Third-party games are Atari 2600 cartridges made by companies other than Atari itself. That seems normal today, but in the late 1970s nobody outside a console maker published games for its machine. The change came from Atari’s own staff. In 1979 a group of its programmers, including David Crane, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, left to found Activision, the first independent console game developer. Atari sued, but the case was settled by 1982, with Activision paying royalties and the idea of third-party publishing left standing. Activision also printed its designers’ names on boxes and manuals, something Atari did not do.
Other companies followed quickly. Imagic, co-founded by former Atari programmer Rob Fulop, brought out games such as Riddle of the Sphinx (1982). Toy and film companies joined in too: Parker Brothers with Tutankham, Coleco with Zaxxon, and Mattel’s M Network with BurgerTime. Starpath went further with its Supercharger add-on, which loaded games such as Communist Mutants from Space from audio cassette and raised the console’s memory from 128 bytes to over 6 KB.
Activision’s own hits remain the best-known third-party games, including David Crane’s Pitfall! (1982) and Frostbite (1983). By 1983 so many publishers had flooded shops with cartridges, of very mixed quality, that the glut is often named as one cause of that year’s video game crash.
Browse the full list below and play games from dozens of publishers right here in your browser.
Spider Maze is K-Tel Vision’s NTSC release of Inca Gold, a single-screen climbing game from the European label Funvision, dated 1982. It is the same game with a different name on the label: you climb floor by floor up a building towards a giant spider, while rocks and small spiders fall down on you. You can play it here in your browser.
Sneak ‘n Peek turns the playground game of hide and seek into an Atari 2600 cartridge. It was published by U.S. Games in 1982, designed by Wickstead Design and programmed by Paul Willson. One player hides somewhere in a spooky old house while the other searches, and then you swap. It is a gentle, non-violent game that works best with two people in the same room. You can play it here in your browser.
Solar Fox is CBS Electronics’ 1983 Atari 2600 conversion of the 1981 Bally Midway arcade game, programmed by Bob Curtiss. You steer an unarmed starship around a grid of solar cells, collecting every one while two guards on the edges of the screen spit fireballs at you. It is simple to learn, quick to play, and the speed button adds a surprising amount of skill. 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.
Sorcerer is a 1983 action game for the Atari 2600 from Mythicon, a small American publisher. It was programmed by Bruce de Graaf and was Mythicon’s first cartridge (model number 1001). You play a good sorcerer riding a flying platform, shooting energy charges at the creatures sent by evil wizards and collecting the treasures they leave behind. It is simple, but steering the platform makes it a bit different from the usual shooters. You can play it here in your browser.
Space Adventure is a renamed release of Flash Gordon, the Atari 2600 shooter that David Lubar designed at Sirius Software for 20th Century Fox. This version was sold under the name of Zellers, the Canadian department store chain, which put its own titles on a number of 2600 games. The cartridge is rare today, but the game inside is the same tunnel-maze shooter. You can play it here in your browser.
Space Attack is the Atari 2600 version of the Intellivision game Space Battle, released by M Network, Mattel’s label for Atari 2600 cartridges. AtariAge credits Bruce Pedersen and Hal Finney as its programmers. It mixes a strategy map with first-person dogfights: you decide which squadron meets which alien fleet, then fly the battle yourself. You can play it here in your browser.
Space Cavern is a 1982 shoot-’em-up for the Atari 2600 from Games by Apollo, designed by Dan Oliver. Your spaceman stands on the floor of an underground cavern on a strange planet. Above him hover horned creatures that rain energy blasts down on him, and from the caves on either side furry beasts charge in to attack. What sets it apart from other shooters of its time is that you fight on two fronts at once: you shoot upwards and to the sides. You can play it here in your browser.
Space Jockey is a 1982 side-scrolling shooter for the Atari 2600 and the first game from U.S. Games, sold under its Vidtec label. It was the first video game by Garry Kitchen, who built it at James Wickstead Design Associates. You pilot an attack saucer over rolling hills and shoot down the tanks, planes, helicopters and balloons coming towards you. You can play it here in your browser.
Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space is a 1983 flight simulator from Activision, programmed by Jessica Stevens (credited at the time as Steve Kitchen). You take the Space Shuttle Discovery through a complete mission: launch, orbit, docking with a satellite, re-entry and landing. It was one of the most detailed simulations ever made for the Atari 2600, and it uses almost every switch on the console. You can play it here in your browser.