Skydiver

Skydiver

Arcade - USA - Babinet.

Developer Atari Games, Atari Publisher Atari Games, Atari, Sears, Roebuck and Co. Published 1978-06-?? Platforms Arcade, Atari 2600 Genres Action, Sports Themes Extreme sports, Sports Multiplayer Simultaneous versus Distribution Commercial

Skydiver is an action video game with a skydiving theme developed and published by Atari Games for the arcade in June, 1978. It was later ported to the Atari 2600 in 1979. In the game, the player must safely guide their skydiver from an airplane down to a landing pad on the ground while successfully navigating the ever-changing wind. The game features mechanics similar to the much earlier title, Lunar Lander, but with a different theme and competitive head-to-head game play.

The arcade cabinet uses several interesting tricks to make it more interesting. It has a specialized control panel with ripcord handles that can be pulled to open the skydiver's chute, and then the player can "steer" their skydiver by moving the handle left or right. The arcade game's designer, Owen Rubin, added the ability to light up letters of the game's marquee title, an element common to pinball machines which he loved. The lights flicker off and on over time, and, if the player successfully lands on a pad while a light is on, the light remains on for the rest of their game. If the player is able to light up all the letters in the word "Skydiver," they're given bonus points. The cabinet also features cloud overlays on the screen to obscure portions of the play field. The monitor is an unusual monochrome display that supports three shades: black, gray, and white, and a blue gel was placed over it to make it look like black, dark blue, and light blue.

The Atari 2600 port naturally uses the Atari 2600 Joystick and lacks various features of the arcade, but it adds better color and alternate game modes like moving landing pads. While the arcade game gives the player a set number of attempts, the 2600 game gives the player a set length of time to amass a high score. Both games can be played as a single-player game, or as a two-player simultaneous competition.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	No. This is a two-player game only.

My family had Sky Diver for the Atari 2600, and my siblings and I would often play the game competitively in the mid-1980s. We liked the flailing animation the skydiving stick men make as they fall and the sound that is heard when they embed themselves into the ground. Like most games from the 1970s, it didn't have much depth, so it got boring fast, but it was enjoyable for a few minutes.

Review

3	3	2	1	2

Best Version: Arcade

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• Having to pull and direct the ripcord handle really adds a level of verisimilitude to the game.
• Using the cabinet's marquee to display potential bonus points was a clever design decision.
• The ambulance that peels your skydiver off the ground when you fail to open your chute is pretty funny.
• The moving platforms in the 2600 port are a welcome addition.
• The arcade game has built-in translations to French, Spanish, and German.

Bad

• There is bad sprite flickering on the falling skydivers in the arcade game.
• The 2600 port loses the ambulance animation and bonus score system.

Ugly

• The game is too primitive to play for very long. Pretty much everything the game has to offer can be seen in the attract animation.
• The game is media-challenged. The graphics and sound are very weak, and the 2600 port is even worse.

Media

Arcade Art

• 

  Cabinet - USA.

• 

  Bezel - USA.
  
  Funny cartoon art.

• 

  Control panel - USA.
  
  A close up of the ripcord controllers.

• 

  Screen overlay - USA.
  
  Used to obscure parts of the screen.

Box Art

• 

  Atari 2600 - USA - Box. A wonderful skydiving collage painted by Greg Vance.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - Arcade - USA.

• 

  Manual - Atari 2600 - USA - Rev 1.

• 

  Manual - Atari 2600 - USA - Rev 2.

• 

  Flyer - Arcade - USA.

• 

  Flyer - Arcade - USA - Alt.

• 

  Ad - Atari 2600 - Germany.

Font

See Video game font collection.

Screenshots

• 

  Arcade - Game play.

Videos

Review - Atari 2600.

Game play - Arcade.

Play Online

Atari 2600

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no clearly female characters.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no clearly female characters.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	The arcade game has an all-black character, but this was a hardware limit.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Credits

Roles	Staff
Arcade Game	Owen Rubin
2600 Game	Jim Huether
2600 Cover Art	Greg Vance

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English (2600)	Sky Diver
English (arcade)	Skydiver
English (Telegames)	Dare Diver
German	Vom Himmel durch die Hölle	Vom Himmel durch die Holle	From Heaven Through Hell

• MAME code: skydiver

Links