''Thief'' is an
Apple II
The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...
multidirectional shooter
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs
) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charact ...
written by Bob Flanagan and published by
Datamost
Datamost was a computer book publisher and computer game company founded by David Gordon and based in Chatsworth, California. Datamost operated in the early 1980s producing games and other software mainly for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari ...
in 1981.
It is a clone of the 1980 arcade game ''
Berzerk'' from
Stern Electronics
Stern is the name of two different but related arcade gaming companies. Stern Electronics, Inc. manufactured arcade video games and pinball machines from 1977 until 1985, and was best known for '' Berzerk''. Stern Pinball, Inc., founded in 1999 ...
.
Gameplay
The game puts the player in control of a
thief
Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...
that must make his way through simple
maze
A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...
s, though there are no objects to actually steal. Each level is populated by stocky, possibly
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...
ic guards that converge on the player, and which the player must either shoot or evade.
See also
* ''
K-Razy Shoot-Out
''K-Razy Shoot-Out'' is a clone of the arcade game '' Berzerk'' developed by K-Byte, a division of Kay Enterprises, and released for the Atari 8-bit family in 1981. The game was written by Torre Meeder and Keith Dreyer, and was the first Atari 8- ...
''
* ''
Robon''
* ''
Robot Attack
''Robot Attack'' is a clone of the arcade game '' Berzerk'' written by Bill Hogue and Jeff Konyu for the TRS-80 and published by Big Five Software in 1981. It was the first game from Big Five to include speech.
Gameplay
''Robot Attack'' is a ga ...
''
References
{{reflist
1981 video games
Apple II games
Apple II-only games
Datamost games
Multidirectional shooters
Video games developed in the United States
Video game clones
Single-player video games