Moon Lander/Moon Lander II

Moon Lander intro screen #1 Moon Lander intro screen #2
Moon Lander intro screens 1&2 (2 is off center since it scrolls across)
Moon Lander intro screen #3 Moon Lander intro screen #4
Moon Lander intro screens 3&4
Moon Lander game screen #1 Moon Lander game screen #2
Moon Lander game screens 1&2
Moon Lander game screen #3 Moon Lander game screen #4
Moon Lander game screens 3&4
Moon Lander II intro screen

Moon Lander II intro screen
Moon Lander II game screen #1 Moon Lander II game screen #2
Moon Lander game screens 1&2

Moon Lander/Moon Lander II is a 2 game package published by Tom Mix Software and was both the first 16K game(s) that they sold, and the first Coco game written by Chris Latham (famous for later making classics like Donkey King and Sailor Man). For being written in Extended BASIC, they are quite well done. Both of them feature both zoomed out and in screens, joystick controls, horizontal velocity and fuel gauges, and selectable gravity. Moon Lander is the simpler of the two; the player steers the ship with the joystick; pushing up fires the thrusters, down shuts them off, and left and right moves your ship left to right. Your ship stays in the same orientation in each; so as long as you are descending slow enough and aren't moving horizontally, you can land successfully. It does use the joystick button as a once per game immediate ascent (to prevent the player from crashing).

Moon Lander II is a bit more complicated/advanced. Left and right rotates your ship (and these controls are backwards from what I expected; not sure why) and the fire button is your thrusters. You can therefore thrust at angles, and you have to make sure that your angle is back to straight up in order to land. The ship has multiple angles that it can rotate too, so it's control is much more subtle than in the first game. It also has more difficult terrain to maneuver through.

Title: Moon Lander/Moon Lander II

Author: Chris Latham

Publisher: Tom Mix Software

Released: First advertised January 1982 in Color Computer News; Rainbow says it was released February 28, 1982. Written in 1981.

Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 16K RAM Extended BASIC, joystick, tape or disk.

Download Moon Lander / Moon Lander II.

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