Ballblazer

Overview

Ballblazer is a futuristic one-on-one soccer style game in which the player pilots a rotofoil and try to catch a plasmorb with the pull field. With the plasmorb, the player can then attempt to shoot it through the opponent's goal. The player can drive the plasmorb directly through the goal for one point, or shoot it through for three. To receive the full three points, however, the goal must be over the horizon on the curved, grid playing field when it travels through the goal. An added complication is that the goal moves laterally across the opponent's end zone, and shrinks in size as more points are scored. The game ends when the first player reaches ten points, or time expires and the highest score wins.

This game, along with Rescue on Fractalus, were the first two games released by the Lucasfilm Computer Division Games Group in partnership with Atari. In 1983 Lucasfilm Games gave copies of their work-in-progress games to Atari, which shortly thereafter were posted to Bulletin Board Systems across the United States and the world. Peter Langston, the originator of Lucasfilm Games, later wrote, "The good news is that even pirated copies of early versions of the games receive rave reviews."

One particularly notable aspect of Ballblazer is the music. It used a "fractal music system" that varied the main tune such that it never repeats, responds to the game play, and gives important queues about game events, an industry first.