1982 · Arcade · Shoot 'em up

The Arcade Machine

The Arcade Machine is a game creation system written by Chris Jochumson and Doug Carlston for the Apple II and published by Brøderbund in 1982. Louis Ewens ported it to Atari 8-bit computers. The game allows players to create alien attacks like those seen in Galaxian. The inbuilt editor allows players to: design/animate enemies, players and explosions; give enemies instructions on moving/firing; draw backgrounds/title screens, create sound effects/music, and set various gameplay rules. Finished games can be saved to a self-booting disk to allow them to run without this program.

Released: 1982
Platforms: Apple II Atari 8-bit
Genres: Arcade Shoot 'em up Shooter
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Action
Country: United States

About

The Arcade Machine is a game creation system written by Chris Jochumson and Doug Carlston for the Apple II and published by Broderbund in 1982. Louis Ewens ported it to Atari 8-bit computers. Broderbund ran a contest from January–June 1984 where the best user-created game was awarded a prize of $1,500 in hardware and software. Jochumson also wrote Track Attack for Broderbund.

Keywords

level editor

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game allows players to create alien attacks like those seen in Galaxian. The inbuilt editor allows players to: design/animate enemies, players and explosions; give enemies instructions on moving/firing; drawing backgrounds/title screens, creating sound effects/music, and setting various gameplay rules. Finished games can be saved to a self-booting disk to allow them to run without this program.

Reception

John F. Besnard reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World, and stated that "The product itself provides a tremendous amount of power to the user. Try a few of the demo games supplied on the back of the disk to see the versatility potential of the product."

The New York Times described the game as a "hierophant" due to giving non-programmers the ability to create games; furthermore, the publication suggested that with a bit of aesthetic improvement, The Arcade Machine would "be a game one can play almost forever".