Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/27/sneakers-was-an-extremely.html
…
3 Likes
No, you’re thinking of Bug Attack from the same year … which is still awesome!
2 Likes
Holy smokes. I played so much Sneakers and I had completely forgotten. It looks like the fang-ship changes color before turning into a fang. Never noticed that.
6 Likes
Our family favorite from that era was Space Eggs. Come to think of it, that was one of the few that everyone in the family played.
That was one of a whole slew of Apple II games that Nasir Gebelli wrote.
4 Likes
Came here for the incredible espionage/hacker movie of the same name. Leaving sad.
7 Likes
The meteor shower level (which isn’t in the video) was almost completely unwinnable but that didn’t stop me from trying about 5,000 times.
1 Like
Oh man, that sound of the ship ovipositor! That has triggered some major nostalgia!
4 Likes
I remember someone bringing this in to the elementary school computer lab back in the day. It was quite mesmerizing, and all the more tantalizing because initially there was no indication as to how to start playing. (I think you had to press the space bar, or something equally un-intuitive.)
Anyway, play it at archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/Sneakers4amCrack
I understand it later inspired Round 42 and its decendants, Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom and Reutrn of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom, which are probably better games.
I find this to be consistently true, going back and playing my old favorites of the Apple II or early Atari games.
1 Like
here it is for the Atari 800.
when I watch old retro games, I get self conscious about how the Apple II apparently sucked.
Nevertheless, it was what we had, and I enjoyed it.
Given video games of that era, it could easily have been a tie-in…
2 Likes
Hah! That version cuts off before the meteors too. I rest my case.
I was fortunate enough to have a dad who got an Apple II+ in 1979. On the one hand I was lucky as hell to have a dad like that but on the other hand considering the Amiga and a few of the slightly later entries in the 6502 genre, I sometimes think that was a double edged sword, as the early adoption (and high price tag) ensured I was stuck with Apple II into the 90s.
3 Likes
I’m in a similar group. I feel privileged that that was the last computer a person could completely understand. The ROM listing came with the computer and the schematics were all simple logic - nothing hidden in a VLSI chip. The stuff that came afterwards was amazing, but as far as a learning machine - I don’t think we missed anything.
3 Likes
Absolutely true, and it’s kind of a shame that it’s all rather opaque these days. On the other hand, the rise of cheap single-board computers like the BeagleBone and the Raspberry Pi is a very welcome development. I’d have loved to have had such a thing (even if it were in line with the technological standards of the day) back then. A $245 KIM-1 back in its day would be about $1070 in today’s dollars.
1 Like
It has sneakers, cyclopses, saucers, AND fangs! What’s not to like about this game?
2 Likes
That is a good point, I remember getting to college and finally getting some time with Macintoshes and thinking “where’s a list of peeks and pokes and how can I mess around with them when I can’t get a simple prompt. I can’t even enter a simple program if I can’t get a prompt. And how do I get into the monitor?”. It basically killed my computer abilities.
3 Likes
It can be played here:
3 Likes
I remember this one, also from Sirius Software. I’m sure I convinced my folks to pay like $29.95 in 1981 for this thing.
Whatever happened to ol’ Nasir? I remember his name very clearly!
