Space Panic

Space Panic (スぺース・パ二ック Supesu Panikku) is a 1980 arcade game designed by Universal Entertainment Corporation, which Chris Crawford calls "the granddaddy of all platform games", as it predates Nintendo's Donkey Kong (from 1981) which is often cited as the original platform game. Space Panic lacks Donkey Kong's jump mechanic and the main character instead digs holes in the platforms into which he must lure the aliens. He must then hit them to knock them out of the hole and off the screen. In later levels, two or more holes must be lined up vertically in order to dispose of the aliens. There is also a limited supply of oxygen.

Origins and legacy

The trap-em-up premise of the game (digging holes to trap aliens) is likely to have been inspired by the then-contemporary Heiankyo Alien (a 1979 game first released in arcades in 1980), but while that game is set in a maze viewed from above, Space Panic used platforms and ladders viewed from the side.

Space Panic was commercially unsuccessful, which Electronic Games in 1983 attributed to its concepts' novelty to the audience; "not only the first of the climbing games, it was also the first of the digging games. That's quite a load for a player on a new game. No punning intended when I say that the rungs were too high for the average gamer to scale." The magazine reported that the average play time was 30 seconds.

Podcasts:

PLAYLIST TIME:

Space Monkey

by: John Prine

Space Monkey, Space Monkey
What you doing out there?
Why it's dark as a dungeon way up in the air
Come gather round me you little monkeys and a story I'll tell
About a brave young primate, outer space knew him well
He was born at the top of a big old tree
Way back in 1953.
He could swing through the jungle and hang by his toes
Till they took him to Russia cause they could I suppose
They dressed him up in a spacesuit and it started to snow
Shot him off in a rocket where no man would go
Space Monkey Space Monkey
What you doing out there?
Why it's dark as a dungeon way up in the air
There'll be no one to greet you when you get back home
No hammer or sickle you'll be on your own.
He had plenty of Cuban bananas and loads of Spam
But he found great difficulty trying to open the can
One day he slipped on a banana peel and the ship lost control
It spun out of orbit and shot o]ut the black hole
It's been four decades now, that's nine monkey years
That's a long time for a Space Monkey to confront all his fears
Space Monkey Space Monkey
What you doing out there?
Why it's dark as a dungeon way up in the air
There'll be no one to greet you when you get back home
No hammer or sickle you'll be all on your own.
Space Monkey, Space Monkey
It's time to get real
The space race is over, how does it feel
Cold War's had a heatwave, Iron Curtain's torn down
They've rolled up the carpet in Space Monkey town
Now Leningrad is Petersburg and Petersburg's hell
For a card-carrying monkey with a story to tell
The Space Monkey was reportedly last sighted about
A half a block off of Red Square
In a karaoke bar having a few drinks with some of his friends
There was the dog that flew Sputnik
And a blind red-headed, one legged parrot
Who had done some minor research for Dow Chemical
They were drinking American Vodka
Imported all the way from Paducah, Kentucky
And reportedly had their arms around each other's
Shoulders singing.
";Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end";
Space Monkey, Space Monkey
There's nothing to do
But it's better than living in a Communist zoo
There'll be no one to greet you when you get back home
No hammer or sickle you'll be all on you own




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