Orca was a Japanese arcade game maker. It did not produce Atari 2600 cartridges itself: Tigervision converted its arcade games for the console, and those home versions are credited to Orca on this site.
River Patrol (1984) comes from a 1981 Orca arcade game in which you steer a leaking patrol boat upriver and pull drowning people from the water. Espial (1984) is based on Orca’s 1983 shooter: you fly over a huge starship, and one button fires both a laser and missiles at its defences. Springer, a platform game about a rabbit hopping across clouds towards the sun, is listed here too, although AtariAge credits it to a company called Software Electronics.
All three cartridges are rare, River Patrol especially, so the emulator is the easy way in. Start any of them below in your browser.
River Patrol is Tigervision’s 1984 Atari 2600 version of a 1981 arcade game by the Japanese company Orca. You steer a leaky patrol boat up a dangerous river, pulling drowning people out of the water while dodging logs, rocks and alligators. The cartridge had very limited distribution and is one of the rarest 2600 games. You can play it here in your browser.
Springer is a single-screen platform game released by Tigervision for the Atari 2600. You play a rabbit hopping from cloud to cloud towards the sun, picking up objects and dealing with eggs that hatch into dragons if you leave them too long. It is a short, tricky game built around timing your jumps onto moving clouds, and today the cartridge is very rare. You can play it here in your browser.
Espial is a space shooter for the Atari 2600, released by Tigervision in 1984. It is a home version of a 1983 arcade game by Orca, the company behind River Patrol. You fly a small fighter over a huge enemy starship, shooting down its defence squadrons with your laser while aiming missiles at the cannons and fortresses on its hull. The two weapons fire together from a single button, which makes for a busy, fast game. You can play it here in your browser.