Sea Dragon (computer game)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sea Dragon
Developer(s) Adventure International
Publisher(s) Adventure International
Platform(s) TRS-80, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, TRS-80 CoCo, MS-DOS
Release date 1982
Genre(s) Side-scroller
Mode(s) Single player
SeaDragon
SeaDragon

Sea Dragon was a side-scrolling game on the TRS-80 computer, released in 1982 by Adventure International. It was ported to the Apple II, Atari 400/800, and the TRS-80 Color Computer.

The player controlled a submarine that could shoot torpedoes both forwards and upwards. The gameplay involved dodging moving underwater mines and bad guys, and occasionally surfacing for air. The goal was to destroy an underwater reactor that could be reached after navigating through several game levels. The game concept and gameplay were largely a knockoff of the Scramble arcade game.

Sea Dragon was mildly notable on the Apple II because the title page played the sound of a digitized voice saying "Sea Dragon!" When the user started the game they were told "Attention Captain. Your ship's computer is now ready. Please wait while I initialize the systems", and during the game would be informed "Air level critical!" and "Approaching maximum damage!" This speech was a novelty, as the Apple II speaker was usually only able to emit a click. Programmers would have to click the speaker rapidly in order to produce any sound — the typical Apple II game made beep and boop sounds, and of course plenty of clicking sounds. Programming Sea Dragon to play back an audio sample, using only a clicking speaker, was an interesting technical achievement, shared with several other 1982 Apple II games: Dung Beetles, Creepy Corridors and Plasmania. The Color Computer version is the only other version that featured speech; it said "Welcome aboard, Captain!" on the title screen.

The original version was developed by Wayne Westmoreland and Terry Gilman on the TRS-80.

[edit] Ports

  • The Tandy Color Computer port was done by Jim Hurd of Coniah Software
  • The Atari 8-bit version was done by Russ Wetmore.
  • The PC DOS port was done by Hervé Thouzard
  • The IBM-PC color-graphics version was done by Dan Rollins
  • The Apple II version was done by John Anderson

[edit] External links