Genre: Strategy
Strategy games reward planning over reflexes: thinking a few moves ahead, managing resources or outguessing an opponent. On the Atari 2600 this category covers board games against the computer, tactical space battles and thinking games that sit somewhere between puzzle and action.
Writing a computer opponent for a machine with 128 bytes of RAM was a real challenge. Video Chess (1979), by Larry Wagner and Bob Whitehead, plays a full game with castling and en passant, and draws the board by showing four pieces on one set of lines and four on the next, because the console cannot normally put eight objects side by side. Carol Shaw’s 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (1978) stacks four boards to make a cube, and Atari also released Backgammon (1979) and Othello (1980). Activision added its own Checkers by Alan Miller.
Other games mix planning with action. In Star Raiders (1982) you study a galaxy map and watch your energy while hunting an enemy fleet, using the Video Touch Pad keypad that came with the game. Entombed (US Games, 1983) builds its maze as you go, and its maze-making routine was later studied by researchers in a 2018 paper.
Take your time, pick a game from the list below and play it right here in your browser.
Death Trap
In the game, you play as a messenger tasked with delivering an important message to the Galactic Emperor. However, you encounter a giant ship known as IT, which wants to prevent the message from being delivered. Your mission…
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Codebreaker
Codebreaker is a 1978 Atari cartridge with two logic games: a number-guessing game in the style of the board game Mastermind, and the ancient strategy game Nim. Released in October 1978 alongside Brain Games and Hunt & Score,…
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Confrontation
Confrontation is a two-player strategy game for the Atari 2600 from Answer Software, dated 1983 and programmed by Kim Ellis. It never reached the shops: Answer showed it at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show and sold it directly…
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Big Bird’s Egg Catch
Big Bird's Egg Catch is a 1983 Sesame Street game for young children, made by Atari with the Children's Computer Workshop and programmed by Christopher Omarzu. Big Bird wants to win the egg contest at the county fair,…
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Backgammon
Backgammon is Atari's 1979 version of the old board game for the Atari 2600, programmed by Craig Nelson. You can play against the computer or a friend, with a working doubling cube and a second game, Acey Deucey,…
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3-D Tic-Tac-Toe
3-D Tic-Tac-Toe is Atari's version of four-in-a-row tic-tac-toe played on a 4×4×4 cube, for the Atari 2600. It was programmed by Carol Shaw, and it was her first published game. You can play against the computer on eight…
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