The year is 2543. You are the last cactus on earth.

You live in the scorching deserts of the Rocky Mountains in what used to be Alberta, Canada. The heat is nearly unbearable and wildfires are common. The rest of your fellow cacti have moved to a more temperate climate ... on Mars. They have sent a final spaceship to transport you there. Reaching it won't be easy. Water has become Earth's most precious resource, and although you are a cactus, you need every drop. You'll collect the water as you move through the canyons on your way to rendezvous with your rocket. Every so often, you'll even find a bucket of water, and you'll be able rest for the night. But watch out for the humans. The few that remain after World War XII think they need the water even more than you. And they'll do anything to protect it.

Objective

Your objective is to collect the water at the end of each canyon. Collect enough water, and eventually you'll reach your spaceship that will take you to Mars.

Press the red button on your Joystick to fire a needle. If a needle strikes a human, the human will turn into desert dust. Remember you have a very limited supply of needles. The blue bar in the lower right corner of the screen gives you a visual indicator of the number of needles that remain.

The blue squares in the lower left corner of the screen show how many cacti you have left to complete your mission. Every so often, you'll enter a dead-end canyon that has no clear path between you and the water. If that happens, you'll automatically back up and find a new canyon with a better trail. You reckon there are about thirty canyons between you and your spaceship.

After drinking a bucket of water, you'll be sleepy. You'll find a safe cavern and doze for the night in the heat. Lately, you've been having strange dreams about relics from the Old World. It's thrilling to touch them, but they quickly disappear.

More importantly, in each dream you see a pile of shimmering needles. When you touch them, they disappear, too. But each morning, you're astounded to discover you have grown a few more needles to replace some of the ones you've lost in the canyons. This biopsychic phenomenon concerns you, but not enough to show mercy to the humans.

Join the Space Cactus Captains

If you score 80,000 points or more, you are eligible to join an elite group of Space Cacti across the galaxy. Take a photo of your score showing your official Space Cactus Canyon Video Game Cartridge being played on an Atari Video Computer System and television. E-mail the photo to [email protected] along with your name and postal address. We'll enroll you in the ranks of the Space Cactus Captains and send you an official membership patch.

Available while supplies last. If you'd like to know whether patches are still available, please inquire at [email protected]

Additional Information

Space Cactus Canyon is a Melody-enhanced game. Space Cactus Canyon includes game cartridge and full-color 12-page manual. Space Cactus Canyon supports the NTSC television format (there is no PAL support at this time).

Get a Space Cactus Canyon Box!

If you'd like a boxed copy of Space Cactus Canyon, please select "Box Upgrade: Yes" at the top of the page before adding Space Cactus Canyon to your cart. Our boxes are professionally printed and include a box insert to hold your Space Cactus Canyon cartridge in place. We want you to play our games, so we have not sealed or shrinkwrapped the boxes in any way, allowing you easy access to the game cartridge and manual.

These boxes are the same size as boxes Atari produced for their games "back in the day". They look great sitting on a shelf with your other boxed homebrew games, or alongside games from the classic Atari 2600 library. We only have a limited number of boxes for each game, and there is no guarantee they will become available again once our supplies are exhausted. Click on the images to the right to see larger photos of the box.