How to play Fire Spinner online
- Move the wizard: arrow keys
- Conjure a fireball: hold the up arrow key until the fireball starts to spin
- Throw it: Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
Gameplay
You are a wizard at the bottom of the screen, and your target is a catapult moving across the top. The game tries to look three-dimensional, which makes judging your shot tricky. A fireball that hits the side of the screen bounces back towards you, and one thrown straight up falls back down, so be ready to step aside after every throw. Hit the catapult and you move on to the next level. The first level gives you five minutes, and each level after that gives you one minute less.
AtariProtos, which documents unreleased 2600 games, found the controls frustrating and felt that hitting the catapult comes down more to luck than skill, and suggests this is why the game never came out in the USA. Nothing more is known about why the NTSC version stayed unreleased.
