How to play Cosmic Ark online
- Shoot meteors: tap the arrow key for the direction you want to fire, releasing it between shots (Space does not shoot)
- Launch and fly the shuttle: down arrow to launch, then the arrow keys
- Tractor beam: Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose a game variation: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Ark width: F4 (left difficulty switch)
- Two-player games: player 2 uses T/F/G/H and A; F9 swaps who shoots and who flies
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
The game alternates between two phases. In the meteor shower, the Ark sits in the middle of the screen while meteors fly in from all four sides. You fire in the direction you push, a bit like the arcade game Space Zap. Survive, and the Ark moves over a planet for the rescue: fly a shuttle down, line it up over one of the two creatures on the surface and hold the tractor beam until it is aboard.
Guns on both sides of the planet fire at the shuttle. A hit costs energy, drops one creature back to the surface and returns the shuttle to the Ark. Take too long and a warning sounds: another meteor shower is coming, and you cannot shoot while the shuttle is out. If a creature is still left, the Ark returns to the same planet afterwards. Rescue both and you move on, and the pace increases.
There are no lives. Instead the Ark starts with 40 units of fuel, shown as a red bar during the meteor phase, and the game ends when it runs out.
| Event | Fuel | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Destroy a meteor | +1 | 10 |
| Destroy a wavering meteor | 30 | |
| Fire a shot | −1 | |
| Meteor hits the Ark | −10 | |
| Capture a creature | +10 | |
| Capture both and get back before the warning | refilled completely | 1,000 |
Variations and switches
- Games 1 and 4: the regular and advanced full mission for one player
- Games 2 and 5: regular and advanced meteor shower only
- Games 3 and 6: regular and advanced missions for two players, one shooting meteors and the other flying the shuttle
- Left difficulty switch: A makes the Ark wider and harder to defend, B narrower
Tips
- Don’t spray shots. Every shot costs one fuel unit and a kill only gives one back, so a miss is a loss.
- Rescue fast. Catching both creatures before the warning refills your whole tank.
- Keep the beam on. If you let go before a creature reaches the shuttle, it drops back to the ground.
The story behind Cosmic Ark
Atlantis ends with the city destroyed and a small ship escaping; in Cosmic Ark, that ship is your shuttle. This game ends the same way, with the Ark lost and the shuttle getting away, but Imagic never continued the story. According to Fulop, he made the whole game as a piece of technical one-upmanship, to show off its moving starfield to Activision programmers David Crane and Bob Whitehead. The effect relies on a bug in the 2600 hardware. There are two versions of the cartridge: in one you can switch the stars off with the TV type switch (F2 here), in the other you cannot.
Similar games to play next
- Atlantis – the Imagic game whose ending leads into Cosmic Ark
- Demon Attack – Imagic’s best-selling space shooter
- Dragonfire – another Imagic game that switches between two very different kinds of screen
- Moonsweeper – Imagic space rescue game, landing on moons to pick up miners