Apple Panic is a 1981

1981 in video gaming

-Events:* November -** The British video game magazine Computer and Video Games starts.** Game & Watch - released in Sweden.* Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel found Electronic Games, the first magazine on video games and generally recognized as the beginning of video game journalism.-Notable releases:*...

 platform game

Platform game

A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...

 for the Apple II programmed by Ben Serki of Brøderbund Software. Apple Panic was inspired by Space Panic

Space Panic

Space Panic is a 1980 arcade game designed by Universal, which Chris Crawford calls the first ever platform game, as it pre-dates Nintendo's Donkey Kong which is often cited as the original platform game. Space Panic lacks Donkey Kongs jump mechanic, disqualifying it as a platformer for some...

.

Description

As the game's introduction succinctly puts it, "The object is to dig holes and pound the apples through the holes." Using the keyboard, the player controls a character that walks left and right along platforms made of green brick, and climbs up and down ladders between them. The player can use a shovel to dig holes through the platforms, into which enemies will fall and become trapped. Once an enemy is stuck in a hole, the player must strike it repeatedly with the shovel until it falls through and hits the level below. This must be done quickly, because after about 17 seconds an enemy will be able to free itself, filling in the hole in the process. The player can also refill holes they've dug, or drop through them. The game is an example of the "trap-em-up" genre, which also includes games like Heiankyo Alien

Heiankyo Alien

is a video game created by the University of Tokyo's Theoretical Science Group in 1979. The game was originally developed and released as a personal computer game in 1979, and was then published by Denki Onkyō Corporation as an arcade game in January 1980...

, Lode Runner

Lode Runner

Lode Runner is a 1983 platform game, first published by Brøderbund. It is one of the first games to include a level editor, a feature that allows players to create their own levels for the game. This feature bolstered the game's popularity, as magazines such as Computer Gaming World held contests...

, and Boomer's Adventure in ASMIK World

Boomer's Adventure in ASMIK World

Boomer's Adventure in ASMIK World, known in Japan as is a Game Boy video game from Asmik copyrighted in 1989; Asmik of America Corp. copyrighted its version in 1990....

.

There are three types of enemy in the game, the first and most numerous being the "apples". An apple will die if it falls a single level. As the player advances, green and blue enemies will start to appear, which must be dropped through at least two or three levels, respectively. This is accomplished by digging a series of holes, one directly below another, and trapping the enemy in the uppermost hole. The player earns extra points if they drop one monster on top of another (killing them both).

On each level the player has only a limited time to dispatch all the enemies, tracked by a bar at the bottom of the screen. There are four distinct configurations of platforms and ladders through which the game cycles, but in every one there will always be five platforms in which the player can dig.

Other versions

Apple Panic was rewritten in the Seed7 programming language. A version for the TRS-80

TRS-80

TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...

family exists that was written in 1982 by Yves Lempereur of Funsoft, Inc.

External links

• Screenshots and source code of the Seed7 version of Panic