Moon Patrol looked simple. A small buggy rolls left to right across the lunar surface, and the player makes it jump craters and shoot what gets in the way. Videogaming Illustrated warned in 1983 that the simplicity was deceptive: “At first glance, Moon Patrol appears to be simple. It isn’t.” Rocks sit just past the far edge of craters, saucers drop bombs from above, and a single button fires forward and upward at once. Behind all of this, the hills move. Distant mountains slide past slowly and nearer ones faster, a trick called parallax scrolling that gave a flat screen depth. Moon Patrol is widely credited as the first mainstream game to use it.
Fast facts
- Developer: Irem, Japan; designed by Takashi Nishiyama.
- US distributor: Williams, which licensed it from Irem.
- Released: arcades, 1982.
- Controls: a joystick for speed, a jump button and a fire button.
- Known for: layered, parallax-scrolling backgrounds.
- Home versions: Atari 2600 and 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64 and VIC-20, Apple II, IBM PC, TI-99/4A, later the Atari ST.
Japanese game, American name
Moon Patrol was made by Irem, an Osaka company whose designer Takashi Nishiyama went on to make Kung-Fu Master and then to work on the first Street Fighter at Capcom. In America, Williams sold it, and charts listed it as “Moon Patrol (Williams)”. The American magazine Vidiot noted in early 1983 that Williams had “acquired this Japanese game which is quite unlike their others”, and placed it fourth in its top ten arcade games, behind Joust, Jungle King and Donkey Kong Junior.
Driving on the Moon
The patrol car never stops. Pushing the joystick right speeds it up and pulling left slows it down, and its speed decides how far it travels in a jump. Its cannon fires horizontally and vertically at the same time. The forward shot only reaches a short way, so a rock cannot be hit the moment it appears; the player has to wait for it to come closer.
Videogaming Illustrated’s 1983 guide listed the hazards:
- craters, which must be jumped;
- boulders, which take one shot, and super-boulders, which take two;
- red land mines, which cannot be shot and must be jumped;
- rolling barrels, of which a triple has to be jumped because “never all three” can be shot;
- tanks on the ground, which fire back and need two shots, one for the bullet and one for the tank;
- a rocket sled that rams the car from behind unless it is jumped;
- moon monsters whose heads rise from holes in the ground;
- flying saucers in groups of three, some dropping bombs on the car and some dropping bombs that blast new craters in its path.
Wiping out a group of saucers before any of them dropped a bomb earned an extra 500 to 1,000 points.
Checkpoints and courses
Each course is divided into 26 sections, marked by the letters A to Z, grouped into five larger stretches. When the car reaches certain points, the action stops and the game shows the time taken, the record time and the average, and gives a bonus for beating the average. There are two courses, one for beginners and a harder “championship” course for experienced players. A lost car restarts from the last checkpoint, not from the beginning, which Home Computer Magazine counted as one of the game’s “friendliest features”.
Parallax and music
The scrolling background had layers. Home Computer Magazine described “three ‘layers’ of distant mountains” scrolling past “at different speeds, giving you the illusion of depth, although you can really move in only two dimensions”. The idea came from film animation, where the multiplane camera moved layers of artwork past the lens at different speeds. Wireframe has since pointed to Moon Patrol and Taito’s Jungle Hunt as early games that used it. The parallax scrolling entry explains how it works and how later machines built it into hardware.
The game also played a tune as the car drove. Computer and Video Games liked “the little tune which plays along as you roll across the moon” on the Atari 800 cartridge, and Home Computer Magazine found the music “crazy” but less annoying than most.
Home versions
Atari published the 2600 and 5200 versions under its own name and advertised them in December 1983. Video Games called the 2600 game “Atari’s pleasant adaptation of Moon Patrol from William’s”. Under the Atarisoft label, Atari converted the game for computers made by other companies. Compute!’s Gazette reviewed the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 cartridges in 1984 at $44.95 each. Home Computer Magazine tested the TI-99/4A, Apple II and IBM PC versions and found them “essentially the same”, with the TI version best for graphics and sound. In Britain, Atarisoft’s early 1984 advertisements promised a Spectrum version “out soon”. Atari released an ST version in 1988, when ST Action gave it 50% and called it “uncomplicated but addictive arcade fun”.
The game also had imitators. Personal Computer Games reviewed English Software’s Spaceman Sid for the BBC Micro and Electron as “a version of Moon Patrol”.
Sources
- Electronic Fun with Computers & Games vol. 1 no. 2, December 1982, p. 29: “Moon Patrol (Williams)” among current arcade games.
- Vidiot vol. 1 no. 2, February/March 1983, pp. 26–27: top ten arcade games; Williams “acquired this Japanese game”.
- Computer and Video Games issue 15, January 1983: Arcade Action on Moon Patrol.
- Videogaming Illustrated, June 1983, pp. 44–45: “Conquering: Moon Patrol” (the controls, the cannon, the courses, the bonuses and every hazard).
- Joystik vol. 2 no. 3, December 1983: Atari advertisement for Moon Patrol on the 2600 and 5200, “manufactured under license from Williams Electronics”.
- Video Games vol. 2 no. 5, February 1984, pp. 68–69: Atari 2600 review.
- Your Computer, March 1984: Atarisoft advertisement (Spectrum version “out soon”; VIC-20 and Commodore 64 cartridges).
- Electronic Games vol. 2 no. 12, May 1984, pp. 24–25: Moon Patrol among the 5200 cartridges Atari planned that year.
- Compute!’s Gazette issue 15, September 1984, pp. 62–65: Atarisoft VIC-20 and Commodore 64 versions, $44.95.
- Computer and Video Games issue 42, April 1985: Atari 800 cartridge review.
- Home Computer Magazine vol. 5 no. 3, 1985, p. 82: Atarisoft review (TI-99/4A, Apple II and IBM PC; 26 sections A to Z; beginner and championship courses; restart from the checkpoint; three layers of mountains).
- Personal Computer Games issue 14: Spaceman Sid review.
- ST Action vol. 1 no. 4, August 1988, pp. 28–31: Atari ST version, £14.99, 50%.
- Rik Cross, “Moon Patrol’s illusion of depth”, Wireframe issue 3, November 2018, p. 32: the multiplane camera; Moon Patrol and Jungle Hunt.
- “Remembering Irem”, Wireframe issue 18, July 2019, pp. 50–52: Takashi Nishiyama; Moon Patrol “widely credited” as the first mainstream game with parallax scrolling.