Games firstly programmed on Atari

[+Philsan]

I am building a website dedicated to our computers.

Yet another one? No, it is in Italian and it seems that Atari 8-bit don't have one in Dante's language.

http://www.santellocco.com/atari

I need to know what are the most important games programmed firstly on Atari.

 

I think these one are in the list:

Star Raiders, 1979, Atari

Fort Apocalypse, 1982, Synapse

Soccer, 1982, Thorn EMI Video (excuse me, I am European)

Archon, 1983, Electronic Arts

Attack of the Mutant Camels, 1983, Llamasoft

Beach-Head, 1983, Access Software

M.U.L.E., 1983, Electronic Arts

Pharaoh's Curse, 1983, Synapse

Solo Flight, 1983, Microprose

Spelunker, 1983, Brøderbund

Ballblazer, 1984, Lucasfilm Games

Boulder Dash, 1984, First Star Software

Bruce Lee, 1984, Datasoft

Dropzone, 1984, Mindscape

Montezuma's Revenge, 1984, Parker Brothers

Rescue on Fractalus, 1984

Seven Cities of Gold, 1984, Electronic Arts

Alternate Reality, 1985, Datasoft

Star Raiders II, Atari, 1986

 

What about these?

BC Quest for Tires

Decathlon

The Eidolon

Gladiator

Gunfight

The Goonies

H.E.R.O.

Kennedy Approach

Koronis Rift

NATO Commander

Neptune's Daughter

Pitstop

Pitstop II

Space Shuttle

Strip Poker

Zorro

 

Other titles are welcome!

Edited September 12, 2008 by Philsan

[Goochman]

Shamus

[Nukey Shay]

Eastern Front 1941...this game virtually created the strategic simulation genre.

 

 

BTW many of the titles in the OP were ported to the 8-bit Atari (ones that originally appeared on AppleII, C64, and yes...even the 2600).

[Rybags]

Probably most of the Synapse catalog.

 

The first 4 Lucasfilm games.

 

Probably all the APX games that were also on other systems (Caverns of Mars etc)

 

Quite a few from the English Software catalog.

 

Possibly some of the early Epyx ones.

 

 

If it's pre-1982 and didn't appear on Apple or TRS-80, then there's a fair chance it was Atari first.

[[email protected]]

I am building a website dedicated to our computers.

Yet another one? No, it is in Italian and it seems that Atari 8-bit don't have one in Dante's language.

http://www.santellocco.com/atari

I need to know what are the most important games programmed firstly on Atari.

 

I think these one are in the list:

Star Raiders, 1979, Atari

Fort Apocalypse, 1982, Synapse

Soccer, 1982, Thorn EMI Video (excuse me, I am European)

Archon, 1983, Electronic Arts

Attack of the Mutant Camels, 1983, Llamasoft

Beach-Head, 1983, Access Software

M.U.L.E., 1983, Electronic Arts

Pharaoh's Curse, 1983, Synapse

Solo Flight, 1983, Microprose

Spelunker, 1983, Brøderbund

Ballblazer, 1984, Lucasfilm Games

Boulder Dash, 1984, First Star Software

Bruce Lee, 1984, Datasoft

Dropzone, 1984, Mindscape

Montezuma's Revenge, 1984, Parker Brothers

Rescue on Fractalus, 1984

Seven Cities of Gold, 1984, Electronic Arts

Alternate Reality, 1985, Datasoft

Star Raiders II, Atari, 1986

 

What about these?

BC Quest for Tires

Decathlon

The Eidolon

Gladiator

Gunfight

The Goonies

H.E.R.O.

Kennedy Approach

Koronis Rift

NATO Commander

Neptune's Daughter

Pitstop

Pitstop II

Space Shuttle

Strip Poker

Zorro

 

Other titles are welcome!

 

These are C64 I believe, but I might be wrong.

Attack of the Mutant Camels, 1983, Llamasoft

Beach-Head, 1983, Access Software

 

 

I think Draconus, Zybex, Cavernia deserves a mention, great games. In my opinion, the most important games on Atari 8-bit, some mentioned before :

Star Raiders (The one that made me an Atarian)

Alternate Reality (Gilbertson's music is brilliant in the City)

Wayout (great smooth 3-D)

Ballblaster/Ballbazer (Brilliant 3-D feeling, excellent music and fun with two players)

Rescue on Fractalus/Behind Jaggi Lines (it gave me Star Wars feelings and scared us when the pilot wasn't friendly, excellently programmed and speedwise, it was miles better than the C64)

Dropzone (Archers best effort ... the explosion sound is great)

M.U.L.E. (4 player Atari 800 experience of my life ... we had loads of fun with this)

 

Take Atarian care

 

Pokey Soft http://pokeysoft.no/index.htm, Hawk's homepage : http://pokeysoft.no/games/

[mimo]

miner 2049er and Bounty Bob Strikes back I believe

And maybe check on Attack of the mutant camels, maybe on the Vic20 first?

Edited September 13, 2008 by mimo

[carmel_andrews]

i think miner 2049r was originally done for the TRS80

[deathtrappomegranate]

i think miner 2049r was originally done for the TRS80

No. Miner 2049er was A8 first.

[mimo]

Bill Hogue:

The version of Miner 2049er for the Atari home computers was the original version that spawned all the other licensed versions. We produced a version for Atari 5200 (running essentially the same code) and developed a version for the black and white TRS-80 computers but never released it.

 

Just about every computer imaginable had a ported version. These included Apple, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, IBM PC, and many, many others. Barry Friedman of ICG did a terrific job licensing all these different versions. Miner was the truly the first cross-licensing success story

 

http://www.bigfivesoftware.com/index.asp

[www.atarimania.com]

BC Quest for Tires

Apple? I believe it came out on a number of platforms simultaneously.

 

The following should be Atari first:

The Eidolon

Gladiator (it was just Atari and C64 anyway)

Koronis Rift

NATO Commander

Pitstop

Strip Poker (or Apple?)

 

Decathlon

HERO

Space Shuttle

2600.

Gunfight

From the arcade game.

 

The Goonies

Zorro

Not sure about Zorro but The Goonies is definitely Apple.

 

Kennedy Approach

Neptune's Daughter

Pitstop II

The first one needs confirmation but certain about the other two.

 

You forgot Encounter!, Mercenary and the Spy vs. Spy series among others.

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

Edited September 13, 2008 by www.atarimania.com

[+Philsan]

Thanks for your informations.

Here you can see my updated work:

http://www.santellocco.com/atari/info.htm

 

In the first group you can see games originally programmed for Atari.

 

In the second group you can see games programmed at the same time for Atari and other platforms or ported to Atari later.

 

Bertrand, yes Strip Poker apperead on Apple II before Atari.

Edited September 13, 2008 by Philsan

[TMR]

And maybe check on Attack of the mutant camels, maybe on the Vic20 first?

 

Depends on which Attack Of The Mutant Camels we're talking about, there are two; one is the scrolling game that was Minter's first C64 game and the other is the American re-branding of Matrix from the VIC.

Edited September 14, 2008 by TMR

[+Philsan]

And maybe check on Attack of the mutant camels, maybe on the Vic20 first?

I confirm that Attack of the Mutant Camels, European version, was first programmed on Atari.

[www.atarimania.com]

Nope, it was C64 first

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[+Philsan]

Nope, it was C64 first

Yes, you are right.

I remember Jeff Minter using Atari in this recent video (6:50)

but he says that C64 is the original version (but he prefers Atari camels).

 

So I will remove this game from my list (it's not a big problem because I don't like it!).

Edited September 14, 2008 by Philsan

[Heaven/TQA]

International Karate? Could it be possible that we got the version first?

[Heaven/TQA]

Thanks btw. for the youtube link...never saw Jeff "life" in a nice vid... i love his non-fave for any kind of machine... "The Atari has this lovely display list architecture...richer colour power" (15:00) and his self humour...

[joyfulcoder]

Bill Hogue:

The version of Miner 2049er for the Atari home computers was the original version that spawned all the other licensed versions. We produced a version for Atari 5200 (running essentially the same code) and developed a version for the black and white TRS-80 computers but never released it.

 

Just about every computer imaginable had a ported version. These included Apple, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, IBM PC, and many, many others. Barry Friedman of ICG did a terrific job licensing all these different versions. Miner was the truly the first cross-licensing success story

http://www.bigfivesoftware.com/index.asp

 

Not to complicate matters but I found the following at Wikipedia:

 

"Hogue wrote his next game on the Atari 800. Called Miner 2049er, it was widely licensed, distributed, and ported to many platforms. Though due to a production delay, it was actually first released on the Apple Platform."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miner_2049er

 

If Wikipedia is correct then it was written first on the A8 but released to consumers first on the Apple. Interesting.

[mimo]

No complication, the title of the thread is "Games firstly programmed on Atari"

[+Philsan]

What about these games?

International Karate / World Karate Championship

Return of Heracles

Star League Baseball

Edited September 15, 2008 by Philsan

[www.atarimania.com]

International Karate / World Karate Championship

Return of Heracles

Star League Baseball

Definitely, though I would believe the C64 version of International Karate was released first because Rob Hubbard took some time to convert the tune. The first screenshot for the game was shown in Computer & Video Games and it was on the Atari. There's also a preview without music that would corroborate that point.

 

Some other titles:

Agent USA

Alley Cat

Blue Max

Bristles

Dandy

Drelbs

Electrician

Final Legacy

Flip and Flop

Great American Cross-Country Road Race (The)

Jumpman

Jumpman Junior

Murder on the Zinderneuf

Necromancer

Oil's Well

Pharaoh's Curse

Rainbow Walker

Rally Speedway

Whistler's Brother

Zenji

 

Never ported:

Excalibur

Journey to the Planets

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

I am building a website dedicated to our computers.

Yet another one? No, it is in Italian and it seems that Atari 8-bit don't have one in Dante's language.

http://www.santellocco.com/atari

 

Nice one. And promising site .