Beamrider

 

Programmer Dave Rolfe credits Tom Loughry (programmer of The Dreadnaught Factor and Worm Whomper for Intellivision) for the original inspiration for the game Beamrider. Tom knew he wanted the gameplay to take place on beams, but he didn’t have the vision of what the game would be like. Tom looked up at the ceiling as he rolled back and forth on an office chair. The patterns that the ceiling tiles made while he was in motion helped Tom conceive the gameplay for Beamrider.

Dave explained how the game developed: "A good strategic balance between the player and the enemy had to be decided upon. How much freedom of motion should the player have? How fast should the enemies move to attack? At what point does the player feel challenged, and at what point is the challenge overwhelming? In an initial version of Beamrider, the player’s ship was flanked by two pods, one on each side, effectively making the player 3 beams wide. We thought it would be satisfying to control a big ship, but it turned out that it was a sitting duck for enemy fire. We decided to change to the smaller and more maneuverable craft that you find in the released game. There was also much focus on how the enemy craft would attack the player. Tom advocated fixed attack patterns, which would allow the player to watch the enemy and get some sense for the general shape of what he might do next. I favored dynamic computer-generated attack sequences, but experiments upheld Tom’s view. In essence, the fixed attack patterns gave the enemy a veneer of intelligence, while simultaneously allowing the player to learn about the smart enemy and then outsmart him. So I spent countless hours developing a series of attack patterns, and then rating and sorting them, so as to present them to the player starting with the easier attacks, and later (if he or she survived), serving up the more vicious stuff."

Dave also received a letter from a person who beat and conquered Beamrider, and went to work the next day, and received a job promotion! "There was, it would seem, a connection between these two events, and I sincerely hope that you will have a similar experience when you master the game," stated Dave.

Back in the 1980s, Activision used to give out embroidered game club patches if you got a high score, took a picture of your TV screen, and mailed it to them. Here is the high score to shoot for and club name:

Beamriders: 40,000 points / Sector 14

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