''Artillery Duel'' is an

artillery game Artillery games are two or three-player (usually turn-based) video games involving tanks (or simply cannons) trying to destroy each other. The core mechanics of the gameplay is almost always to aim at the opponent(s) following a ballistic trajec ...

originally written for the Bally Astrocade by Perkins Engineering and published by Bally in 1982. John Perkins wrote the game first in Astro BASIC, submitting it to ''The Arcadian''

fanzine A fanzine (blend of '' fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share t ...

, from which it was adapted for the Astro BASIC manual. Perkins subsequently developed the Astrocade cartridge. Xonox published ports for the

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocess ...

ColecoVision ColecoVision is a second-generation home video-game console developed by Coleco and launched in North America in August 1982. It was released a year later in Europe by CBS Electronics as the CBS ColecoVision. The console offered a closer exp ...

, Commodore 64, and

VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the ...

. ''Artillery Duel'' was featured in several double-ended cartridges—with one game on each end—as well as in a single cartridge.

Gameplay

The game consists of dueling

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder duri ...

s on either side of a hill or mountain of varying height and shape. Each player has control of the incline and force behind the shell launched, the objective being to score a direct hit on the opposing target. Where many versions gave the player a few tries on the same course, ''Artillery Duel'' switches to a new mountain after each turn. When the player does manage to hit the opposing cannon, the reward is a brief animation of comically marching soldiers at the bottom of the screen.

Reception

Danny Goodman Danny Goodman is a computer programmer, technology consultant, and an author of over three dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles on computer-related topics. He is best known as the author of ''The Complete HyperCard Handbook'' (1987, Bant ...

of ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

Video & Arcade Games'' said after visiting the summer 1982

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event ty ...

that "the cleverest graphics award goes to ''Artillery Duel''" for the Bally Astrocade, describing it as "really a graphics showpiece with a little bit of player interaction thrown in".

References

External links

''Artillery Duel''
at Atari Mania 1982 video games Artillery video games Atari 2600 games Bally Astrocade games ColecoVision games Commodore 64 games VIC-20 games Video games developed in the United States {{Atari-console-stub

Gameplay

Reception

See also

References

External links