How to play Survival Run online
The cartridge was sold with Milton Bradley’s Cosmic Commander controller, a joystick with handgrips. It works like a normal Atari joystick, so the keyboard controls below cover everything.
- Move the gunsight: arrow keys
- Fire: Space bar (tap for single shots or hold for rapid fire)
- Choose the skill level (1–5): F11 (the console’s Select switch), before the game starts
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
You pilot a Class 1 Starfighter through the underground tunnels of an alien world, on your way to the Alien Master and his command ship. The view is from the cockpit, and you aim with a crosshair gunsight. A map at the top of the screen shows the network of tunnels, with a blinking white dot for your position. You travel from left to right across the map, and at each fork you have to choose the correct branch. Take a wrong turn into a dead end and you crash, which ends the game.
Alien guards appear at the far end of tunnels and fly towards you. Force fields block some tunnels. Flying into one costs energy, but you can switch it off by shooting the small box that powers it. Your energy bar also drops when enemies hit you and when you fire. It turns yellow at half and red at a quarter. Getting through a tunnel gives some energy back, and reaching the end of the maze and destroying the command ship recharges you completely. If the energy runs out, the game is over.
| Target | Skill level 1 | Skill level 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Each tunnel completed | 80 | 80 |
| Alien guard | 300 | 700 |
| Force field | 600 | 1,000 |
| Command ship | 6,000 | 10,000 |
The five skill levels change the speed of your starfighter, from level 1 (easiest) to level 5 (hardest). You pick one before starting and cannot change it during a game.
Tips
- Watch the map, not just the tunnel. A wrong turn ends the whole game, so check where the dot is heading before each fork.
- Don’t spray shots. Firing uses energy, so aim before you shoot.
- Hit the force field’s box early. Switching the field off is worth more points than a guard and saves you the energy a collision would cost.
- Watch the bar colour. When it turns red, focus on getting through the next tunnel to recover energy.
About the release
Milton Bradley, better known for board games, released just two Atari 2600 cartridges, Survival Run and Spitfire Attack, each packed with its own controller. Both came with stickers for the controller and an end label that buyers had to stick on the cartridge themselves, so many loose copies today have no end label. The game is fairly hard to find for collectors, and the Video Game Critic gave it a positive review.
Similar games to play next
- Spitfire Attack – Milton Bradley’s other 2600 game, also sold with its own controller
- Starmaster – Activision’s first-person space fight with energy to manage
- Solaris – a large space shooter that also has you plan a route on a map