Audacity Games — a company formed by Activision co-founder David Crane and designers Garry and Dan Kitchen — announced yesterday that it will be bringing out physical editions of the developer John Van Ryzin's latest game Alien Abduction! for the Atari 2600.
Ryzin, as you may already be aware, is the legendary designer of Activision's 1984 classic H.E.R.O — an Atari 2600 game that saw players guide a character through a bunch of dangerous underground caves to rescue a group of trapped miners. He later went on to work at companies like Absolute Entertainment and Imagineering on a bunch of other platforms like the Commodore 64, NES, and SNES but seemed to pretty much leave his career in video games behind as the '90s drew on.
Last year, however, he ended up taking everyone by surprise by releasing Alien Abduction! out of the blue, which saw him returning once again to the genre he helped pioneer. The only downside was that it was only released on the Atari VCS via digital distribution, leading many fans to hope for a cartridge release in the future. This is where Audacity Games steps in.
According to Audacity Games' website, it will be releasing three different physical editions when sales of the game go live on June 15th, at 12pm PT.
These include a standard edition (priced at $60), which features a full-colour box, cartridge, and printed manual; a separate collector edition ($99) with additional posters and a digital copy for emulation; and a VIP collector edition ($140) with even more extras like a signed box, alien-themed figurine, and hat.
Here are some of the game's features:
- From the creator of Activision's H.E.R.O.™ game comes a spiritual successor game that takes the player into the bowels of an alien spaceship to rescue an abducted princess.
- Navigate through lethal aliens, robot guards, and armed flying drones in a race against time and dimishing suit energy to find where the princess is being held.
- Dodge superheated walls and radioactive floors; time pneumatic openings that can crush you if you are too slow; and use your plasma gun to clear out weaker enemies.
- Complete 20 levels to earn the title of HERO. Reaching HERO status unlocks up to 60 more levels of game play! As you advance through these bonus levels your energy is depleted more rapidly, and energy pickups are weaker. How far can you go?
-The STATUS screen shows the start-to-finish elapsed game timer for the speed runners among us.
-Every game ROM is numbered with a unique serial number and other cryptographic features that ensure the sanctity of each collectible copy of the game.
You can find more information about the release over on Audacity Games' website.