Gravitar is a 1982 multidirectional shooter video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. Using the same "rotate-and-thrust" controls as Asteroids and Space Duel, the game was known for its high level of difficulty.[3] It was the first of more than twenty games that Mike Hally designed and produced for Atari. The main programmer was Rich Adam, and the cabinet art was designed by Brad Chaboya. An Atari 2600 version programmed by Dan Hitchens was released in 1983.[4]
Gameplay
The player controls a small blue spacecraft in a star system with several planets to explore. If the player moves their ship into a planet, they will be taken to a side-view landscape. Unlike many other shooting games, gravity plays a fair part in Gravitar: the ship will be pulled slowly to the deadly star in the overworld, and downward in the side-view levels. Great precision is demanded of the player, as the ship rotates too slowly to allow a player to correct their mistake if they apply too much thrust and fly toward an obstacle.
The player has five buttons: one each to rotate the ship left or right, one to shoot, one to activate the