Asteroids (video game)

Asteroids
A promotional flyer for Asteroids, featuring the arcade cabinet over a background of floating asteroids surrounding a planet. The Asteroids logo and details about the game are seen in the bottom of the flyer.
Developer(s)	Atari, Inc.
Publisher(s)	Atari, Inc.
Designer(s)	Lyle Rains Ed Logg Dominic Walsh
Platform(s)	Arcade, various
Release date(s)	Arcade NA: November 1979
Genre(s)	Multi-directional shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer
Cabinet	Upright and cocktail
CPU	MOS Technology 6502
Sound	discrete circuits
Display	Vector monitor

Asteroids is an arcade space shooter released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. and designed by Lyle Rains, Ed Logg, and Dominic Walsh. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers while not colliding with either or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.

Asteroids was one of the first major hits of the golden age of arcade games. The game sold over 70,000 arcade cabinets and proved both popular with players and influential with developers. It has since been ported to multiple platforms. Asteroids was widely imitated and directly influenced Defender,Gravitar, and many other video games.

Asteroids was conceived during a meeting between Logg and Rains and used hardware developed by Howard Delman previously used for Lunar Lander. Based on an unfinished game titled Cosmos and inspired by Spacewar! and Computer Space, both early shoot 'em up video games, Asteroids' physics model and control scheme were derived by Logg from these earlier games and refined through trial and error. The game is rendered on a vector display in a two-dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes.

The objective of Asteroids is to destroy asteroids and saucers. The player controls a triangular ship that can rotate left and right, fire shots straight forward, and thrust forward. Once the ship begins moving in a direction, it will continue in that direction for a time without player intervention unless the player applies thrust in a different direction. The ship eventually comes to a stop when not thrusting. The player can also send the ship into hyperspace, causing it to disappear and reappear in a random location on the screen, at the risk of self-destructing or appearing on top of an asteroid.