Yars' Revenge is a video game developed for the Atari 2600. It is one of the games created for the 2600 system most fondly remembered by enthusiasts. It was created by Howard Scott Warshaw, who also wrote the 2600 titles "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" and "E.T.". Yars' Revenge was Atari's best selling original title for the 2600. The game was released in 1981. In 1999, a Game Boy Color version was developed by Vatical Entertainment and released by Telegames Ltd.
The game began as a licensed port of the Cinematronics arcade game, Star Castle. In the original game, a powerful cannon is protected by three layers of counter-rotating shields. The player must shoot holes in these shields in order to destroy the cannon inside. But once these holes are made, the cannon can also shoot out at the player. If the outermost layer is completely destroyed, new layers of shields are grown. Harassing the player are two free roaming torpedoes that hunt out the player's ship.
As the Atari version grew, change after change was introduced until the final product had very little resemblance to the original. In this game, the hero (a Yar) is an insect-like creature who must nibble through a barrier in order to fire his "Zorlon Cannon" into the breach and destroy the evil Qotile, which exists on the other side of the barrier. The Qotile can shoot at the Yar even if the barrier is undamaged - fortunately, the player is warned before the shot is fired, and he can retreat to a safe distance to dodge the enemy's energy blast. Also in the game is a safe area, "the neutral zone", where the pursuing enemy torpedoes cannot harm him.
The game had an Easter egg. After killing the Qotile, if the player moved vertically along the line where the Qotile was killed, the programmers initials could be seen. This would end the game, however, and initial players trying to reach high scores found it somewhat frustrating.
As with several other video games for the 2600 system, a miniature comic book was included in the game package, illustrating the story behind Yars' Revenge and giving the game an additional appeal. The comic book explained the "revenge" of the game's title: that the Yars were avenging the destruction of one of their worlds, Razak IV. Atari also released an album, under the label Kid Stuff Records , which contained a theme song and a radio drama-style reading of the story in the comic book.
Trivia: The Yar race and the planet Razak were named after Ray Kassar , CEO of Atari at the time.
