1981-1983 Apollo (a.k.a. "Games By Apollo") was different from most of the other early independent game software upstarts in that the company wasn't formed by former Atari employees who were either disgruntled or saw that more money was to be made by leaving Atari and starting their own company. Pat Roper, the founder of Apollo, was President of Texas-based National Computer Consultants (NCC), a company that produced educational films. Roper knew nothing about the games industry but realized that there was money to be made while playing NFL Football on the Intellivision sometime in 1980. Instead of hiring away existing game designers from Mattel or Atari, however, Roper placed an advertisement in the Dallas Morning News and the San Francisco Chronicle. A high school student named Ed Salvo responded to the classified ad and sent in a demo of a game he had been working at the time. The game was Skeet Shoot, a rather mediocre game and the very first game released by Apollo in late 1981. Sales of the game exceeded even Apollo's wildest expectations, and Salvo quickly began churning out as many 2600 games as he could possibly develop. Later efforts by Apollo were much better, although its games still trailed those of rivals Activision, Imagic and others in graphical flair and game complexity. Most game enthusiasts generally shied away from Apollo's offerings such as Space Chase, Lost Luggage and Racquetball and instead stuck with licensed games such as Star Wars, or games that broke new ground like Pitfall. Still, sales were strong enough that Apollo continued expanding its workforce and made plans to release games for ColecoVision, Intellivision, Atari 5200, Atari 400/800 computers and the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Those games, however, never saw the light of day. Times got tough, and in late 1982, Apollo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The 2600 software market's growth had more or less saturated by the middle of 1982 due to heavy competition from a slew of new entrants like Parker Brothers, 20th Century Fox and numerous others. As a small company, Apollo had neither the money to heavily market its games nor did it have the distribution might to compete for shelf space against its mighty competitors. When reorganization efforts failed, Games By Apollo folded in 1983 and became the first casualty of the videogame wars. Although its games were overshadowed in the marketplace by its rivals, Apollo's 2600 software library contains an interesting mix of eclectic and fairly decent games. Space Cavern, a semi-clone of Galaxian, was the first scrolling 2600 game and is considered today as a minor classic by many. Lochjaw and Shark Attack are engaging arcade challenges. Final Approach is an air-traffic control simulation. Lost Luggage, players have to collect luggage from an airport carousel that has gone haywire. An interesting note about Lochjaw, a Pac-Man clone that involved sharks. The movie studio MCA threatened to sue Apollo because of what they felt was an infringment on their copyright for the movie Jaws. Given that Apollo was a small company and could ill afford to be involved in a long legal battle, it agreed to change the title of their game to Shark Attack. Lochjaw had a very short shelf life, and is extremely rare as a result. Owners of a Lochjaw cartridge can rejoice in having one of the more sought-after 2600 games -- and a piece of history. SOFTWARE LIST Final Approach Guardian Infiltrate Kyphus (not released) Lochjaw Lost Luggage Pompeii (not released) Racquetball Shark Attack Skeet Shoot Space Cavern Space Chase Sqoosh Wabbit