BIN" is the filename for Escape): https://amigan.yatho.com/games.rar Post pictures of your high scores here. Use the left-hand controller to play the game. The fire button, or any button on the gamepad, shoots your weapon. You can "freeze" (pause) the game by pressing the left-hand column of keys. You can "un-freeze" the game by pressing the right-hand column. Escape - General Overview I'm using Ward Shrake's "Director's Cut" of his Arcadia 2001 section of the Digital Press Collector's Guide 7 (published in August 2002) for most of the information that is in this section. Escape by Emerson. Confirmed. 4k cart. 1982. #1015 (3). One player; left side controller. Game by "UA Limited". Long case. A common Arcadia game that is best described as a "legalized" version of the game "Robot Killer" (not released for the Arcadia family in the United States), which is a much more blatant copy of the arcade game "Berzerk". Comparing ROM images has shown they are based on the same code with just a few changes. The main ones are that they changed the way Evil Otto acts, so that portion of the game isn't a blatant copy. Other than that, it appears like they changed the shape and/or color of the robot's graphics. High quality scans of Space Attack box, manual, and cartridge are here: https://archive.org/details/EscapeVideogameforEmersonArcadia2001 For complete information about this game, visit the above link. I've included the important points form the manual here: Object Of The Game There are 4 different games plus 4 options which make a total of 16 possible play combinations. The purpose of the game is to score as many points as possible. Points are achieved when the MAN destroys the Electrified ALIENS by shooting in one of eight directions. If the MAN destroys all ALIENS in one maze then it results a 200 points extra bonus. Whenever the MAN escapes from the maze you get 100 points. Although the MAN has 4 lives, he may be killed as the Electrified ALIENS shoot at him. He can also be destroyed upon collision with Electrified ALIENS or the electrified walls of the maze or by the SPINNER which attacks the MAN from time to time after game play has progressed. A SPINNER will appear after game is started and will spin for 30 seconds aiming for the MAN. The SPINNER is capable of penetrating the electrified walls and is immune to all bullets. The SPINNER therefore is indestructible. After attacking, the SPINNER will spin again for a shorter period before a second attack. Within the spinning period, the SPINNER is absolutely harmless. The firing frequency interval will be shortened after each unsuccessful attack. However the tracking accuracy of SPINNER increases with each shot. After 7th shot it will surely track you down. When the MAN escapes from the maze, the next maze will appear. Eight room mazes are provided and will be called up randomly. The Various Games Game 1 - The ALIENS will not shoot at the MAN. Game 2 - The ALIENS can shoot only 1 bullet at the moment anytime. Game 3 - The ALIENS can shoot two bullets at a time. Game 4 - The ALIENS can shoot three bullets at a time. Option 1 - Eight ALIENS all capable of motion. Option 2 - Twelve ALIENS all capable of motion. Option 3 - Sixteen ALIENS all capable of motion. Option 4 - Twenty ALIENS all capable of motion. To Play The Game This is a one player game. Use the left controller only. Press any number on Keyboard to start the action Press Disc (or move Joystick) to direct the "MAN" where to go. i.e., press Disc/Joystick on left (9 o'clock) to move to left, 3 o'clock to move to right, 6 o'clock to move down and 12 o'clock to move up or move to 45° etc. To shoot, squeeze either Action Switch at the side of hand controller or press any number on keyboard. The shooting direction is controlled by the Disc/Joystick. Continue to play until screen reads "Game over". To maintain highest score on the screen, merely press "Start" button for the next game. Do not depress "reset" otherwise all scores will be wiped out. Scoring Escape from the maze - 100 points Each green ALIEN destroyed - 40 points Each red ALIEN destroyed - 30 points Each yellow ALIEN destroyed - 30 points Each small green ALIEN destroyed - 50 points Destroy ALL ALIENS in one maze - 200 points extra bonus (Last Monster destroyed will not have scoring point) Escape Gameplay Options This game is too easy on the default settings. Play Game 2, Option 2. Game 2 allows the aliens to shoot one bullet at the time (default setting is zero). Option 2 has twelve aliens on the screen. For more on options settings see "The Various Games" section (above). If the game seems too easy (or, more unlikely, too hard) then we may adjust the gameplay options for this game. Escape (Scoring): We are playing for the highest score. 10 points are awarded for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc. Escape (Bonus Points): There are a few ways to earn bonus points: Escape - Video Review - (1 Point) - I found a few video reviews of this game (maybe because it's common?), but it's always nice to see other people's opinions. Anyone who makes a video review of Escape will get a bonus point. Escape - Documenting Bugs - (1 Point) - Arcadia games can be flaky. If anyone find any problems, and documents them, then you'll earn one bonus point. We found quite a few bugs for Space Attack in the last round; let's see if we can do the same for this game. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Escape - Backstory - (1 Point) - I can't believe that Escape doesn't have any backstory at all. Well, that's not entirely true. The Tunix version of Escape has a brief backstory, at least in the game catalog. Anyone who writes a storyline for this Escape will get a bonus point. It would be simple to base this game's backstory on Berzerk, but that would be cheating; come up with something original. How about no robots? Summary While testing Escape for this round, my memory served me well. This game plays painfully slow. Maybe it's possible to get used to it? I guess we'll find out. I contacted Albert about creating an AtariAge sub-forum for the Arcadia family, but I still haven't heard back from him.. In the last round I said that I would just post the HSC in the general forum. I never did that for rounds 1 or 2... so I'm finally doing it now. As always, as you play Escape, please post pictures of your scores as the round progresses. Not only does this help you not forget to play the game, but it gives other player's a challenge to try to beat your score. If you've not played in a round before now, then now's the time to join in! Have a fun third round, everyone! Adam

Ward Shrake has given me permission to host the latest version (January 7, 2003) of his "Digital Archaeology: Arcadia 2001" website. This site, in this version, has been offline for quite a few years. This site originally was hosted on Digital Press's servers (www.digitpress.com) and later at ward's own domain (http://home.att.net/~wards.game.history/arcadia/). Think of this version of ward's website as a time capsule. It's exactly as you would have viewed it in 2003; nothing has been changed. You can view the website here: http://www.orphanedgames.com/DigitalArchaeologyArcadia2001 The picture on the front page of the Arcadia 2001 site has a store that appears to have a sign that says "Prototype Thrift Shop," as you can see here: The picture is not doctored in any way. It would be great if there was a thrift shop that only sold prototypes, but this isn't (of course!) the case here. This is a picture of two stores that are (were?) right next to each other in California. One store, I guess, creates prototypes for companies and the other store is, you guessed it, a thrift shop. James Jacobs also hosts another version of Ward's site, which is slightly older (from Aug 18, 2002). You can view that version here: http://amigan.1emu.net/digarch/ If you want to time warp back nearly fifteen years, then check out this classic-era website! Not only will you get a glimpse into the state of where collecting for the Arcadia family stood in 2003, but you'll get a not-to-subtle reminder of the classic look of many typical amateur websites of that era. Adam

Looking to buy the remaining cartridges for my Tempest MPT-03 collection. Currently chasing MPT-08 American Football (currently working out a purchase with someone at the moment) MPT-322 Space Vulture MPT-326 Escape MPT-327 Super Gobbler MPT-328 Space Raider MPT-329 ??? MPT-330 Horse Racing MPT-331 ??? MPT-332 ??? Loose, complete or anywhere in between is fine. I'd prefer to buy outright but I do have a number of doubles if requested.

My Tempest MPT-03 arrived today in the mail and when the seller was testing it before postage they found that the console no longer powers on. I would like to bring it back to life if possible.

I recently acquired an Intelligent Game MPT-03 system and only have one game. If anybody out there has any MPT-03 games (or any of the games compatible with this system) let me know as these seem hard to find.