Ballblazer

Ballblazer is an action game simulating a fictional, futuristic sport. It was developed by Lucasfilm Games and first released for Atari 8-bit computers in 1984. Later it was ported to numerous other systems including the Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Apple II, Commodore 64, and more. The simulated sport is somewhat similar to soccer and is played one-on-one.

Ballblazer is played one-on-one on a large, checkerboard-patterned field with goals at either end which move back and forth. Players control a craft called a rotofoil; the object of the game is comparable to soccer with players needing to score points by either carrying or shooting a floating ball into their opponents goal. The screen is split vertically with each player having a first-person view of the field from their rotofoil. The game can be played by two human players, one human and a computer player, or by two computer players.

To obtain possession of the ball, players can simply guide their rotofoil into it after which it will remain held in front of the craft. To score a goal, players can either fire the ball forward or guide the rotofoil through the goal. The player not in possession of the ball can attempt to steal it by guiding their rotofoil near their opponent and attempting to knock the ball away with the fire button. The direction the rotofoil is facing is updated automatically by the computer; players with the ball will be facing towards the appropriate goal while players without the ball will rotate towards the ball's location. Either player can use the joystick/keyboard to move the rotofoil left and right and speed up/slow down or move backwards.

Scoring in Ballblazer is as follows:

• 1 point is awarded for carrying the ball through the goal posts.
• 2 points are awarded for shooting the ball through the goal at a close distance.
• 3 points are awarded for scoring at a long distance where the goal is not visible.

Each time a goal is scored, the size of the goal is reduced slightly. The maximum number of points possible for both players combined is 10; if a player scores and that would take the total number of points above 10, the opponents score will be reduced by the same amount. To win the game, player's need to either score 10 points or have earned more points than their opponent when the time runs out. In the event of a tie, the game goes to "sudden death" where the first player to score wins.