Imagic was founded in 1981 by former Atari and Mattel staff, among them the programmers Rob Fulop, Bob Smith and Dennis Koble. Its first three cartridges, Demon Attack, Star Voyager and Trick Shot, came out in 1982, and Demon Attack became one of the year’s best-selling console games. Imagic made Atari 2600 games until the market collapsed in 1983; one of its last, Laser Gates, was a finished game it bought from another small company.
The site has eighteen Imagic cartridges. Some good places to start:
Demon Attack (1982): Rob Fulop’s shooter with flapping, splitting demons, and Imagic’s biggest hit.
Atlantis (1982): Dennis Koble’s city defence with three fixed cannons, the company’s second biggest seller.
Cosmic Ark (1982): Fulop’s sequel to Atlantis, with a moving starfield made from a hardware bug.
Riddle of the Sphinx (1982): Bob Smith’s Egyptian adventure, built around a clever inventory system.
Dragonfire (1982): Smith’s two-screen treasure raid, which keeps getting faster.
Fathom (1983): Fulop’s adventure under the sea and in the sky, starring a hero who changes between a dolphin and a seagull.
The list also includes rarities such as Atlantis II, made for a high-score contest, and Wing War, the one Imagic cartridge released only in Europe. Choose a game below and play it in your browser.
Atlantis II is a special contest edition of Imagic’s 1982 shooter Atlantis. It looks almost exactly like the regular game, but the Gorgon ships fly faster and are worth fewer points. It was never sold in shops, and it is one of the rarest Atari 2600 cartridges. You can play it here in your browser.
Laser Gates is a side-scrolling shooter for the Atari 2600, designed and programmed by Dan Oliver and published by Imagic in 1983. You pilot a small ship called the Dante Dart through the tunnels of a giant computer that is about to blow up the universe. With forcefields to slip through, walls to avoid and a countdown to beat, it is a tense and busy game. You can play it here in your browser.
Fire Fighter is a 1982 Imagic game for the Atari 2600, created by Brad Stewart, who had earlier programmed Breakout and Asteroids for Atari. A man is trapped in a burning warehouse at midnight, and you have a hose, a fire engine with a ladder, and a stopwatch running. The goal is to save someone rather than shoot something, and each game is short, so it is built for beating your own best time. You can play it here in your browser.
Star Voyager is a first-person space combat game for the Atari 2600, designed by Bob Smith and released by Imagic in April 1982. From the bridge of the Astro-Cruiser Star Voyager, you fight your way through seven star portals to save the Capital Starport, while trying not to run out of energy. It is a simpler, more action-packed take on Star Raiders. You can play it here in your browser.
Riddle of the Sphinx is an action-adventure game designed by Bob Smith and released by Imagic in August 1982. As a young prince of Egypt, you travel through a desert kingdom cursed by Anubis, fight off thieves and scorpions, collect treasures and work out which offerings the temples want. It asks you to think, not just shoot, and it makes clever use of the console’s switches to fit a whole inventory system onto a one-button machine. You can play it here in your browser.
Wing War is a 1983 Imagic action game in which you fly a dragon out of its den to hunt enemies and bring home magic crystals. It was programmed by Michael Greene, and it has an unusual place in Imagic’s history: although it was announced for America, it only came out in Europe, making it the one Imagic cartridge never released in the US. Original copies are very rare today. You can play it here in your browser.
Trick Shot is a pool and billiards game for the Atari 2600, designed by Dennis Koble and released by Imagic in April 1982. It was one of the new company’s first three cartridges, alongside Demon Attack and Star Voyager. You aim, set the power and add spin on a table seen from above. It is the only pool game on the 2600, and you can play it here in your browser.
Subterranea is a 1983 action game from Imagic for the Atari 2600, programmed by Mark Klein. You fly a Cave Ranger down through a series of underground tunnels, clearing out flying robots and slipping through electrified gates on the way to a Treasure Crystal. It borrows from Defender but plays faster, and it rewards clean flying more than high scores. You can play it here in your browser.
Solar Storm is a 1983 space shooter for the Atari 2600 from Imagic, programmed by Dennis Koble. A nearby sun has exploded, and you steer a laser ship along the surface of your planet, shooting down the debris and alien attackers raining from above. What sets it apart is a heat gauge: anything you miss warms up your planet, and too much heat destroys it. It is also the only Imagic game made for the paddle controllers, which suit its quick side-to-side movement well. You can play it here in your browser.
Shootin’ Gallery is a fairground target-shooting game for the Atari 2600 from Imagic, programmed by the company’s co-founder Dennis Koble and released in 1983. Rows of little animals glide back and forth across a shooting booth while a cuckoo clock ticks away above them. The idea is close to Sega’s arcade game Carnival, and although the manual pitches it at young children, it has enough to think about to hold older players too. You can play it here in your browser.