Developer(s) Games by Apollo Designer(s) Dan Oliver Release August 25, 1982 | Publisher(s) Games by Apollo Platform(s) Atari 2600 Genre(s) Action | |
Space Cavern is a 1982 shooter video game for the Atari 2600 developed and released by Games by Apollo. Players control a spaceship commander who has landed on a planet and must defend the ship against its hostile creatures. Games by Apollo founder Pat Roper was impressed by the game Demon Attack and tasked Apollo member Dan Oliver with making a game very similar to it. The game was later rereleased as Space Canyon.
Contents
Gameplay
In Space Cavern, players control the commander of an intergalactic spaceship that is traveling through a previously unknown area in space. The spaceship lands on a mysterious planet inhabited by creatures known as Electrosauri and Marsupods, who attempt to attack the crew of the ship.
The player character is situated at the bottom of the screen. Leftward and rightward movements of the joystick correspond to leftward and rightward movements of the character. Moving the joystick upward and downward induces the character to fire left and right respectively. Pressing the controller button results in the character firing upward. The player must shoot enemy creatures that come from the top and bottom before they shoot the player character. Enemy creatures fire beams that cause the player to lose a life whenever contact is made with the character. An extra life is awarded every 2,000 points; points are earned by destroying enemies, with 115 or 165 points awarded for killing an Electrosaurus and 200 points for a Marsupod.
There are twenty-four gameplay variations included in Space Cavern; all are playable by one or two players and activated by modifying the 2600's difficulty switches. The variations differ in the number of enemies, their speed, the direction of their lasers, and the inclusion of Marsupods.
Development
Space Cavern was developed by Games by Apollo. Company founder Pat Roper had flown programmer Ed Salvo to a Consumer Electronics Show to show him the Imagic video game Demon Attack. Impressed with Imagic's game, Roper decided he wanted to produce one similar to it. He told developer Dan Oliver what he wanted in the game without disclosing his inspiration. Space Cavern was released in 1982. Game publisher Panda rereleased an identical version of Space Cavern under the name Space Canyon the following year, and an Atari 5200 port was started but not completed.
As development neared completion, mounting financial pressures came to a head and Games by Apollo found itself owing nearly $5 million, half of which debt belonged to its advertising agency Benton & Bowles. Games by Apollo faced growing pressure from Benton & Bowles to repay its debts, and a few months after Space Cavern's release, on November 12, 1982, Games by Apollo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Although Roper expected Apollo to "return in smaller form", the company closed in 1983 after reorganization attempts failed.
Reception
The reviewer for Arcade Express magazine was positive about Space Cavern. The review praised the graphics of the player's death, while criticizing the design of the enemies, and finished the review by opining the game would be more suited for skilled players. TV Gamer's review criticized it for being too simple and not requiring much brainpower.
Videogaming Illustrated compared the game positively to Phoenix, and believed that it was "arguably the best space game on the market". The writer opined that it was Games by Apollo's best game, and noted its suitability for both young and experienced players. In a review for Video magazine, Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz did not agree whether Space Cavern's control scheme was unnaturally "cumbersome" or "an exciting departure from the expected". They wrote that the controls were "at least a little controversial" among arcade players. These comments were again reiterated in Video's 1982 Guide to Electronic Games where the control scheme was described as "a little unusual". In a follow-up review for Electronic Games, Kunkel and Katz concluded that the game would entertain arcade players hundreds of times over but criticized the graphics of the enemies. Space Cavern was an honorable mention in the "Best Action Video Game" category at the 1983 Arkie Awards.
Brett Alan Weiss, writing for Allgame, gave the game two out of five stars. Weiss wrote the game was not "a particularly engaging gaming experience" and referred to it as "an interesting failure. The designers had a couple of good ideas, but the execution of those ideas in conjunction with the shoot-'em-up action is second rate". In his book Classic Home Video Games, 1972–1984, Weiss wrote that the game's box art was better than the actual game.