1981 · Action · Pinball

Raster Blaster

Raster Blaster is one of the very first video pinball titles, and Bill Budge's precursor to his seminal Pinball Construction Set.

Released: 1981
Platforms: Apple II Atari 8-bit
Genres: Action Pinball
Developers: —
Publishers: BudgeCo
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action
Country: United States

About

Bill Budge's Raster Blaster (or Rasterblaster on the disk label) is a home computer pinball simulation written by Bill Budge for the Apple II and published in 1981 by Budge's company, BudgeCo. It was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers. Raster Blaster closely resembles the Williams Firepower table from 1980.

While not the first pinball game for home computers, Raster Blaster set a higher bar for visual fidelity, and the next several years saw a flurry of Apple II pinball titles: David's Midnight Magic (1982), Night Mission Pinball (1982), and Budge's own Pinball Construction Set (1983).

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

At the start of each ball, it is launched towards the four rollovers at the top of the table. Below these are located four bumpers, each with three targets on them; by hitting these targets the player can activate three "claws" to grab the ball. After all claws have grabbed a ball, all three balls are released at the same time for multiball. The initials of the game can be spelled by the player: the R lights when the upper rollovers are completed, and the B lights when the three targets on the right are hit. The game has two difficulty settings, and can be played by up to four players.

Reception

Debuting in April 1981, the game sold 25,000 copies by June 1982, tied for fourth on Computer Gaming World's list of top sellers. BYTE praised the game's realistic physics, writing that "most microcomputer games that are versions of existing board or equipment games aren't worth the disks they're printed on, but Raster Blaster does not fall into that category!"

Raster Blaster was voted Softalk magazine's Most Popular Program of 1981.