How to play Laser Gates online
- Fly the Dante Dart: arrow keys (pushing left or right also turns the ship to face that way)
- Start the game and fire your laser: Space bar
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
The Cryptic Computer has kept the peace in the galaxies for centuries, but it has broken down, and its four Failsafe Detonators are set to destroy everything. Your job is to fly through the computer’s dark passages and destroy all four. To knock out a Detonator you have to hit one of the pins on its side with your laser. Be careful: some pins are booby-trapped, and hitting the same one twice destroys your ship. The Detonators carry the number 6507, the name of the processor inside the Atari 2600.
The top half of the screen shows the action and the bottom half is an instrument panel. It shows your energy, which drains steadily as you fly; your shields, which start at 24 units; and D-Time, the time you have left to reach the next Detonator. Energy is only restored by flying into Energy Pods along the passage. Brushing a wall or taking a shot from an enemy costs one shield unit, while crashing into an enemy, a forcefield or a Detonator costs six. When the shield indicator flashes red, the next collision is fatal. Every 10,000 points gives you six extra shield units.
On the way you meet grey Densepack Columns that you have to blast through, Radar Mortars along the top and bottom of the passage, and Rock Munchers, Homing Missiles and Byte Bats that fly at you without warning. There are also three kinds of forcefield: some flash on and off, some open and close like crushing jaws, and some have a small gap that slides up and down.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Radar Mortar | 115 |
| Rock Muncher | 325 |
| Byte Bat | 330 |
| Passing a forcefield | 400 |
| Homing Missile | 525 |
| Failsafe Detonator | 6,507 |
Tips
- Never shoot an Energy Pod. Energy only comes from the pods, and you may not last until the next one appears.
- Treat walls as cheap, enemies as expensive. A wall scrape costs one shield unit, a head-on crash costs six, so graze a wall rather than hit a forcefield.
- Time the forcefields. Watch one cycle of a flashing or crushing forcefield before you fly through.
- Remember the booby-trapped pins. If a pin did not destroy the Detonator, aim for a different one.
- Keep an eye on D-Time. Don’t stop to fight everything if the countdown to the next Detonator is running low.
The story behind Laser Gates
Dan Oliver had written Space Cavern for Games by Apollo before co-founding a small company, VentureVision, whose first game was Rescue Terra I. When VentureVision folded, Oliver still had a finished game called Innerspace. Imagic bought it and released it as Laser Gates in October 1983, one of the company’s last Atari 2600 games.
By then the video game market was collapsing, and the cartridge soon ended up in bargain bins. Oliver has said Laser Gates is his favourite of his own games, and he was especially proud of the explosions, in which every pixel flies off on its own path with momentum and gravity.
Similar games to play next
- Rescue Terra I – Dan Oliver’s VentureVision shooter
- Space Cavern – Dan Oliver’s earlier game for Games by Apollo
- Vanguard – another shooter set in scrolling tunnels
- Super Cobra – fly and shoot through a narrow scrolling cave