Space Duel
Space Duel is an arcade game released in 1982 by Atari, Inc. It is a direct descendant of the original Asteroids, with asteroids replaced by colorful geometric shapes like cubes, diamonds, and spinning pinwheels. Space Duel is the first and only multiplayer vector game by Atari. When Asteroids Deluxe did not sell well, this game was taken off the shelf and released to moderate success.
| Space Duel | |
|---|---|
 American arcade flyer | |
| Developer(s) | Atari Inc. |
| Publisher(s) | Atari Inc. |
| Designer(s) | Rick Maurer Owen Rubin Steve Calfee Dave Sheppard |
| Platform(s) | Arcade |
| Release | 1982 |
| Genre(s) | Multidirectional shooter |
| Cabinet | Standard, cocktail |
| CPU | 1 × 6502 @ 1.512 MHz[1] |
| Sound | 2 × POKEY @ 1.512 MHz[1] |
| Display | Color vector |
Gameplay
The player has five buttons: two to rotate the ship left or right, one to shoot, one to activate the thruster, and one for force field. Shooting all objects on the screen completes a level. Space Duel, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, and Gravitar all use similar 5-button control system.
Legacy
Space Duel is included within the Atari Anthology for Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation version of Atari Anniversary Edition. A port of Space Duel was released on the Atari Flashback 2, reproducing only the single-player mode.
A Space Duel cabinet is featured on the cover for The Who's 1982 album It's Hard.
David Plummer holds the official world record for this game with a maximum 623,720 points.[2]
References
- "Space Duel". Arcade History.
- Space Duel entry at Twin Galaxies
External links
- Space Duel at the Killer List of Videogames
- Space Duel at the Arcade History database
- Owen Rubin's website