How to play Star Voyager online
The joystick works like an aircraft’s control stick, so up and down are reversed:
- Climb: down arrow
- Dive: up arrow
- Veer left or right: left and right arrow keys
- Fire lasers or photon torpedoes: Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch), or press Space after a game has ended
- Choose game 1 or 2: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Game speed: F4 (left difficulty): A is normal, B is faster
- Weapon: F9 (right difficulty): A for lasers, B for photon torpedoes
Gameplay
The planet Zakor has broken a peace treaty and is attacking the Capital Starport, and Zakoran ships guard the seven star portals on your way home. You look out through the cockpit window as stars rush past, with a crosshair showing where your two lines of fire meet.
Energy is everything. Firing uses it up, and so does every hit from an enemy ship or its pulsar bombs. Lasers cost more energy than torpedoes but cover a wider area. The only way to refill is to fly through a star portal. When one is near, a short tune plays and a flashing blip appears on the radar in the middle of your instrument panel. Steer until the blip is centred, line the portal up between your sights and fly through – crashing into it destroys you. The panel also shows enemies destroyed (left) and energy left (right).
Your score is five points for every enemy you destroyed plus ten for every portal you passed through, and the colour of the viewer frame shows how many portals you have crossed. When the game ends you are given a rank based on that score, from AWOL through the chevron ranks to Lieutenant, Captain and, from 208 points, Admiral.
Game variations
- Game 1 with two players: a team game. The pilot steers with the left joystick; the weapons officer fires with the right one (Player 2 keys: A fires).
- Game 2 with two players: head to head. The second player (T/F/G/H and A) steers the enemy ships and fires their pulsar bombs.
Tips
- Practise the manual’s way. Play a two-player game alone with the left controls and the left difficulty on B. Star portals then appear in the centre of the screen.
- Use torpedoes to save energy, and switch to lasers when you need their wider reach.
- You don’t have to fight everything. Dodging an enemy can cost less energy than shooting it down.
- Listen. The tune announces a portal and four beeps an enemy, often before you can see them.
The story behind Star Voyager
Bob Smith made Video Pinball at Atari before leaving with Rob Fulop and Dennis Koble to found Imagic in 1981. Star Voyager was his first game for the new company, and he has said it was inspired by Star Raiders. He preferred first-person games because they felt more immersive, and later made Moonsweeper in the same style. He wanted to use the melody from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but some of its notes were hard to reproduce on the 2600’s sound chip.
At the 1982 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, where Imagic first showed it, Smith was impressed by Activision’s Starmaster. Both came out that year, along with Atari’s 2600 version of Star Raiders, and Star Voyager was released together with Demon Attack and Trick Shot as Imagic’s first three games. Reviewers praised its graphics and sound and saw it as the most action-focused of the three.
Similar games to play next
- Star Raiders – the game that inspired Star Voyager
- Starmaster – Activision’s rival space combat game from the same year
- Moonsweeper – Bob Smith’s later first-person game for Imagic
- Demon Attack – one of Imagic’s first three games