Cosmic Commuter

Cosmic Commuter is set in the year 2075 where the player pilots a spacecraft called the Astrobus. The player must first land their rocket module gently on the surface. Afterwards, the players navigates the Astrobus across a horizontally scrolling screen. The can pick up commuters across the surface bus stops by flying the Astrobus over them. While traversing the route, the player can collect fuel which is depleted during the route, and shoot obstacles such as meteors, fireballs and space mines with a laser beam equipped to the Astrobus.

A beep will sound when the players has completed their Astrobus route, indicating they must traverse back to the rocket module landing pad as long as they have picked up at least one commuter. After this, the ship moves to another commuter route where the traffic hazards are more difficult to avoid.

Cosmic Commuter was developed by John Van Ryzin for the video game company Activision. Van Ryzin was an intern at Wickstead Design developing electronic toys and gadgets where he met game developer Garry Kitchen.

After graduation, Van Ryzin was working as an electrical engineer when Kitchen offered him a contract with Hayden Publishing to program games for the Apple II. This led to Van Ryzin quitting his job and developing games for the home computer in Kitchen's basement. The company published three of his Apple II games in 1982: Kamikaze, Shuttle Intercept, and Bellhop which was a collaboration between him and Kitchen.