Name: Magic Micro Mission
Platform: Atari 800
Region: United Kingdom
Media: Executable
Controller: Joystick
Genre: Action
Gametype: Prototype
Release Year: 1984
Developer: Quicksilva
Publisher: Quicksilva
Players: 1
Programmer: Simon N. Goodwin
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TV-spin-off derived from the title sequence of the Central ITV series 'Magic Micro Mission' broadcast in six UK regions in 1983 and 1984.

The first part is a simple cockpit-based shooter, with flying saucers zooming past on elliptical paths from bottom left to bottom right or vice versa. You aim to position cross-hair sights with the joystick to shoot these down as they go by.

The second stage is a maze game similar to Pacman but set on a colourful circuit-board grid, with three 'chip' sprites moving freely around the maze and resistors moving up and down in four columns of the grid. You control a robot which must wipe up patches of 'oil' regularly distributed across the screen while avoiding the other moving components. 


Trivia:

These derivative sub-games were two of four parts used in the title sequence of the TV series. The others were omitted because of RAM, tape and disc limitations.

The Atari 810 disk version does also feature the show intro animation, a pastiche of the Central ITV logo with a space shuttle sprite flying round it as POKEY played a passable four-part rendition of the station's theme tune.

The C64 version was ported in-house by Quicksilva, with simpler sound and lacking the transition graphics and most of the colours (generated by Display List Interrupts) on the Atari.


http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-8-bit/magic-micro-mission
