Tron is a 1982 action video game developed and published by Bally Midway for arcades, based on the Disney film of the same name. The lead programmer was Bill Adams with Earl Vickers programming the music.

The game was a major success, with approximately 10,000 arcade cabinets sold, and was awarded "Coin-Operated Game of the Year" by Electronic Games. A number of other licensed Tron games were released for home systems, but were based directly on elements of the film and not the arcade game. In 1983, Tron was followed by Discs of Tron, an arcade sequel which was not as successful.

Gameplay

Tron consists of four sub-games based on events and characters in the movie. In general, the player controls Tron, either in human form or piloting a vehicle, using an eight-way joystick for movement, a trigger button on the stick to fire (or slow down the player's light cycle), and a rotary dial for aiming. The goal of the game is to score points and advance through the game's twelve levels by completing each of the sub-games. Most of the 12 levels are named after programming languages: RPG, COBOL, BASIC, FORTRAN, SNOBOL, PL1, PASCAL, ALGOL, ASSEMBLY, OS, JCL, and USER. The game supports two players alternating. One of the five minigames was ultimately left out due to the time constraints.

Reception

Tron was awarded "Coin-Operated Game of the Year" by Electronic Games magazine. By January 1983, it was fourth on the RePlay arcade charts. The book The Naked Computer reported that Tron made $45,000,000 by 1983. In USgamer's estimation 10,000 cabinets were sold and the game made more than $30,000,000 in revenue by 1983. In 1995, Flux magazine wrote, "Even many of today's coin-ops can't compete with the mighty Tron."

Records

The world record high score for Tron was set in July 2011 by David Cruz of Brandon, Florida. Cruz scored 14,007,645 points based on Twin Galaxies rules and settings for the game.

Legacy

Discs of Tron (1983) is an arcade game which was originally intended as a fifth segment of Tron, but was left out because programming was not finished in time.

The light cycle segment of Tron has led to snake games sometimes being called "Light Cycle" games, despite the concept dating from 1976. Some post-Tron snake games use themes or terminology from the film.

The 2004 Game Boy Advance game Tron 2.0: Killer App contains ports of the original Tron and Discs of Tron arcade games.

Tron was released for Xbox Live Arcade in January 2008, ported by Digital Eclipse and published by Disney Interactive.

A miniature Tron arcade cabinet showing a looping video of the game's attract screens is a mod that can be used to replace the supplied version in the Tron: Legacy pinball machine, released in 2011 by Stern Pinball.

In October 2021, Arcade1Up released a recreated cabinet of the original Tron arcade game.

References

  • Tron homage site