Demons to Diamonds

How to play Demons to Diamonds online

The game was made for the Atari paddle controllers. The emulator switches to paddle mode automatically for this game.

• Move your laser base: left and right arrow keys
• Fire the laser: hold Space; the beam keeps growing while you hold it and stops where you let go
• Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
• Choose a game variation: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
• Skull bullet speed: F4 and F9 (the difficulty switches)
• Switch between paddle and joystick mode: Alt + L
• Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it

Gameplay

Your laser base slides along the bottom while demons fly sideways in the rows above. Shoot a demon that matches the colour of your base and it becomes a diamond, which you can then shoot for a much bigger reward. Hit a demon of the wrong colour and it turns into a skull. Skulls cannot be destroyed; they fire at you until they vanish after a short while. You start with five lives, shown as small white triangles, and you lose one each time a skull’s shot hits you.

Distance is what earns points. A demon in the row closest to you is worth 1 point and one in the farthest row is worth 8. Diamonds are worth ten times their row value, so from 10 up to 80 points. The waves get harder as you go: demons speed up, skulls start to move instead of sitting still, and in later waves skulls appear on their own.

Game variations and switches

There are six variations. Games 1 to 3 are the standard versions and games 4 to 6 are easier versions for beginners, with slower and less frequent skull fire.

• Games 1 and 4: one player
• Games 2 and 5: two players; the second player’s base sits at the top of the screen and fires downward
• Games 3 and 6: two players, and you can also shoot your opponent’s base to take away a life

In the two-player games, a skull made from your opponent’s colour of demon fires in both directions. When one player runs out of lives, the survivor gets bonus points for each life left. The difficulty switches set how fast skull bullets fly: in position A they travel almost twice as fast as in position B.

Tips

• Check the colour before you fire. One wrong shot creates a skull that you cannot remove, so a missed chance costs less than a careless hit.
• Aim for the far rows. A diamond in the top row is worth 80 points, compared with 10 in the nearest row.
• Move away from skulls. They cannot be shot, but they disappear after a while, so step aside and wait.

History

Atari released Demons to Diamonds in 1982, and Sears sold it under its own label as well. Nick Turner did the programming, and Alan Murphy designed the graphics. Reviews at the time were not kind: Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz of Electronic Games called it a “video sleeping pill” in 1983. The two-player games, with a base at each end of the screen, are the best way to enjoy it today.