Whale Dive

The Game

A giant sperm whale was plummeting from the sky above an alien planet - a planet with strange constructions, built by unknown creatures - constructions of wood, metal and strange plastic-like substances that would prove to be lethal if the whale were to crash into them.

Luckily, you are here to guide the whale in its fall. You and your joystick. *You have to keep the whale alive!*

The Atari 2600 (also known as Atari VCS, which is confusing as there's a recent product with that name), released in 1977 was one of the first home consoles. This is a game for that platform. A game about a whale that you need to guide so it avoids obstacles while it falls towards its home in the ocean.

Instructions

Use one of these links:

* Play it online (uses the Javatari online emulator)
* Download the ROM (4 KB download to play on native emulator or real hardware)
* Download the PAL version ROM (a post-compo update for PAL hardware)

Select level with left and right on the joystick. There are 3 levels.

To toggle difficulty, use the "Left difficulty" switch on the console, F4 on the Javatari emulator and F5/F6 in Stella.
Set it to A or Expert for the original compo version. Set it to B or Novice to lower gravity and make the game a bit easier.

Press the fire button to start.

Make the whale go left and right with the joystick. If the whale hits something, you get one more chance, but if it happens again, it's bye-bye, whale! :cry:

You succeed if you manage to guide the whale all the way to the blue sea. :ocean:

Updates

April 26th: Version 1.1 fixes a glitch in the graphics in the logo and also supports difficulty setting. To judge the game the way it was at the time of submission, set "Left difficulty" to A or Expert. (To toggle difficulty, use the switch on the console, F4 on the Javatari emulator and F5/F6 in Stella.) To make the game somewhat easier so you can see all content, switch "Left difficulty" to B or Novice.

April 29th: There is now a version for PAL hardware. The NTSC version worked well on my TV, except that the colors were wrong. The PAL version fixes that. Since it runs at 50 Hz as opposed to 60, the game also runs a bit slower which makes a big difference in difficulty!