Starpath began in 1981 as Arcadia Corporation and changed its name shortly after launching the Supercharger in August 1982, because Emerson had a console called the Arcadia 2001. The Supercharger plugged into the 2600’s cartridge slot, added 6 KB of memory to the console’s own 128 bytes, and loaded games from an ordinary cassette player. Only Starpath made games for it. The extra memory allowed more detailed graphics and bigger games, and some tapes were “multi-load” games in several parts.
As the market collapsed, the company ran into financial trouble. Its last tapes were sold only by mail order, and Epyx took Starpath over in 1984. The site has twelve Starpath games, and you don’t need a tape deck to play them. Some highlights:
Phaser Patrol (1982): the first-person space combat game packed with the Supercharger.
Dragonstomper: Stephen Landrum’s fantasy role-playing game, ending in a fight with a dragon.
Escape from the Mindmaster (1982): Dennis Caswell’s 3-D maze game, with no shooting at all.
The Official Frogger (1983): Konami’s arcade game, closer to the original than the Parker Brothers cartridge.
Fireball (1982): a juggler hurls fireballs at a wall of blocks.
Sword of Saros (1983): a dungeon adventure from Starpath’s last, mail-order days.
Load any of them below and play in your browser.
Fireball is a block-breaking game designed by Scott Nelson and released in August 1982 by Arcadia, the company soon renamed Starpath. It was one of the first games for the Supercharger, an add-on that plugged into the Atari…
Play ▸Dragonstomper is a fantasy role-playing game for the Atari 2600, designed by Stephen Landrum and released by Starpath on cassette tape in late 1982 or early 1983. It ran on the Starpath Supercharger, an add-on that loaded games…
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