Seaquest

 

Seaquest is a shooter that takes place on one screen in an underwater setting. You control a submarine which can move around the screen. Your task is to rescue the submerged divers by moving the sub over a diver. There are enemy subs in these waters, and they think nothing of shooting missiles at you. There are also deadly sharks which must be avoided. If your sub comes in contact with a shark, enemy sub, or missile, you lose a life.

Your sub cannot stay under the water forever either. You have a limited supply of oxygen. This is represented by a gauge at the bottom of the screen. When the oxygen level gets low, you must surface the sub to the top of the screen.

Programmer Steve Cartwright got the idea for Seaquest after watching Das Boot, a popular movie about a German U-boat. Cartwright added, "There were no submarine games on the market. So I started with a sub, added some stranded divers, enemy attack subs, a depleting oxygen supply, and killer sharks like the one in (David Crane’s) Fishing Derby." Actually there are some other submarine games in the 2600 library: Polaris(by Tigervision), Sub Scan (by Sega), and Submarine Commander (by Sears).

In higher levels of the game, an enemy boat appears at the top of screen. This boat must be avoided when surfacing for oxygen.

Steve Cartwright was the first additional game designer hired by Activision (David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Bob Whitehead, and Alan Miller). He was hired because he had gone to college with Crane in Phoenix, AZ." In those days the industry was brand new," said Cartwright, "and we were creating it. Activision was the first [third-party] software company. There was no such thing as an experienced game designer - you couldn’t even study microprocessor programming - it wasn't available in colleges when we first started. That’s how new things were. Looking back on those days with Activision... it was very memorable. We were treated like celebrities. We were driven around in limousines. We were flown in separate airplanes - in case one crashed. It was fun while it lasted, but game development now is a team effort."

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:

Sub Club: 50,000 points


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