Arcade Volleyball
Encyclopedia
Arcade Volleyball is volleyball
game originally written by Rhett Anderson. The game features teams of one or two players (depending on the platform) shaped like balls with legs who hit the volleyball with their heads. The game is played from a side-view perspective, and the ball can be bounced off of the walls and ceiling without penalty. Scoring is based on the original volleyball scoring rules, where only the serving team can score on each volley, and 15 points are required to win the game. The same head is permitted to hit the ball multiple times, but the team may only hit the ball three times while the ball is on their side.
for the Commodore 64
in the June 1988 edition of the magazine COMPUTE!'s Gazette
. The article was written by Rhett Anderson and David Hensley, Jr., who had also made a similar game called Basketball Sam & Ed the year before. The game featured two heads per team, controlled by a single player, which moved and jumped together. It was not necessary to win the game by 2 points; when either side reached 15 points, the game would pause and ask if the user wanted to play again.
By default the game was played between two human players, but it was possible to modify the game so that one player could play against the computer by typing "POKE
2065,1" to type the number 1 into the memory address that controlled the number of players. The authors referred to this as an optional practice mode or warm up mode and warned that the computer opponent was not very challenging. The game was inspired by Pong
(actually, the two-paddle "Hockey" variant of Pong) and programmed by Rhett Anderson.
port of Arcade Volleyball may be the best known version. The DOS port was compiled with Borland Turbo C and has the same physics and gameplay as the Amiga version, but has inferior graphics and sound. It differs from the Amiga version by using 4-color CGA
graphics and PC speaker sound, and represents scores less than 10 as a single digit.
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
game originally written by Rhett Anderson. The game features teams of one or two players (depending on the platform) shaped like balls with legs who hit the volleyball with their heads. The game is played from a side-view perspective, and the ball can be bounced off of the walls and ceiling without penalty. Scoring is based on the original volleyball scoring rules, where only the serving team can score on each volley, and 15 points are required to win the game. The same head is permitted to hit the ball multiple times, but the team may only hit the ball three times while the ball is on their side.
Commodore 64 version
Arcade Volleyball was originally published as a hexadecimal type-in programType-in program
A type-in program, or just type-in, is a computer program listing printed in a computer magazine or book, meant to be typed in by the reader in order to run the program on a computer....
for the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
in the June 1988 edition of the magazine COMPUTE!'s Gazette
COMPUTE!'s Gazette
COMPUTE!'s Gazette was a computer magazine of the 1980s, directed at users of Commodore's 8-bit home computers. Publishing its first issue in July 1983, the Gazette was a Commodore-only daughter magazine of the computer hobbyist magazine COMPUTE!....
. The article was written by Rhett Anderson and David Hensley, Jr., who had also made a similar game called Basketball Sam & Ed the year before. The game featured two heads per team, controlled by a single player, which moved and jumped together. It was not necessary to win the game by 2 points; when either side reached 15 points, the game would pause and ask if the user wanted to play again.
By default the game was played between two human players, but it was possible to modify the game so that one player could play against the computer by typing "POKE
PEEK and POKE
In computing, PEEK is a BASIC programming language extension used for reading the contents of a memory cell at a specified address. The corresponding command to set the contents of a memory cell is POKE.-Statement syntax:...
2065,1" to type the number 1 into the memory address that controlled the number of players. The authors referred to this as an optional practice mode or warm up mode and warned that the computer opponent was not very challenging. The game was inspired by Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
(actually, the two-paddle "Hockey" variant of Pong) and programmed by Rhett Anderson.
Amiga version
Rhett Anderson and Randy Thompson wrote an Amiga version of Arcade Volleyball from scratch, which was included on the disk that came with the Fall 1989 edition of Compute!'s Amiga Resource. The Amiga version differs from the Commodore 64 version by only having one player per team (a green head versus a red head), requires a 2 point margin of victory, it is no longer possible for the ball to go under the net, and playing against the computer is a standard option. This version was later ported to the PC by a COMPUTE! Publications programmer (this would be Kevin Mykytyn, Tim Midkiff, or Tim Victor--to be researched).Ports
Arcade Volleyball has been ported to a number of other platforms. Due to the popularity of the PC, the DOSDOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
port of Arcade Volleyball may be the best known version. The DOS port was compiled with Borland Turbo C and has the same physics and gameplay as the Amiga version, but has inferior graphics and sound. It differs from the Amiga version by using 4-color CGA
Color Graphics Adapter
The Color Graphics Adapter , originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card, and the first color computer display standard for the IBM PC....
graphics and PC speaker sound, and represents scores less than 10 as a single digit.
External links
- Gamebase 64 entry on the Commodore 64 game
- Some notes about the DOS game and a download, playable online
- GPL Arcade Volleyball, a remake of the DOS game for multiple operating systems, themable and network multiplayer