Space Panic

Space Panic is a 1980 arcade video game developed and published by the Tokyo-based manufacturer Universal?, in which the player controls an astronaut who digs holes in girder platforms to trap and eliminate pursuing alien monsters.¹⁷¹⁰ Presented in side view? and released in North America in 1980 by Universal U.S.A. of Santa Clara, California, it is often cited as the first platform game?.¹⁴¹³ The game is played from a fixed, flip-screen perspective in a science-fiction setting.¹⁷ Some accounts date its North American debut to December 20, 1980.¹⁶

Universal was a prolific coin-op producer that released 53 machines under its trade name from 1977 onward, among them Cosmic Guerilla, Cosmic Alien, and Devil Zone.¹⁰ According to Universal producer Hideyuki Yokoyama?, the company’s software development department in its earliest days consisted of just two people, working from two-page planning documents, without sprite editors or sound tools, and composing music on a Casiotone keyboard before transcribing it into the game.⁶ Designer Kazutoshi Ueda? recalled that Space Panic was one of the earliest projects he worked on at Universal, alongside colleagues who went on to form a developer in the Kansai region.⁶

The player maneuvers a spaceman up and down ladders and across a series of horizontal girders while avoiding alien creatures.¹⁸² Rather than shooting, the spaceman digs holes in the girders to trap monsters, then fills the holes back in to drop the trapped creatures through the floors below and kill them.¹⁷¹³ Some monsters must fall through two or three floors before they die, requiring the player to dig multiple holes aligned vertically; on higher levels the player must dig two perfectly placed holes, one above the other, to keep an alien confined.²¹⁸ Dropping one creature onto another eliminates both and awards bonus points, and clearing a screen of all monsters advances the player to the next stage.²¹⁷

A bonus timer representing the astronaut’s oxygen supply counts down continuously; if it reaches zero, the spaceman asphyxiates and dies, and clearing a level of aliens replenishes the oxygen tank.²¹⁶ The monsters are ranked by color and toughness — variously described across sources as red Creatures, blue Dons, and green Bosses — with tougher enemies surviving longer falls; a trapped monster that breaks loose escalates to a stronger form.¹³²¹ Scoring rises with the number of floors a monster falls through.¹⁸ The KLOV? database classifies the machine under the labyrinth/maze genre and lists it as a single-player game — supporting a maximum of two players in alternating play — with a four-way joystick and two buttons for digging and filling, produced in cocktail, cabaret/mini, and upright cabinet forms with a vertical raster monitor.¹⁰ The published high score recorded in that database is 58,090, achieved by Todd Havlik.¹⁸

Lineage and influences

According to Codex Gamicus, the premise of digging holes to trap aliens was likely inspired by the contemporary Heiankyo Alien?, a 1979 game.²² TV Tropes similarly notes that although Space Panic takes place in side view, its mechanics — which do not include jumping — are in some ways closer to maze games, particularly Heiankyo Alien.¹³

Space Panic predates the ladders-and-levels form popularized by Donkey Kong?, which arrived a year later; commentators describe it as “the first game with levels and ladders,” ahead of both Donkey Kong and Nichibutsu?’s Crazy Climber, also released in 1980.¹⁶ Reviewers have also emphasized its status as the first arcade game in which success depends on climbing ladders.¹⁶

The game proved influential enough to spawn a wave of clones and descendants. It is frequently credited with inspiring Brøderbund?’s Apple Panic? and, later in the decade, Lode Runner?, both of which adapted its digging-and-trapping mechanic for home computers.¹⁶² Universal itself reused the concept in Mr. Do!’s Castle?.¹³ Other clones catalogued for home systems include Digger Barnes by Cable Software for the Amstrad CPC?, Digger Dan and Panic for the ZX Spectrum?, Monsters by Acornsoft for the BBC Micro?, Monster Inn by Tomy for the Tomy Pyuuta, and Color Panic by Tom D. and Brett N. Keeton, published by Spectral Associates for the Radio Shack Color Computer in late 1983.¹³⁴ In Color Panic, escaped monsters mutate into more powerful shapes that must be reverted through multiple falls before they can be killed, mirroring the escalation of the original.⁴

Its reach extended to British 8-bit gaming through Chuckie Egg?, the 1983 platform game by 15-year-old programmer Nigel Alderton? at A&F Software?.¹ Alderton has said his favorite arcade game was Space Panic, which he played at an arcade near his bus station on his way home from a Saturday job, and that he “nicked all the bits out of Space Panic” that he liked, remarking that a screenshot of Space Panic placed beside Chuckie Egg would be “embarrassingly similar,” with identical colors.¹

Ports and reception

Space Panic was not widely ported, but home conversions followed in 1983, including a version for the Casio PV-1000? and a ColecoVision release published by CBS Electronics?.¹⁷¹⁴ The Dot Eaters describes the ColecoVision conversion as a faithful arcade translation.¹⁴

Reviewing the ColecoVision version for Digital Press, Kevin Oleniacz rated it 4 out of a possible score for graphics and gameplay and 6 for sound, describing it as a “one-dimensional climbing/digging contest” whose simple concept held interest only briefly and whose girder-heavy screens were not “visually eye-pleasing”.² He judged that once the creatures speed up, previous strategy is abandoned and the player is reduced to isolating a spaceman between two holes and waiting, concluding that Coleco “should have let Space Panic rest in peace”.² The KLOV/IAM user score stood at 3.59 out of five from four votes as of December 2003.¹⁸

The ColecoVision cartridge circulates on the secondhand market, offered for US$13.99 by the retailer Gametrog as of the site’s listing.²¹ The digitized arcade original is preserved and playable through the Internet Archive’s emulated collection.¹⁷