Fort Apocalypse

Fort Apocalypse
Fort Apocalypse cover art (U.K. edition, distributed by U.S. Gold)
Developer(s)	Synapse Software
Publisher(s)	Synapse Software
Designer(s)	Steve Hales
Programmer(s)	Steve Hales
Platform(s)	Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64
Release	1982
Genre(s)	action
Mode(s)	single player

Fort Apocalypse is a 1982 game for the Atari 8-bit series created by Steve Hales and published by Synapse Software. Joe Vierra ported it to the Commodore 64 the same year.

Fort Apocalypse is a 2D multi-directional scroller where the player navigates an underground prison in a helicopter, destroying or avoiding enemies while rescuing the prisoners. A contemporary of Choplifter, it has similarities to that game as well as the arcade games Scramble and Super Cobra.

Synapse Software's first success was 1981's Protector, and quickly followed by a number of games written by a small number of programmers. Most of the basic concepts were developed by Synapse's president, Ihor Wolosenko. Fort Apocalypse was one of the few that was not, and traces its origin to a dream Steve Hales had about the movie Blue Thunder. With Wolosenko's blessing, he began working on the project in 1982.

While the programming was getting started, another programmer decided to leave the company in the midst of completing one of Wolosenko's projects, Slime. Hales was pulled off the development of Fort Apocalypse to finish Slime, but found the code too difficult to continue and had to start over from scratch. The resulting delay meant Brøderbund's Choplifter reached the market first, and Fort Apocalypse was often considered a me-too effort. When Hales saw Choplifter, "my reaction was: why did I stop working on Fort?"

The game was publicly demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show and the players complained that it was too hard. This led to changes in the map and a few other tweaks. The game was a relative success, ultimately selling about 75,000 copies on the Atari, and more than that on the Commodore.