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December 13th, 2017 
Carl Williams 
If you think “all” ideas for games have already been done, then you have not tried Astronomer on the Atari 2600. Yep, you read that right. An independent developer is working on an Atari 2600 game that is based on astronomy. You can even play it online right now. Link after the jump, of course.
Astronomer features some interesting reasons for you to be doing what you are doing in the game. Rather than blasting aliens from another galaxy, or asteroids that are just floating about their way, or destroying something, you are instead simply viewing a star. Sounds boring doesn’t it?
Wrong.
You oversee a telescope and are viewing the night sky. Your goal in Astronomer is to simply view the star as it floats across the night sky. As you have the star in your view finder, represented by the bar across the screen, you must press the action button (space bar if playing the online version). As you hold down the action button you are “viewing” the star. You must observe the star for a predetermined amount of time – the gauge in the bottom left corner powers up as you view the star.
Keep in mind, there are clouds which will block your view of the star so don’t bother wasting your time with a cloud in the way. Also, there is a timer in Astronomer. This timer counts down to when you are no longer in charge of the telescope and must relinquish it to other astronomers who are patiently waiting their turn.
As you fill the bar, I presume this gauges how much knowledge you gain from that particular star, you will gain more time on the telescope and a new star to view. The process repeats until you no longer have time with the telescope.
This is another interesting release that was made possibly because of Batari Basic. Play online here.
Source: AtariAge (downloadable files available)
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[…] to talk to 26 year old Alex Pietrow from the Netherlands, who is working to publish his first Atari 2600 game that he programmed himself. The game is titled Astronomer, which has a unique premise, […]
It is a simulation game of sorts that allows the player to get into the shoes of an astronomer and observe stars with the world’s largest telescope.