Surround

In Surround, two players or one player and a computer-controlled opponent attempt to navigate an enclosed space as a block. As the block moves through the space, a wall trails behind them, forming a barricade. The computer-controlled blocks move automatically across the screen and can be navigated up, down, left, right, and, in some modes, diagonally along the playing field. A player earns one point if they manage to make the other player's block crash into any barricade. The first player to reach 10 points wins.

There are variations of the competitive game: "Speed Up", "Diagonal Movement", "Erase" and "Wraparound". "Speed Up" mode makes the block move faster at different intervals during the play time. "Diagonal Movement" gives the blocks the ability to move diagonally through the playfield. "Erase" mode allows the player to push the controller button to stop creating a trail.

Like many of the Atari VCS launch titles, Surround was based on an established arcade game. Prior to the release of Surround, designer Lane Hauck developed the arcade game Blockade (1976) for Gremlin Industries. When it was shown at the 1976 MOA Expo in Chicago, it proved popular and Gremlin received 3,000 orders of the game. At the time of Blockade's release, counterfeiting was high and public demand for the game was not as long-lasting as the company had hoped. As they worked to adapt their new game to new tech, other companies released similar games, such as Ramtek with Barricade, Meadows Games with Bigfoot Bonkers, and Atari with Dominos for arcades and Surround for the Atari VCS.

Surround was programmed by Alan Miller. Miller previously studied computer simulations at Berkeley and graduated in 1972. In 1977, Miller responded to an ad by Atari looking for someone with microprocessor knowledge and was hired and began working on Surround as his first task. In Larry Wagner's notes from Atari at the time, the game was labeled as the Blockade game.

From contemporary reviews, two reviews came from Video, the first review found the game complex and challenging with sound effects that would keep the players alert. The review gave the first snake-game modes a 9 out of 10 rating. Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz (under the name Frank T. Laney II) later reviewed the game in Video magazine, stating they found mode four to be the best for solo play, where the computer controlled player did not play aggressively and only tried to avoid making mistakes.

The pair found the 2-player mode with faster speed and diagonal movement to be the most competitive and promoted frequent replays. David H. Ahl found all the launch titles for the Atari VCS were designed for repeat playthroughs, and that Surround specifically had complex gameplay and fantastic sound effects. Ahl appreciated the "Video Graffiti" modes inclusion, while the original review in Video dismissed them as "basically pretty dull" and gave them a 5 out of 10.