Caverns of Mars

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Caverns of Mars
Studio Greg Christensen
Publisher Atari Program Exchange
Senior Developer Greg Christensen
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1981
platform Atari 8-bit , Atari 2600
genre Shoot 'em up
Game mode Single player
control joystick
system advantages
preconditions		 16 kB RAM
medium Diskette , cassette , cartridge
language English

Caverns of Mars is a computer game for Atari home computers , programmed by Greg Christensen and published on the Atari Program Exchange (APX) in 1981.

Gameplay

Caverns of Mars is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up , the concept and presentation of which is based on the arcade game Scramble from 1981. Christensen changed the orientation of the caves as opposed to Scramble. The player flies from top to bottom instead of from left to right. Due to the technical details of the Atari platform, vertical scrollers are easier to program. With the help of the joystick, the player controls a spaceship that descends into caves on Mars and fires at enemies. There are several different sections of the map. Difficult passages of the cave are removed for the easy levels of difficulty. The easiest difficulty has only three sections and the hardest has six. At the end of each cave there is a reactor. The player has to land on this and activate it. Then the player must fly back through the cave before the reactor explodes.

successor

Christensen then programmed the lesser known Phobos, which was also sold through the Atari Program Exchange (APX). Phobos is an expanded version of Caverns of Mars with improved graphics and additional minor changes. The levels were interrupted by sub-levels with letters as names. If the spaceship is destroyed, the player starts again at the beginning of the sub-level instead of the beginning of the entire level. This system is similar to that of Moon Patrol .

The successor to Phobos was Caverns of Mars II from 1982. This version is more similar to the original Scramble including the missiles launched from the ground. These were the main opponents in Scramble. It is not certain that the game was sold through the Atari Exchange Program, but it was distributed through the Antic Software Catalog, the successor to the APX.

In 1983 Atari released Caverns of Mars on a cartridge (RX8021) as an official Atari product. In 2005, Caverns of Mars was part of the Atari Flashback II console. In 2006 an unofficial version called the Conquest of Mars was released as a cartridge for the Atari 2600 system.

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