Moonlander

Two lunar-landing games from the book on one cartridge. Land on the moon with limited fuel. You are told your height, your speed (negative when falling) and your fuel. Each burn of thrust uses that much fuel; the moon pulls with 5 units, so a thrust of 5 holds your speed and more slows your fall. Touch down under 20 metres with a speed under 15 to land safely, and your galactic rating is your fuel left times 234. A crash rates 100 less your speed and leaves a crater 45 metres deep for every kph.

In MOONLANDER you choose the thrust for each step, then fire. In REALTIME LANDER, for experienced space jockeys, the craft falls on its own and you set a throttle from 0 to 9, each notch burning 1.7 units a step. It starts still, higher and with more fuel, and is more forgiving at the bottom: under 40 metres with a speed under 25.

The book ended the flight the moment the fuel ran out above 100 metres; here the craft falls the rest of the way and is judged when it hits. The realtime throttle stays where you set it (the book read a key each step), and height, speed and fuel keep their tenths. The book's lander was a text character jumping about the screen; here it is drawn over the moon with its flame. New music (Tranquillity) and sound effects are added.

Controls: either joystick. In MOONLANDER the stick chooses the thrust and the button fires it; in REALTIME LANDER the stick sets the throttle and the button cuts it. The second button returns to the title between missions. The keypad is not used.

ColecoVision version credited in the source to Amy Bienvenu for Amy Studio, written in Amy, her own language, 2026: an adaptation of a BASIC program from Tim Hartnell's Giant Book of Computer Games (Ballantine Books, 1984; first published by Interface Publications, 1983). It combines the book's MOONLANDER and REALTIME LANDER. This is a modern homebrew adaptation, not a commercial Coleco release.