Atari Coin Connection

Volume 6 Number 3
April/May 1982
ATARI®
ATARI® Introduces
.. New
Maze Game: Dig Dug'"'
ig Dug is an exciting new
maze game from ATARI
with a big difference: Now
players can create their own maze
by digging tunnels all over the
screen to escape monsters, drop
rocks and collect special vege-
tables for extra points.
I
Dig Dug is an intrepid little miner who
goes about digging horizontal and vertical
tunnels on the screen. Lurking in the tun-
nels are Pooka T~ a fat red monster with
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yellow sunglasses, and Fygar™, a fire-
breathing dragon. These meanies pursue
Dig Dug through the tunnels. His only re-
course is to pump them up until they ex-
plode or to dig a tunnel under a rock,
then quickly get out of the way as it
drops on Pooka or Fygar. Each time a
monster is destroyed, either pumped up
and exploded or crushed by a falling
rock, the player scores points.
The player can also score points by
collecting a different vegetable in each
round. After the player drops two rocks, a
vegetable will appear in the tunnel where
Dig Dug started digging. It will only be
there for 10 seconds, and there's only
one veggie per round, so the player must
move Dig Dug quickly in order to grab
the ca[rot, or mushroom, or rutabaga,
and obtain more points.
Pooka and Fygar have an advantage
over Dig Dug. They can travel between
the layers of dirt and between the tunnels
by turning into ghosts. Ghosts can float
horizontally, vertically and diagonal ly
across the playfield. But as soon as they
enter a tunnel, they become visible again,
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continued on next page
ATARI Launches Community
Awareness Program for Video Games
After months of preparation, interviewing
and collecting data, ATAR I has introduced
its Community Awareness Program, a
program designed to combat the ever-in-
creasing restrictive video game legislation
cropping up across the nation. The pro-
gram includes a 17-minute video tape and
a position paper, both presenting a posi-
tive public perspective of the coin-oper-
ated video games industry.
To give these materials a national flair
and broaden their application, ATAR I
hired a professional video film crew to
enter a select group of major metropoli-
tan areas across the country. Parents,
teachers, PTA members, psychologists,
sociologists, city council members and
others were interviewed in an attempt to
compile and document the role of the vid-
eo game indust ry in communities across
the country. The end result is an informa-
tive and educational video tape and posi-
tion paper reflecting an otherwise unpub-
licized viewpoint: the positive perspective
of the video games industry.
"Based on our experience atttending
city council meetings and getting involved
with local politics, we feel this is strictly
an educational issue, " said Don Osborne,
V.P. of Sales and Marketing. "In other
words, as responsible business people, it
is our obligation to educate our communi-
ties about our industry. The video tape
and position paper will afford our commu-
nities a look at the positive attributes of
our industry in addition to offering solu-
tions which we can all 'live' with."
To assure these materials are used to
their fullest potential, an implementation
program has been established. The pro-
gram is designed to spur each ATARI dis-
tributor into an active participatory role.
"All ATARI distributors have an obliga-
tion and full responsibility to distribute the
video tape and position paper to opera-
tors, in addition to placing the materials
on the agenda at the PTA meetings, ser-
vice club group meetings and other ap-
propriate places,'' said Osborne.
An implementation manual is included
which explains appropriate viewing audi-
ences and places, along with presenta-
tion tips and other pertinent information.
For more information, contact your
ATARI distributor as these materials are
only available th rough authorized ATARI
distributors.