''Lunar Rescue'' (ルーナー・レスキユー Runā Resukyū) is an

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

released by Taito in November 1979. The gameplay has some resemblance to both Taito's own 1978 hit ''

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and set ...

'' and

Atari, Inc. Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry. Based primarily around the Sunny ...

's ''

Lunar Lander A lunar lander or Moon lander is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2021, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 19 ...

'' (released several months earlier).

Gameplay

The player's ship (red) above a 150 point landing site. The game starts with the player's

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

docked inside the

mothership A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritime ship, aircraft, or spacecraft. Examples include bombers converted to carry experimental airc ...

at the top of the screen. Below the mothership is an

asteroid field The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

and below that, the surface of the

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. There are three platforms which can be landed on and six stranded

astronauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

that need rescuing. The player must press the button to release their spacecraft from the mothership and manoeuvre through the asteroid field. The craft can only move left or right or use up a finite amount of fuel by engaging the thrust (the same button again) to slow its descent. If the craft is landed successfully on one of the available platforms, one of the astronauts will run towards and board the craft. The asteroid belt now changes into a swarm of

flying saucer A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...

s, some of which drop bombs. The player must now guide the spacecraft back up to the mothership (the craft ascends without using up fuel), avoiding the flying saucers. The thrust button is now a fire button which can be used to shoot at enemies above (as in ''

''). Finally, the craft must be docked with the mothership using the bay opening. If the side of the mothership or any part of the ship outside of the opening is hit, the rescued astronaut falls to the surface and dies. If the mothership is missed altogether, the craft explodes. After all six people have been rescued (or killed providing the player still has lives remaining), the game starts again at a higher level. Some ascent stages will have comets flying diagonally -- the comets follow one of two consistent paths forming an X across the screen, so planning can help in dodging them. When you pick up an astronaut (regardless of comets or enemy ships), the platform level where you landed disappears.

Legacy

A number of clones co-opted the original title such as versions released by

CRL Group CRL Group plc is a defunct British video game development and publishing company. Originally CRL stood for "Computer Rentals Limited". It was based in King's Yard, London and run by Clem Chambers. at World of Spectrum They released a number of not ...

and Lyversoft for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

, and

Alligata Alligata Software Ltd. was a computer games developer and publisher based in Sheffield in the UK in the 1980s. The company was founded by brothers Mike and Tim Mahony and their father J.R. Mahony in 1983. They produced games for a number of hom ...

for the

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/ home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a ...

and

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

. Clones with different titles include ''Meteor Mission'' (

Acornsoft Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and util ...

) for the

, ''

Meteor Mission II ''Meteor Mission II'' (written as ''Meteor Mission 2'' on the title screen) is a clone of the Taito arcade game ''Lunar Rescue'' released by Big Five Software for the TRS-80 home computer in 1982. It was written by Big Five co-founders Bill Ho ...

'' (

Big Five Software Big Five Software ( Big 5 Software) was an American video game developer in the first half of the 1980s founded by Bill Hogue and Jeff Konyu. The company released games for the Tandy TRS-80 and later the Atari 8-bit family. Most of its TRS-80 ga ...

) for the

TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...

, and

Broderbund Broderbund Software, Inc. (stylized as Brøderbund) was an American maker of video games, educational software, and productivity tools. Broderbund is best known for the 8-bit video game hits ''Choplifter'', ''Lode Runner'', ''Karateka'', and '' ...

's ''

Stellar Shuttle ''Stellar Shuttle'' is an action game written by Matt Rutter for the Atari 8-bit family and published in 1982 by Broderbund. The game is very similar to the arcade ''Lunar Rescue'' released in 1979 by Taito. Gameplay The main object of ''Stell ...

'' 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, ...

. ''Lunar Rescue'' is included in the compilation ''

Taito Legends 2 ''Taito Legends 2'' is the sequel to ''Taito Legends'' and is a follow-up collection of 39 (or 43, see below) Taito arcade games for Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. As the former collection, it has been derived from the Japan exclu ...

'' for

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

, and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

References

External links

''Lunar Rescue''
at the Arcade History database
Twin Galaxies High Score Rankings
{{Authority control 1979 video games Action video games Arcade video games Taito arcade games Video games developed in Japan Video games set on the Moon Multiplayer and single-player video games