1981 · Taito · Arcade · Shoot 'em up

Space Dungeon

Atari console exclusive

Piloting a pie-shaped spacecraft, you must move from sector to sector collecting treasure while avoiding enemies and corner-mounted lasers. The more treasure you have with you the higher your bonus when you reach the goal. A "thief" roams the sectors collecting treasure at the same time, but shooting the thief causes him to drop all his treasure.

Released: 1981
Platforms: Arcade Atari 5200
Genres: Arcade Shoot 'em up Shooter
Developers: Taito
Publishers: —
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action Science fiction
Country: United States
Languages: English

About

Space Dungeon is a multidirectional shooter developed and released as an arcade video game by Taito in 1982. Designed and programmed by Rex Battenberg, it was available both as a conversion kit and full arcade cabinet. Like Robotron: 2084 from earlier in 1982, Space Dungeon is a twin-stick shooter with a pair of 8-directional joysticks: one for moving, one for shooting. A port for the Atari 5200 was published by Atari, Inc. in September 1983.

Keywords

run and gun
space battle
single-screen level
bundled with peripherals
twin stick control
flip screen
two controllers for one player

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Space Dungeon is a shooter game in which the player controls a spaceship equipped with a laser cannon, which can fire a pulsing, solid beam in any of eight directions.

Each level of Space Dungeon consists of 36 rooms arranged in a six-by-six grid. Rooms are connected by open doorways of various sizes. One room in each level is the entrance, where the player begins, and another is the "Collect Bonus" room. Other rooms can contain laser defenses, hostile aliens, or various pieces of treasure. The goal in each level is to navigate using an automap to the room containing the "Collect Bonus" area, while visiting as many rooms and collecting as much treasure as possible along the way.

Reception

The Atari 5200 version of Space Dungeon was reviewed by Video magazine in its "Arcade Alley" column where it was described as "such a triumph that not even the questionable 5200 controllers can spoil the fun." Dawn Gordon of MicroKids called the port "yet another Atari Supersystem standout." In 1995, Flux magazine ranked the Atari 5200 version 64th on their "Top 100 Video Games."