Depthcharge
| Depthcharge | |
|---|---|
| Studio | UPL Corporation, Taito |
| Publisher | Gremlin / Sega , Taito |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
September 1977 |
| genre | Arcade game , shoot 'em up |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | 4 buttons |
| casing | default |
| Arcade system |
CPU : Intel 8080 @ 1.93356 MHz |
| monitor |
Grid , resolution 256 × 224 (horizontal), 19-inch b / w monitor |
Depthcharge , also Depth Charge (English for water bomb ) is a classic arcade game from 1977 that was originally developed by UPL Corporation (Universal Play Land, subsidiary of Universal Lease, now Aruze) and by Gremlin Industries (later Gremlin / SEGA) has been published. In Germany, Löwen-Automaten took over the distribution . In the same year an identical game appeared under the title Sub Hunter by Taito . In the 1980s, several implementations for various home computers and game consoles appeared .
In this shoot 'em up , the player has to shoot down submarines with a warship .
Game description
The player controls a destroyer horizontally at the top of the screen using two buttons . In later versions, 2-way joysticks were also used for this. The perspective is a side 2D view showing most of the water below the ship. By chance, up to four submarines appear at different depths at the same time, which have to be shot down. With two additional buttons located on the right of the control panel, the player can drop depth charges (up to six at the same time) to the left or right of the ship, which slowly spin downwards.
The submarines in turn occasionally shoot up and try to hit the player's ship. The points for each submarine hit vary - usually the deeper, the larger - and are always indicated on them as digits (10–90 points).
Unlike most of the later arcade games, the game is limited in time; the player has 90 seconds, which increases by 45 seconds with a score of 500.
Technical details
The original version has an intel 8080 processor and 14 ROMs with a total of almost 13 kB of program and graphics data. A later version has eight ROMS with almost 7 kB of data. A blue-green overlay film is attached in front of the 19-inch black and white monitor, which displays raster graphics .
The game can generate four simple sounds using discrete circuitry ( sonar and various gunshot / explosion sounds ). The volume of Gremlin's Surround-A-Sound is infinitely adjustable by the operator.
The highscore score has already been saved, but without the player's initials.
Implementations (selection)
- Depthbomb (Sega, arcade game, 1978)
- Depth Charge ( Apple II , 1978)
- Depthcharge ( Commodore 64 , 1983)
- Sub Chase ( ZX Spectrum , 1983)
- Submarine (ZX Spectrum, 1984)
- Depth Charge (ZX Spectrum, 1984)
- Sub Hunt (C64, 1984)
- Depth Charge ( DOS , 1984, ASCII graphics)
- Sub Attack (C64, 1985)
- SinkSub ( iPhone , 1995)
There are also games with similar gameplay, such as the arcade game Deep Scan (SEGA, 1979, color graphics) and games with similar graphics, but the opposite game principle, such as Sea Wolf (Midway, 1976). There are also new editions with improved graphics for PCs.
Many games with the title Sub Hunter , Sub Hunt and partly also Depth Charge are, however, implementations of sinking ships .