Skydiver (Atari)

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Skydiver was a very early arcade game by Atari. It was released in 1978 and was black and white with a color overlay. Game play was pretty simple. The goal was to land on the platform that was the same color as your skydiver. A plane would fly across the top of the screen and the player would have to press the jump button when they wanted their skydiver to jump. Then they had to pull the ripcord and guide their pilot to the platform. The longer you waited until pulling the ripcord, the more points you got if you landed on target but the less time you had to maneuver your skydiver into the correct position.

This is a pretty simplistic game but that is to be expected for a video game from 1978. The controls were somewhat unique in that they were meant to simulate ripcord handles. There was also a pinball like feature in this game. Each letter in the word Skydiver on the marquis had a separate light. You "earn" whatever letter is lit when you press the jump button if you land successfully.

The arcade game is pretty rare today but it was ported to the Atari 2600 in 1979 and there have been various compilation releases though I think most of those are out of print too at this point. Still, it shouldn't be hard to find one (e.g. Atari Anthology) and you can always use MAME if you want to give it a try.

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