Mission: Asteroid

Mission: Asteroid is a text adventure from 1980, presented here in its Commodore 64 version released under the All American Adventures label. The title itself summarises the plot: an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, and your task is to launch, reach it and eliminate the threat before it is too late.

The game comes from the very dawn of the genre – a time when adventures were written by individuals and pairs of authors, and when conventions like two-word commands ("TAKE KEY") and hand-drawn maps were still being established. Mission: Asteroid was conceived from the start as an accessible adventure for beginners: shorter, more direct and with more logical puzzles than the genre's custom, so a newcomer could learn the very manner of playing on it.

The Commodore 64 version shows how early adventures travelled between platforms – a game born at the end of the 8-bit pioneer era finding release on a computer that was just beginning to conquer the world. All American Adventures was the label under which these titles appeared in Europe.

For today's player it is a trip to the genre's very source: a screen, some text and a command prompt, nothing more.

Period context adds to the charm: in 1980 the space programme was still fresh memory, and saving the planet with a rocket and courage ranked among popular culture's great themes. The adventure turns it into a task for one player and a keyboard – and that is exactly how it still reads today.

And the trip is an easy one – on OldGame.cz, Mission: Asteroid starts directly in the browser, so you can attempt to save the Earth right away.