''Dropzone'' is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by

Archer Maclean Archer Maclean (28 January 1962 – 17 December 2022) was a British video game programmer. He was the author of ''Dropzone'' which he developed for the Atari 8-bit family and was ported to other systems. Maclean also developed the Commodore 64 ve ...

(under the name Arena Graphics) for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

and published in 1984 by

U.S. Gold U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Anne and Geoff Brown in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Ho ...

. It was ported to the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

, then later released for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same ...

, Game Gear, and

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

. Maclean's first commercial game, ''Dropzone'' is similar in gameplay and style to the arcade game '' Defender'' and borrows many elements, including the same style of

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

, aliens, and title screen.

Plot

On the surface of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

's moon, Io, a human scientific research base is under attack by

aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...

. The player dons a jetpack armed with a

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

, a

cloaking device A cloaking device is a hypothetical or fictional stealth technology that can cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. Fictional cloaking devices have bee ...

and three smart bombs, to rescue the scientists and return them to the base.

Gameplay

The gameplay is in the style of Williams Electronics' ''Defender'', with some influences from ''

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'' and ''

Robotron: 2084 ''Robotron: 2084'' (also referred to as ''Robotron'') is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional wo ...

''. Players control the hero trying to rescue the scientists on a horizontally-scrolling game field. Players must elude or engage various aliens—some slow, others faster—and return the scientists to the base's eponymous dropzone. The aliens capture scientists walking along the ground. The player must shoot the enemy aliens and catch the falling scientists. Sometimes the aliens will carry lethal

android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

s instead, which must be avoided. There are 99 levels of gameplay, each increasingly difficult. After level 99, the levels repeat starting level 95.

Development

Maclean purchased an Atari 800 as soon as they were officially launched in the UK in 1981 and started writing what would eventually evolve into ''Dropzone''. Maclean converted the game to the Commodore 64 himself: The name ''Dropzone'' was not settled on until shortly before the game went gold. Maclean entered into a publishing deal with

for the

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an distribution of the game. After 18 months, however, they stopped paying him

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

claiming that the game was no longer selling. In addition, Maclean saw it for sale in areas outside of Europe and even in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Four years of legal wrangling with the publisher followed, until they finally settled out of court for

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

. With the proceeds from the settlement, Maclean bought his first

Ferrari Ferrari S.p.A. (; ) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988) in 1939 from the Alfa Romeo racing division as ''Auto Avio Costruzioni'', the company built its first car in ...

Reception

The Atari 8-bit version received overwhelmingly good reviews. A reviewer for ''

Computer and Video Games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') was a UK-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot website ...

'' in a May 1985 review stated that ''Dropzone'' was one of the best Atari games and Atari owners could not afford to miss this game. Personal Computer World reviewer agreed with this notion: "Although Dropzone is virtually a rewrite of Defender, the quality of its graphics and sound make it far superior." The

version of the game was awarded a Gold Medal in issue 3 of '' Zzap!64'' magazine, with an overall rating of 95%.

Legacy

The sequel, ''Super Dropzone'', added new weapon types and end-level bosses. It is available for the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...

(titled ''Super Dropzone'' on all packaging, but only ''Dropzone'' on the title screen), Game Boy Advance and

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

. Only the Game Boy Advance version saw a North American release; the others were European exclusives. A fully-playable port of the C64 version can be found in the PC version of '' Jimmy White's 2: Cueball'', also by Archer Maclean.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite journal , title=Software Reviews , journal=Computer and Video Games , date=May 1985 , page=105 , url=https://archive.org/details/cvg-magazine-043/page/n103/mode/2up {{cite journal , title=I got the blues... , journal=Personal Computer World , date=July 1985 , page=209 , url=https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorld1985-07/page/208/mode/2up 1984 video games Acclaim Entertainment games Action video games Action-adventure games Atari 8-bit family games Commodore 64 games Fiction set on Io (moon) Game Boy Color games Game Boy games Horizontally scrolling shooters Nintendo Entertainment System games Game Gear games Single-player video games Video game clones U.S. Gold games Mindscape games Video games developed in the United Kingdom