Avalanche (video game)

  1. Home
  2. Wiki
Avalanche
Promotional flyer
DeveloperAtari, Inc.
PublishersAtari, Inc.
DesignerDennis Koble
PlatformsArcade, Atari 8-bit, Atari 2600
ReleaseArcade
  • NA: April 1978
Atari 2600
  • August 15, 2025
GenreAction
ModeSingle-player

Avalanche is a 1978 arcade video game designed by Dennis Koble and released by Atari, Inc.. The object is to catch falling rocks with a controllable set of paddles that diminish in number and size as the rocks fall faster and faster.[1]

A port of the game was developed by Koble to help kickstart the Atari Program Exchange. The game influenced the Activision game Kaboom! (1981) for the Atari 2600, which went on to be one of the top-selling Atari 2600 video games. In 2025, Atari released an official port for the 2600 and 7800 consoles.

Gameplay

[edit]

Avalanche is for 1 or 2 players, alternating turns. There are six rows of rocks at the top of the screen. The game starts with a six-storied platform and the player loses one platform per row of rocks cleared. The player scores points for the rocks they prevent from reaching the ground. The further the row of rocks, the smaller and faster they become. The ultimate goal is to get enough points so that the player can continue the game should they lose their first one.

Development

[edit]

Dennis Koble joined Atari in 1976 and was the fourth programmer the company had hired. He would work for two-and-a-half years on various arcade games for the company such as Sprint 2 (1976) and Dominos (1977) and his last published arcade game Avalanche.[2]

Avalanche started out as a game about eggs and baskets called Catch. The game initially performed poorly with test audiences which led the game to be changed to be about collecting rocks and was eventually renamed Avalanche.[3] Ed Logg, who started at Atari in February 1978, was assigned to projects that were either completed or started by Koble, who was moving on to the consumer division of the company.[4][5] Logg said that by the time he got to Avalanche, it was about to go into production and his job was to focus on working on Koble's incomplete and unreleased arcade game Dirt Bike.[4][6][5]

Avalanche is housed in a custom cabinet that includes two large lit start buttons and a rotary controller. The side art and bezel feature groupings of rocks with extending lines meant to convey the motion of falling rocks. The screen is black and white with two colored strips to provide colored rows of graphics as in Breakout.[citation needed]

The circuit board is based on the 6502 CPU, with game code stored in multiple ROMs.[7] All game text is selectable to 4 different languages: English, French, German, or Spanish. Avalanche also has a built-in self-test diagnostic program that displays all microprocessor and memory functions, including the operator switches and functions.[1]

Release

[edit]

Avalanche was shipped to the public in April 1978.[8] In the 1980s, Atari supported their 8-bit computer line with the Atari Program Exchange (APX). The APX involved taking submissions of software from the Atari users and market the best software back to the users.[6] Koble said to get the ball rolling on the project, he submitted a video game port of Avalanche, followed by two adventure games: Chinese Puzzle and Sultan's Palace.[2][6]

Both the arcade and Atari 8-bit versions of Avalanche would be made as downloadable content for the Atari 50 (2022) video game compilation on September 26, 2024.[9] On August 15, 2025, Atari released Avalanche for the Atari 2600. The game was originally an Atari 2600 homebrew programmed by John Champeau. The Atari published version includes an expert skill level added and new gameplay options.[10][11][12]

Reception and legacy

[edit]

Paul Drury of Retro Gamer described Avalanche as a moderate success at the arcades.[2] Avalanche inspired the game Kaboom! (1981) designed by Larry Kaplan. Kaplan was open about the influence in later interviews, saying "I just ripped off Avalanche."[13][2] Kaboom! went on to be one of the best-selling games for the Atari 2600.[14] Steve Bloom in Video Games compared Kaboom!'s popularity to Avalanche in 1982, describing Koble's game as "a great example of a game that everybody has played but probably doesn't know."[15]

Reflecting on his work at Atari, Koble said in an interview published in 1983 that he "can truly say [Avalanche] was a totally original game."[16]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "Avalanche dealer flyer" (Press release). Atari, Inc. 1978. Retrieved 2008-01-25.
  2. ^ a b c d Drury 2012, p. 88.
  3. ^ Atari Program Exchange 1981, p. [back cover].
  4. ^ a b Craddock 2019.
  5. ^ a b Hunt 2013, p. 36.
  6. ^ a b c Fulton 2008.
  7. ^ "System 16 - 6502 Black & White Raster Hardware (Atari)". Retrieved 2008-01-25.
  8. ^ Akagi 2006, p. 111.
  9. ^ Reynolds 2024.
  10. ^ "Avalanche 2600". Atari. Archived from the original on April 3, 2025. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
  11. ^ "Avalance 2600 announcement". Retrieved 2025-05-23.
  12. ^ Petite 2025.
  13. ^ Weiss 2014, p. 123.
  14. ^ Buchanan 2008.
  15. ^ Bloom 1982, p. 46.
  16. ^ Bloom 1983, p. 29.

Sources

[edit]
[edit]