Which game is this?

October 9, 2005 9:02 PM

In junior high, I played a game a lot like "Asteroids" many times at a comic book store. The game was obviously already kind of old--it was in the store as a sort of novelty--and this was in the late eighties. The asteroids were sort of three-dimensional green (?) polygons, and the ship had a shield.

Like "Asteroids", the ship--which I think was a triangle, rather than the "A"-shaped ship in "Asteroids"--scrolled up to the top of the screen after going down to the bottom of the screen, like "Maelstrom" or "Asteroids". What was this game, and is it online and playable through a Mac?

posted by interrobang to education (29 comments total)

was it Space Duel?

I say this because of the 3d asteriods and the shield.
posted by neilkod at 9:07 PM on October 9, 2005

I don't think it was "Space Duel", nelikod, but the look is close.
posted by interrobang at 9:12 PM on October 9, 2005

"Blasteroids," perhaps? Or "Bosconian?"
posted by jtron at 9:26 PM on October 9, 2005

No, neither; I saw the "Blasteroids" link on the page neilkod linked to, and google image searches for "Bosconian" don't look right.
posted by interrobang at 9:28 PM on October 9, 2005

Was it Galaxian?
posted by ericb at 9:36 PM on October 9, 2005

No, it was exactly like "Asteroids", except that there was a shield, no transporting option, and the asteroids were 3D.
posted by interrobang at 9:39 PM on October 9, 2005

I totally remember the game you're talking about, and I'll hazard a guess that it was Asteroids -- the early version. There was one green-line version of Asteroids that came out just after the debut of Space Invaders. I haven't looked yet, but I'd swear it. I'm the right age to remember, and I remember that outline version on the Jersey boardwalk in the late 70s/early 80s.
posted by Miko at 9:41 PM on October 9, 2005

Was it vector based? What system was it played on?

Perhaps Minestorm for the Vectrex?
posted by sourwookie at 9:43 PM on October 9, 2005

Was it vector based? What system was it played on?

It wasn't the game you linked to, I'm sure of that. The little asteroid pieces broke into other, also 3D pieces.

Miko, can you find a screenshot of a different version of Asteroids?

Also, I'm interested in finding an online playable version of this.
posted by interrobang at 9:49 PM on October 9, 2005

Oh, and the only format I ever saw it in was as an arcade game.
posted by interrobang at 9:49 PM on October 9, 2005

It was Asteroids Deluxe.
posted by Katravax at 10:11 PM on October 9, 2005

No, it wasn't that, Katravax. I never saw this. The game wasn't that advanced.
posted by interrobang at 10:19 PM on October 9, 2005

Any chance it was Mad Planets? It's not exactly asteroids, but it's close and has a triangle shaped ship and 3d "asteroids" (that are really planets). Created in '83, so it being old in the late 80's would make sense.
posted by freshgroundpepper at 11:45 PM on October 9, 2005

I think it would be Asteroids Deluxe as well, that's when they added the shield and removed hyperspace.
posted by bertrandom at 2:23 AM on October 10, 2005

I'm *still* betting on Asteroids Deluxe. That picture you posted -- the fancy image is the background image in a mirror, not the game itself. The machine I played didn't have that background.
posted by Katravax at 3:13 AM on October 10, 2005

For a while we had the exact same game at our arcade, only it was called Asteroids II. But it looked the same as that Asteroids Deluxe game (minus the reflection).
posted by klangklangston at 6:31 AM on October 10, 2005

I think I got it. Scroll down this page of Classic 80s Games to Asteroids, then click on the screenshot. Looks just about like what I remember.

Deluze was later, without a doubt. This version was before there were any graphics were in color.
posted by Miko at 8:05 AM on October 10, 2005

Actually, one of the pages says that Deluxe didn't have real color, it just had a plastic sheet over the screen to simulate it.

(I don't really understand how that would work on Asteroids. It makes sense in Space Invaders since the invaders move down and change color, and all you need is colored horizontal band.)
posted by smackfu at 9:00 AM on October 10, 2005

In answer to smackfu: Asteroids Deluxe didn't simulate color, it didn't have color at all (take a look at the klov link provided by Katravax). The plastic sheet was a crappy background of asteroids hurtling at you, a drawing that sat in the background doing nothing. It was set back a little ways, so sometimes your eyes would go from focusing on the vector gameplay in the foreground to the crappy plastic drawing in the background. It was horrid and I don't think anyone's done it since.
posted by user92371 at 9:51 AM on October 10, 2005

The one I linked to had no background on the terminal. I'd also swear that it was pre-1983 - more like 1979, 1980, truly Space-Invaders era.
posted by Miko at 11:24 AM on October 10, 2005

Sorry, Miko (and thanks for finding that page!) but the "Asteroids" playable there is the same as the Tiger widget I have.

Which is what got me thinking about this to begin with!
posted by interrobang at 3:40 PM on October 10, 2005

Hm. Sorry. Anyway, I hope it comforts you that I absolutely remember it in arcade version.
posted by Miko at 5:39 PM on October 10, 2005

Any chance the comic book store is still around that you could call and ask what game it was?
posted by freshgroundpepper at 11:11 PM on October 10, 2005

Space War from Vectorbeam? KLOV. It was also marketed as Space Wars (I was incensed that they would so blatantly riff on SW). It was a vector graphics game ("X-Y monitor") very like Asteroids but with slightly different gameplay; it has a closer family connection with the "original" game for the PDP-11.
posted by dhartung at 2:08 AM on October 11, 2005

No, it wasn't either of those, dhartung. And freshgroundpepper, the comic book store's been closed for about fifteen years.
posted by interrobang at 3:28 PM on October 11, 2005

Did we determine if it was vector-based or not? Drawn with glowing green/white lines, or drawn with a bunch of dots?
posted by user92371 at 10:13 PM on October 11, 2005

It had geometric lines forming 3D asteroids, not dots. I'm pretty sure they were in color.
posted by interrobang at 4:21 PM on October 12, 2005

Do you mean each of the asteroids was in a different color? Like one asteroid is red, another is blue, etc? And then when you shot them, they became smaller asteroids of different colors?
posted by user92371 at 6:39 PM on October 12, 2005

Yes, I think it was that way, but I'm not sure that I trust my memory on it.
posted by interrobang at 9:51 PM on October 12, 2005