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.
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.
Space Tunnel is a shooter made by the Taiwanese company Bit Corporation, whose instruction leaflet is dated 1982. Your small ship is trapped in a tunnel with jagged walls on both sides, and UFOs keep appearing to fire missiles that bounce off those walls. It is a simple, fast single-player game, and the ricocheting shots make it trickier than it looks. You can play it here in your browser.
Sky Patrol is an unfinished Atari 2600 prototype from Imagic, programmed by Brad Stewart in 1982. You fly a hot air balloon over enemy territory, riding the wind at different heights. It was shown at the 1982 CES trade show, with a mock-up box and label, but it was the only Imagic 2600 game that never came out. The surviving prototype is playable but incomplete. You can try it here in your browser.
Sky Skipper is Parker Brothers’ 1983 Atari 2600 version of a Nintendo arcade game from 1981. You fly a small biplane over a walled course, bombing gorillas to knock them out so their cages spring open, then swoop down to rescue the animals inside before the gorillas get back up. It is a quick, easy-to-learn score-chaser with a nice twist: rescuing animals is also how you refuel. You can play it here in your browser.
Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle is a side-scrolling jumping game based on the Smurfs cartoon. Coleco released it first for its own ColecoVision console in 1982 and then for the Atari 2600 in 1983. You guide a Smurf from the village through woods, fields, mountains and caverns to Gargamel’s castle, where Smurfette is held prisoner. Its screens are full of colour and detail, and its jump timing is easy to learn but hard to master. You can play it here in your browser.
Smurfs Save the Day is an educational game for young children, published by Coleco in 1983 and programmed by Rob Harris. It was one of only two cartridges made for the Kid Vid Voice Module, a cassette player that plugged into the Atari 2600 and played spoken instructions and songs in step with the game. Three Smurfs each host a small activity about music, colours or sorting shapes. You can load it here in your browser, but please read the note below first.
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.
Shuttle Orbiter is a space shuttle simulation for the Atari 2600 from Avalon Hill, the company best known for strategy board games. It was designed by Bill Hood, with graphics by Jean Baer. You pilot the shuttle Challenger in Earth orbit and have to finish building a space station, ferrying its last ten sections from an orbiting factory before your fuel runs out. It is a slow, thoughtful game about orbits rather than a shooter, and you can play it here in your browser.
Sir Lancelot is an Atari 2600 action game published by Xonox, the video game label of the record company K-tel. You ride the winged horse Pegasus, flap your way across the sky and joust with flying monsters and dragons to free a series of captive maidens. It plays a lot like a one-player Joust with a lance, and it was sold on its own and on a two-ended cartridge together with Robin Hood. You can play it here in your browser.
Skate Boardin’ is a 1987 skateboarding game for the Atari 2600, designed by David Crane and released by Absolute Entertainment. You are late for school, and overnight someone has filled the streets with ramps, tubes and hurdles. You have five minutes to find and ride as many of the thirty hidden tricks as you can. It was one of the first skateboarding video games. You can play it here in your browser.