Robotron: 2084 (also referred to simply as Robotron) is a twin-stick shooter video game developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released by Williams Electronics for arcades in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a dystopian future where robots have turned against humans in a cybernetic revolt. The player's goals are to defeat endless waves of robots, rescue surviving humans, and earn as many points as possible.
Jarvis and DeMar drew inspiration from Nineteen Eighty-Four, Berzerk and Space Invaders when designing Robotron: 2084. The pair designed the game to instill panic in players by presenting them with conflicting goals and having many on-screen projectiles coming from multiple directions. A two-joystick control scheme was implemented to provide the player with more precise controls, and enemies with different behaviors were added to make the game challenging. Following its release in arcades, Atari ported the game several home platforms in the 1980s. It was later included in many retro gaming collections.
Robotron was critically and commercially successful. Praise among critics focused on the game's intense action, control scheme, and colorful visuals. While its challenging gameplay proved popular, commentators acknowledged it catered to select players. Though not the first game with twin joystick controls, Robotron: 2084 is cited as the game that popularized it in the 1980s; the design later saw a resurgence in the 2000s. Jarvis used the same control scheme later in the 1990 Smash TV. Robotron was ported to numerous home systems, most of which lacked the arcade's control hardware. It is frequently listed as one of Jarvis's best contributions to the video game industry.
Gameplay
thumb|left|alt=A horizontal rectangular video game screenshot that is a digital representation of a confined black space with a red and white character in the center. The character shoots a robot while surrounded by a large group red and yellow robots with several larger green robots among them. A female human is in the top right corner while the number "1700" is at the top left corner.|The player controls the protagonist (center) with two joysticks to shoot the robots while dodging their attacks and attempting to rescue the human (top right). Game statistics (score and player lives) are tracked in the top left corner.
Robotron is a twin-stick shooter game in which the player controls the on-screen protagonist from a top-down perspective. The game uses a two-joystick control scheme; the left joystick controls the on-screen character's movement, while the right is used to fire the character's weapon in specific directions. Both joysticks allow for an input direction in one of eight ways. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional world where "Robotrons" have, after a robot uprising, eradicated most of the human race. The main protagonist is a super-powered genetically engineered mutant who attempts to save the last human family.
Development
Robotron: 2084 was developed in six months by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, founders of Vid Kidz. Vid Kidz served as a consulting firm that designed games for Williams Electronics, whom Jarvis and DeMar had previously worked for. Under the working title Robot Wars, the pair used a Gimix 6809 computer to write the game's program in assembly language. The game was designed to provide excitement for players; Jarvis described the game as an "athletic experience" derived from a "physical element" in the two-joystick design.
After spending 18 months working collectively on Defender and Stargate, the developers desired a new creative focus and chose robots. The initial concept involved a passive main character; the object was to force robots chasing the protagonist to collide with stationary, lethal obstacles. The shooting elements drew inspiration from the 1978 arcade game Space Invaders, which had previously inspired Defender, their first arcade game.
Though contemporary games began to use scrolling to facilitate larger levels, the pair chose a single screen to confine the action. The machine consists of five circuit boards that coordinate different processes required to operate the game: a main central processing unit (CPU), a read-only memory (ROM) board, a soundboard, an interface controller board, and the power supply. The blitters generate the on-screen objects and visual effects. Because they transfer memory faster than the CPU, the game is able to simultaneously animate a large number of objects. The unit includes settings to adjust the gameplay difficulty and the point threshold for earning additional game lives. The machine also provides arcade owners with usage statistics, such as the average time per play, which Williams recommended businesses use to gauge when to increase the difficulty setting.
The dual-joystick design was developed by Jarvis. Prior to development, Jarvis injured his right hand in an automobile accident. His hand was still in a cast when he returned to work, which prevented him from using a traditional joystick with a button. While in rehabilitation, he thought of Berzerk. The company filed the stylized logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on April 8, 1982. However, Walt Disney Productions filed a lawsuit against Williams in May 1982, citing Robotron as infringing on the trademark of its film Tron, which was scheduled to release that summer. Williams rebuked the lawsuit as frivolous.
The developer promoted the game at the 1982 summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago, Illinois. Williams would go on to sell approximately 19,000 arcade cabinets; mini cabinets and cocktail versions were later produced. While the upright cabinets remained common in 2004, machines in working condition cost more than other games, which video games writer David Ellis attributed to Robotrons enduring popularity. The smaller cabaret and cocktail versions are much rarer and sell for a premium. Atari planned to release them in the second half of the year. However, the 2600 version was never released. The Atari 5200 port released in spring 1984 and included an accessory that holds two joysticks to mimic the arcade controls. The Atari 7800 conversion was promoted as a launch title for the then-new console prior to shipping. It was anticipated to release in the third quarter of 1984. In August 1984, Celeste Dolan reported that it included an accessory similar to the 5200 version. Programmed by David Brown, the game was eventually released in 1986 without the controller accessory. The company assigned the various system ports to different programmers; for example, Judy Bogart, Steven Hays, and Tom Griner handled the conversions to Atari 8-bit, Apple II, and Commodore 64 home computers, respectively. The company considered a ZX Spectrum port after briefly entering the market with arcade conversions. Following the release of Silicon Kid's Wild West Hero—an unlicensed Robotron clone—in 1983, Atarisoft threatened the creators with legal action. To avoid a court case, Silicon Kid's programmer, Paul Holmes, worked with Atarisoft to modify the game into an official Robotron: 2084 port. However, Atarisoft exited the Spectrum market prior to publication. Video game journalist Stuart Campbell obtained a completed copy in the 1980s and provided it to Holmes over 15 years later. They then published the game online for the Spectrum emulation community.
Robotron: 2084 has been included in several multi-platform compilations: the 1996 Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits, the 2000 Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits, the 2003 Midway Arcade Treasures, and the 2012 Midway Arcade Origins. Many of the anthologies were created by Digital Eclipse, who used emulation to run the original source code. The company included Robotron because of its high recognizability. In 2000, a web-based version of Robotron, along with nine other classic arcade games, were published on Shockwave.com, Macromedia's game portal that used its Shockwave platform. Four years later, Midway Games also launched a website featuring the Shockwave versions.
In 2004, Midway Games planned to release a plug and play version of Robotron: 2084 as part of a line of TV Games; however, it remained unreleased by 2009. The game became available for download via Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade in November 2005. It featured high-definition graphics, online scoreboards, and two-player cooperative multiplayer with one player controlling the movement and another the shooting. Microsoft later removed the game from the service in February 2010 citing permission issues. Robotron: 2084, along with many other Midway arcade games, appear in the 2016 Midway Arcade expansion of Lego Dimensions. The developer, Traveller's Tales, considered recreating them in Lego form but decided to present them in their original forms to maintain what they felt made the games good. Lego versions of Robotron characters appear outside the emulated games in the expansion's virtual Lego world. In 2021, the game joined other classic arcade games on the Antstream Arcade gaming platform. It left the service in 2023 after the licensing agreement expired. A homebrew enthusiast created a port for the ColecoVision home console in 2022.