How to play Gravitar online
- Rotate the ship: left and right arrow keys
- Thrust: up arrow (pushes you in the direction the ship is pointing)
- Shields and tractor beam: down arrow (both switch on together)
- Fire missiles: Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose a game level (1–5): F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
Each solar system has a deadly sun that pulls your ship towards it, an alien reactor base and three or four planets. Fly close to a planet to land on it. The view switches to a side-on landscape where gravity drags you down and red bunkers shoot at you. You cannot leave until every bunker is destroyed; then you fly off the top of the screen and the planet explodes behind you. Clear all the planets, or take the shortcut through the reactor, and you move on to the next system.
The reactor is a risky option. A countdown at the top of the screen gives you a short time to fly in, shoot the core and get out before it blows. The timer starts at 60 seconds and gets shorter in later systems.
Fuel is the real limit. You start with 10,000 units, and thrusting, shields and the tractor beam all burn it. A beep warns you when you drop below 2,000. Use the tractor beam on fuel depots to collect 5,000 units each, and reaching a new solar system adds 7,000 more. There are four galaxies with three solar systems each, twelve in total. In the second and fourth galaxies gravity is reversed and pushes you away from the ground. The third and fourth are dark: you can see only the enemies and the fuel, not the landscape.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Saucer | 100 |
| Rammer | 100 |
| Bunker | 250 |
You earn an extra ship every 10,000 points.
Game levels
- Level 1: the full challenge, with 6 ships
- Level 2: the same game with 15 ships
- Level 3: 6 ships, but bunkers and saucers cannot fire at you
- Level 4: a practice game with 100 ships and normal enemy fire
- Level 5: 25 ships and no gravity, a good place for beginners
Tips
- Thrust in short taps. Your ship keeps drifting after you let go, so small bursts are easier to control and save fuel.
- Shield only when needed. Shields stop bunker shots but not crashes or collisions with enemy ships, and they use up fuel.
- Pick up fuel on every planet. A depot is worth half your starting tank. Hover just above it and hold down to pull it in.
- Learn the reactor on an easy level. Try it first on level 4 or 5, where losing a ship costs little.
History
The arcade Gravitar, first developed under the working title “Lunar Battle”, came out in August 1982 with colour vector graphics and a five-button control panel. For the 2600, Dan Hitchens swapped the vector lines for ordinary raster graphics but kept the gravity-based physics, and he added the easier levels. The cartridge was first sold only through the Atari Club with a silver label and box. Atari later reissued it in its red-label style, and the silver-label original is now the sought-after one. Gravitar later inspired the 1986 computer game Thrust.
Similar games to play next
- Thrust – a homebrew 2600 version of the 1986 computer game that Gravitar inspired
- Asteroids – the same rotate-and-thrust controls, in Atari’s best-known space shooter
- Solaris – a large space adventure with planets to defend and fuel to manage
- Yars’ Revenge – another Atari space shooter designed for the 2600