Word Zapper

Word Zapper for PICO-8 is a mostly faithful recreation of the Atari 2600 game Word Zapper. The original game was published in 1982 by U.S. Games, under their Vidtec label. Fun fact: U.S. Games was owned by Quaker Oats, who bought the company to compete with Parker Brothers, owned at the time by rival cereal company General Mills. Yes, the 80s were a crazy time when cereal companies owned video game companies! Word Zapper was and is one of my favorite games for the 2600 - I even have the actual cartridge. Sadly, Parker Brothers had Frogger and The Empire Strikes Back and won the cereal company video game wars. U.S. Games was shuttered by Quaker Oats in 1983, a year after it was acquired.

Gameplay video of the original in action

How to Play

The object of the game is to shoot down 3 words before time runs out, while avoiding and shooting the asteroids sent by the evil Scroll to stop you. Letters scroll from right to left and loop back around. To complete a word, you must shoot all the letters in order, then shoot the special Freebie token which appears between Z and A. However, the Freebie token only appears after you've shot 5 asteroids, so be sure to shoot them down while waiting for your next letter to scroll by! The words get increasingly longer each round. In addition to completing a word, the Freebie token can be shot to fill in the next missing letter of a word, but use this sparingly as you'll need to shoot down 5 more asteroids before the Freebie token reappears.

Your performance is ranked by how many words you shoot down in the allotted time:

• 0 words: Rookie
• 1 word: Champ
• 2 words: Ace
• 3 words: Zapper

The Asteroids

There are four varieties of asteroids, shown in this image. From top to bottom, they are:

• Doomsday. The most dangerous asteroid! If Doomsday hits you, it's game over for you! You'll know he's around by his low growling rumble. Shoot him down or avoid him at all costs!
• Scroller. If Scroller hits you, the letters in the Scroll are randomized for 5 seconds. This can be very bad if you're waiting on one last letter, but if your last letter is far away and time is short, letting Scroller hit you might be a shrewd gamble to get that letter sooner.
• Zonker and Bonker. Harmless but annoying, these little asteroids bump your ship to the side. A knock from one of them might make your shot go awry and cause you to miss a crucial letter!

Controls

• Arrow keys move your ship.
• X fires the letter laser used to shoot letters from the Scroll. It is harmless to asteroids! The letter laser has a brief cooldown period and cannot be constantly fired.
• Z + left/right arrow fires your side lasers, which are used to destroy asteroids.

Menu

When you win the game, there is a white strobing effect, taken from the original Atari 2600 version. It can be a little harsh, so you can turn it off in the menu.

You can also select the scroll's speed from the menu:

• Slow: the letters scroll slower than your ship's speed, making it easier to collect reverse alphabetical order letter combos, like TR or ED
• Medium: the letters scroll at the same speed as your ship.
• Fast: the letters scroll faster than your ship's speed. If you miss a letter, you'll just have to wait for it to come back around!

Credits

The original Word Zapper was programmed by Henry Will IV for U.S. Games. This recreation, including all graphics, sounds and code, was programmed by me, 2bitchuck, possibly the biggest fan of the original. I hope I did it justice and that Mr. Will and/or the Quaker Oats guy don't come after me for copyright infringement or ruining their legacy :).