Guardian

How to play Guardian online

Guardian was made for the Atari paddle controller, not the joystick. The emulator switches to paddle mode automatically.

• Move Guardian left and right: left and right arrow keys
• Fire the laser: Space bar (the fire button also starts a game)
• Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
• Choose a game variation: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
• Laser recharge speed: F4 toggles the Player 1 difficulty switch
• Switch between paddle and joystick mode: Alt + L

Gameplay

The enemy starship Dromeda sweeps across the top of the screen and drops bombs. Your planets sit at the bottom behind a force field, with your Guardian cannon in front of them. A bomb that hits Guardian stuns it for a moment. A bomb that hits the force field knocks a hole in it, and the next bomb through that gap destroys a planet. Watch for the special bomb the manual calls a “quasi-spheroid”: shooting it is worth double points, but if it lands it blows away a wide section of the shield and any planets beneath it. The bombs get faster, and worth more, as the game goes on.

Every 10,000 points the force field is rebuilt, and every 50,000 points you earn an extra planet. The game ends when your last planet is gone.

Variations and switches

The 34 variations mix one or two players with different enemy behaviour: a steady or randomly turning starship, regular or random bomb drops, bombs that fall at random angles or home in on your planets, and bombs that bounce off the screen edges or wrap around. Games 33 and 34 are very easy versions for young children. In the two-player games the starship flies across the middle of the screen, with one player defending planets at the top and the other at the bottom, both at the same time. With the difficulty switch on B your laser recharges quickly; on A you wait longer between shots.

Tips

• Don’t waste shots. You can’t fire again until the laser recharges, so a missed shot can leave a gap open for the next bomb.
• Guard the holes. Once the shield has a gap, the planet behind it is exposed. Stay close to that area until the next 10,000-point rebuild.
• Always go for the quasi-spheroid. It is worth double and does far more damage than an ordinary bomb if it lands.

The story behind Guardian

Apollo’s founder hoped to match Activision’s early sales and built up stock to match, but the sales never came. The company filed for bankruptcy in November 1982. Programmer Larry Martin later recalled working around the clock for weeks to finish Guardian, and that creditors closed the company right after he sent the game to manufacturing. Because so few copies were made, Guardian is considered the rarest of Apollo’s released games. An unfinished earlier version has also turned up among prototype collectors.