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Jupiter Mission 1999

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  • REPRINT
  • PORTLAND ATARI CLUB
  • OCTOBER 1985
  • AUTHOR: STEVE BILLINGS
  • SUBHEADINGS & GRAPHICS ADDED BY ATARI BASICS

The idea is excellent. A four disk space adventure with an arcade action trip to another planet. Sounds like enough fun to intrigue even the most calloused joystick jockey. 

Jupiter Mission 1999 is a game produced by the software company Avalon Hill. Scott Lamb is the credited game designer. The box does indeed include four disks and a small instruction manual. Also included are four sealed envelopes which are marked TOP SECRET and supposedly contain helpful information for the lost astronaut. I can’t really verify that though. I only opened one envelope after completing the game and I do not think it would have been much help. 

Box art for Jupiter Mission 1999, an interactive space fantasy adventure game by Scott Lamb, published by Avalon Hill’s Microcomputer Games division for the Commodore 64. The cover features a futuristic sci-fi scene with spaceships, planets, robots, and mysterious figures.

The manual is sparse. It describes how to load and start the game, how to save a position in the game and gives a brief description of some content of the game and a diagram of your space ship ‘Space Beagle’. Apparently they intend you to learn how to get to where you are going on your own. This is in fact an important part of the game, trying to figure out what to do next. 

The story begins with narrative describing your being kidnapped and loaded aboard a shuttle to a space station. You are then transferred to the Space Beagle on your way to Jupiter. Up to this point you have very little idea why you are going, especially ‘Why you?’ During the trip your onboard computer communicates with you and explains that you are headed to Jupiter because a strange signal was intercepted on Earth originating from the vicinity of Jupiter and you were selected to journey as the random factor on the trip in case anything unusual is encountered. 

Well, of course something unusual does occur. So far you have had no control over the course of the game, but all of a sudden the ship wanders into an asteroid field and your ship is hit by asteroids, damaging the controls and killing the highly trained crew flying the ship. (They weren’t such good pilots were they?) Anyway it is now up to you to save the ship. 

Now we get our first action. A game takes a couple of minutes to load and we are faced with a view screen showing approaching asteroids. With the joystick we must shoot them down. Some of the asteroids simply cannot be stopped because the come in at too low of an angle. More damage is done to the ship. After 40 or so asteroids we pass through the field. Another game is loaded and now we must repair the ship. 

This section of the game is difficult to figure out and just about as hard to describe. It sort of involves lowering tones by matching them to flashing colors for each damaged section of the ship. All fixed up now? End of disk one. 

On to disk #2. 

From this disk loads the navigation program. I do not want to tell too much about the game and diminish any of the suspense, but in this part you must send out probes to explore the area around Jupiter and decide where to send your ship. Learning the controls takes some work. Mostly guess work, but trial and error will pay off. Found a good destination and pointed your ship in the right direction? Good! 

On to disk #3. 

About now I was beginning to wonder why this game was spread over 4 disks. The component parts of the game were ok, but not super slick. Curious I booted up Atari DOS to see what I could see. The directory showed the game files. Loading a file and listing it showed a byte eating Basic language program. Aha! 

Back to our adventure. We are now on our way to the vicinity of the gas giant Jupiter. The rest of the game involves landing on moons and such around Jupiter and exploring mazes and finding our way out of sudden turn of events.  

Back cover of Jupiter Mission 1999, featuring a game description, sample in-game screenshots, and a depiction of a 5.25-inch floppy disk. The text introduces the game’s storyline and highlights its role-playing and science fiction elements for the Commodore 64.

On to disk #4. 

Finally we dodge a whole bunch of bullets and once again save mankind from another horrendous demise. Stay tuned for the further adventures of ‘Space Beagle’. 

I guess I kind of breezed through these last disks in my recounting, actually they were fairly challenging. (Is that the same as frustrating? Only if you don’t succeed I guess I guess.) 

At almost any time you can save your location, but once you save a location you cannot go back to a previous save to try another direction without starting the whole game over. At first this bothered me, but the game really has only one avenue to follow and the program pretty well guides you on to the correct path. Save it at the start of each new game section, because it will probably take numerous tries to make it through each part. One annoying feature is that when you save the position you have to go back to disk #1, reboot the game, listen to the intro and indicate you want to return to the saved location then reinsert the correct disk and wait for it to load. Time consuming to say the least especially if it is a hard section and you goof up repeatedly and have to again reboot and go back to the save. 

The game is entertaining and each portion is different and well-integrated into the overall theme of the game. 

I don’t think it deserves four disks though. While the concept is great it does need a little more polish and zip. For the price I think it should have been a little more engaging and taken more effort to complete. A few more red herrings and opportunities to take various gambits would have kept me riveted to the controls longer thereby justifying the $45. 

Hopefully Scott Lamb will continue to explore the possibilities of this type of game and improve on it in the further sagas of ‘Space Beagle’. Maybe he will also improve the name of space ship. 

PHOTO CREDITS:
  • Box art images courtesy of MobyGames. Used under Fair Use for educational and historical reference.