Chapter 2: Breaking In

You win the game, and Melvin soars up and out of the water. “Yeah! Way to go, Player! We did it! In your face, fisherman!” 

The fisherman chuckles. “That’s some good fishin’, Player. It does my heart good to compete again. My memory is coming back a little, I think. It makes me wonder where all the other Players are.”

Melvin looks around. “Hey, yeah,” he says. “Where is everyone? The last time I played Fishing Derby, there were Players lined up to compete for screens and screens. Now there’s…” he zips around, looking in all directions, “just you.”

“Yeah, anyway,” you break in, “the fisherman and I were talking about how I could get home. He said if we played, he might remember how I could get out of here.”

Melvin stares at you, floating quietly in the air. “What do you mean, Player? What game do you want to play?”

“I don’t want to play any game! I don’t know how I got here, and I want to go home!”

Melvin is quiet. “Player, if you want to leave, just leave. Players come and go as they please.”

“How do I do that, exactly?” you say, somewhat annoyed.

Melvin looks over at the Fisherman, who shrugs. Melvin looks back at you and chooses his words carefully, which clearly is not his habit. “Players… just stop playing. I don’t know how they do it, exactly, they just decide they are done playing, turn off the power switch, and poof, they are gone.”

“What power switch?”

Melvin circles slowly, kind of pacing in the air. “I’ve always wondered how it works, myself. All I know is that Players exist in two worlds. The so-called real world, and the world here, in the Atariverse. I don’t know how they do it, but that’s what makes Players special. They put in a cartridge, flip on the power, and here they are. But they are still back in their world, somehow. When they are done, they flip the switch off, take out the cartridge, and they’re gone.” Then, with some irritation, “So, do that, if you’re so eager to leave.”

You think for a moment and look around. “But… I’m not in two places at once. I’m just here. Yes, I turned on a power switch, but then, I was just here, nowhere else.”

Melvin sort of squints. “Are you sure you’re a Player?”

The Fisherman speaks up. “You must be a Player. You have a whistle and a reset button.”

Melvin considers this, and thinks out loud “Yes… and also, I’m a missile, I should know. I can feel that you’re a Player. Players and missiles have a special bond, you know. But at the same time, there is something strange about you… I can feel that, too.” Melvin floats and glows silently, and the water laps at the dock.

“Want to go two out of three?” asks the Fisherman, breaking the silence.

“WAIT A MINUTE!” shouts Melvin. “This is like the legend!”

“What legend?” you ask.

“You know!” exclaims Melvin, excitedly zipping around. “The old story that one day the Rainbow Castle will fall, and a Player will come who cannot leave until the kingdom is restored! It’s a dumb kids’ story. And it doesn’t help us because the Rainbow Castle hasn’t fallen.”

The Fisherman shakes his head. “What rainbow castle? Missiles are always full of nonsense.”

Melvin is stupefied. “What Rainbow Castle? Old man, you must have slipped a chip. How dare you insult our Queen! She should feed you to your shark. ‘What Rainbow Castle?’ he says.”

The old man seems embarrassed. “It’s true… my memory isn’t right anymore. It’s like part of it has been taken away. All I know is it has been years since I’ve even seen a Player, and I am starting to remember dark stories of terrible things happening.”

“WHAT?” shouts Melvin. “There’s a Player RIGHT HERE.” Melvin comes in close and whispers. “Don’t listen to this old man, he’s crazy. Let’s just get out of here. No one likes Fishing Derby anyway, that’s why there’s no Players here. The castle is just over this hill, in the center of Sunnyvale. We’ll seek audience with the Queen, glory to her name, and she and her advisors will know how to get you home.” Melvin zips through air up the hill.

You look back at the Fisherman. “Um, thanks for the game. It was… fun.”

The Fisherman looks dark and moody. “Be careful, Player. Something isn’t right.” He casts his rod and returns to his fishing.

“Come ON!” shouts Melvin from several hundred feet up the hill. You clamber up after him, but take one look back at the Fisherman, and the dark shape of the shark in the water swimming back and forth somehow gives you chills. You feel like it’s watching you.

“Do I have to carry you?” shouts Melvin. You keep climbing up the path and meet him just at the crest of the hill, the top of which is covered with blocky pine trees. “Okay,” says Melvin, visibly excited. “Get ready. You and I are going to walk over that ridge, and you will get your first glimpse of the most beautiful thing in the Atariverse. The Rainbow Castle of Queen Stella.” You solemnly walk up the path to the crest of the hill and look down into the valley below. You see no rainbow castle, but instead a depressing ruin of gray bricks that looks like a child smashed the world’s dullest Lego building. Melvin practically explodes. “NOOOO!!!! Nooooo!!!!” His voice trails off as he zips in a beeline toward the gray ruin.

This place is called Sunnyvale? The whole area feels creepy, as there is a gray haze over everything, and once you walk into it, even the sky is gray, and the sun is nowhere to be seen. “Melvin, wait up!” you shout as you jog down into the cold, gray valley after him.

Panting, you arrive at the ruined structure that might have been a castle once. Melvin is zipping everywhere, examining every ruined brick. “How could this have happened?” he shouts. “WHEN could this have happened?” He slows down and just floats, exhausted from all his zipping around. “The whole valley is gray. And there’s no one here.” He shakes his head, not that he has a head, exactly. “This makes no sense.” He hovers, thinking, in the cold, clammy air.

“Maybe there’s someone inside?” you suggest, seeing that enough of the building is still standing that it does have an inside.

“I thought of that,” says Melvin. “I looked all over, but the windows and the doors are blocked with wreckage. Our Queen would never leave us. Which means… she could be trapped inside!”

You are doubtful that anyone could still be inside such an old, abandoned ruin. “But we can’t get in, so…”

“But we CAN get in!” says Melvin. “These walls were once made of two thick layers of pure spectronium, which is indestructible, but something horrible has been done to them, and while they are still hard, I think we can break through it.” He looks at you. “And I do mean, ‘we.’ This isn’t something I can do by myself. I tried when you were coming down the hill. Are you ready for a little paddle action, player?”

You stare at him uncertainly. “I guess?”

“Great! Then pull that reset switch, and let’s do this!”

Pulling the switch, it suddenly transforms into an elongated white rectangle. Melvin comes flying right at your face, and instinctively you slide the rectangle to protect yourself. Melvin bounces off shouting “Whee!” and goes flying at the damaged castle wall.

Place the Breakout cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set the Color/BW switch to BW. Use game selection 1, and set the left difficulty switch to b. Play until you have 864 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 1: Something Fishy

 …you get a huge jolt of electricity through your whole body! The buzzing pain is still echoing through you when you crash to the ground onto your back. Your vision is swimming with bright colors. When the shock subsides, you blink, but everything is still a blur of color. Gradually, the blurriness fades, but everything looks… crazy. The sky is a solid light blue, full of blocky white clouds. The sun is just a yellow square. Looking around, everything is made of jagged pixels. Pixel trees, pixel hills, and you find yourself looking out at a mass of dark blue that must be… an ocean? You keep rubbing your eyes, but the illusion persists. You look around for the tables, for the people at the yard sale, but it is all gone. You are somewhere else. Down the hill, you see some docks, and what appears to be a pixelated fisherman, dressed in green, wearing a weird black hat. You look down at your own hand, and are shocked to see that you, too, are pixelated. Your hand is little more than a flesh colored square at the end of a jaggy red sleeve. Your feet are just black rectangles. You sit and contemplate this for a minute. Even though things look strange, you can still feel the grass you are sitting on, you can feel the wind off the pixelated ocean, and smell the salt of the sea. Up the hill are blocky pine trees. You pluck a rectangular blade of grass and roll it between your fingers. It’s all real, but where are you? Looking around, you see no one but the fisherman. You stand up, and call down a loud “Hello?” to him. He appears to turn his head a little, and then goes back to his fishing. Feeling slightly dazed, you start walking down the hill to the docks.

When you step out on the wooden dock, he reels in his line, pulls up a yellow pixelated fish, and puts it in a bucket. You see more yellow fish in the water, and… a large dark shape, swimming back and forth.

“Hello, Player,” he says, in a cracked, ancient voice with a strong New England accent. “Ready to fish?” You see another dock, facing his, where sit a yellow fishing rod and a black hat, just like his.

“Where am I?” you ask. “What is this place?”

“These are the fishing docks, Player.” He pauses. “At least… I think they are. Yes… they are… I think?” He shakes his head.  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen a Player, my mind isn’t what it is used to be.”

“No,” you respond, gesturing at the sky and the ocean. “I mean, what is this world?” The fact that the fisherman’s face has no features makes you not want to look at him directly. “Everything looks… like a videogame.”

“Everything is a videogame, Player. What else is there?”

Okay, clearly he’s crazy. “I can’t stay here,” you say. “I need to get home. How do I get out of here?”

The old man looks down into the water, sadly. “Do I know? I’m not sure I know. But maybe I know?” He sobs a little. “Player, please… no one has fished with me for so long, I can’t remember anything. Please, let’s have a little fishing contest. It might help me remember.”

The old man seems so sincere and so sad, you have no choice but to help him. “Okay… I guess. What do I do?”

The old man looks at you uncertainly. “Just pick up the rod, hit reset, and… where’s your missile?”

“My what?”

“Your missile. You know… the poem.”

“What poem?”

“Every…” he hesitates, confused. “Um… Oh, I have it now. Every player has a missile, when you need it, simply whistle.”

“Why do I need a missile to go fishing? Are we going to blast the fish out of the water?”

The old man frowns, and becomes uncomfortable. “Are you sure you are a Player? And not…” he trails off.

“And not what?”

“Show me what’s in your pocket,” the fisherman says, with some concern.

You reach into your pocket, and pull out a red plastic whistle. The old man relaxes. “For a moment, I thought you were that evil wizard. But only a Player has a whistle like that. Now blow it.” You blow it, and nothing happens. The old man says “No, no, that’s not right. It must be a perfect tone. Put your finger over the hole on the right.” You see there are two holes, so you do that, and blow again. A high pitched tone plays, that seems to radiate out in all directions, and makes the entire pixelscape resonate and brighten. The old man smiles and stretches his back a little. “It’s so good to hear that sound again, a perfect 2600 Hertz tone.” He starts humming to himself. Just then, you hear a strange sound, a kind of screaming electronic sound, and see, over the flat blue ocean, something white and glowing hurtling toward you at incredible speed.

“Is that the missile?” you shout, alarmed. “Is it going to hit us?” Before the old man has a chance to respond, it is upon you. The glowing white square sizzles through the atmosphere making a beeline toward you, but instead of hitting you, starts zipping in circles, orbiting around you again and again.

“YAHOO!” It shouts, still rapidly orbiting you. “Hello, Player! My name’s Melvin, I’m your missile!” It slows down, but starts zipping unpredictably around in a kind of zigzag pattern. The voice is enthusiastic and nasal. “What game are we playing?”

You look up at a dingy banner you missed before that hangs over the two docks. You read it. “Fishing Derby, I guess?”

The white glowing square stops its zigzag, and says “Okey dokey smokey, let’s do this!” and makes a beeline to the end of the fishing line, where it snaps on, forming a gleaming white hook. Strange. It’s still just a pixel, but… somehow you know it’s a hook.

“Alright,” says the old man in his thick New England accent. “All you have to do is catch more fish than I do in the next two minutes. The deeper the fish, the more they’re worth.” You pick up the rod, and put on the black hat, because, after all, that square yellow sun is hot. You try to cast, but nothing moves. “Player,” says the old man, “you have to hit reset.” He sighs. “Maybe it’s in your other pocket?” You reach in and find that you have a strange little gadget. It’s an Atari reset switch set in a little black plastic and woodgrain rectangle. You pull down the springy switch, and the game begins.

Put the Fishing Derby cartridge into your Atari 2600 and turn it on. Use game select 1, and set both difficulty switches to b. Use the left joystick, and play until you win. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Prologue: Powering On

It’s a beautiful sunny Saturday, and you decide to take a stroll through your neighborhood. After a hard week at work, you are glad to be outside. You take a turn down a street you’ve always ignored before. There’s nothing very special about it, but you see several cars parked outside of one house there. Is it a party? No… a yard sale. There are several tables set up, and people are examining all kinds of items. An old man with tiny glasses and a white beard is tottering from table to table, answering questions about everything from toasters to Legos to antique sewing machines. You don’t normally stop at these things, but something compels you to take a look around. One table has old record albums, trading cards, and toy soldiers. Another is all crystal doorknobs, all colors, shapes and sizes. There’s a giant moose head, a lot of tools, and one table has, hey! An old Atari system! You haven’t thought about Atari in years, but back in the day, you played all the games – Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, even that weird game… what was it called? You chuckle at the fake woodgrain sticker on it… why would a videogame system pretend to be made of wood? But it looks like everything is there – two joysticks, a set of paddles, and a stack of cartridges. You see Demon Attack, Yars’ Revenge, Home Run, and even E.T., that game so famously bad that it was buried out in the desert. You start remembering how you loved these games and think, hey, should I buy this thing? Just then the old man totters over.

“You want that old Atari?”

“Maybe,” you respond. “How much?”

“Well…” he says, “I’m not sure it works, but if it does, I’d take fifteen bucks for it. If it doesn’t work, well, it’s yours!”

Fifteen bucks seems fair for such an old beat up system. There’s a dusty portable TV at the end of the table, keeping the old man informed about a baseball game. He points at it. “You can plug it in there, see if it works.”

It’s all coming back to you now. You pick up an old screwdriver on the table and use it to hook up the “TV / GAME” switch, switch it to “GAME,” and then turn the knob on the TV with a THUNK to channel 3, turning the baseball game into a blizzard of static. Everything looks hooked up, now you just need to pick a game to test out. You pass by Combat, Missile Command, and Target Fun, and find at the bottom of the stack a cartridge different from the others. It’s just a plain black box, with a piece of masking tape on the end, a makeshift label reading “AtariQuest.” AtariQuest? You remember SwordQuest, but what was AtariQuest? Curious, you blow the dust off of it, and ka-chunk it into the cartridge slot. You flick the power switch to ON and… 

Click here to continue to Chapter 1

Welcome to AtariQuest!

AtariQuest is an just-for-fun interactive novel set in the world of Atari 2600 games. Each chapter forms a challenge, and every time someone posts a video of themselves completing a new challenge, the next chapter will be released. 

What if I don't have an Atari 2600? That's okay. You can use an emulator. Here are some tips from AtariAge about emulators. But also, original hardware is pretty cool, and easy to find on ebay. 

How do I post a video? Easy! In the comments section for a chapter, post a link to a video of yourself completing the challenge for that chapter. Make sure you have the right game select and difficulty settings. Please only post links to new videos of you completing the challenge after the challenge was posted. If your video looks legit, you'll go on the leaderboard!

There's a leaderboard? There totally is! Each approved video you post gets you ten points. The first, second, and third people to complete a challenge get three, two, and one bonus points, respectively. The leaderboard is here, if you're into that sort of thing. 

Do I have to complete the challenges in order? Nope. Feel free to do whatever challenges you feel like, in any order. 

How many chapters are there? AtariQuest is epic in scope, with a total of 444 chapters, spanning the whole of the Atariverse.

Can I follow you on twitter? Sure! https://twitter.com/MissileMelvin

Anyway, welcome to the world of AtariQuest. To get started, read the Prologue. Have fun!