Designed by David Levine, Peter Langston, David Riordan and Garry Hare.
Originally developed by Lucasfilm Games, Ltd.
Main programming by David Levine
Atari 65XE programming by Aric Wilmunder
Atari 7800 programming by Josh Littlefield and David Payne
Graphics by David Levine and Gary Winnick
Atari music and sounds by Peter Langston
Atari 400/800/65XE version published by Epyx in 1985.
Atari 5200 version published by Atari Corporation in 1986.
Atari 7800 version published by Atari Corporation in 1987.
Commodore 64 conversion by K-Byte, with additional programming by Ron Gilbert, and music by Russell Lieblich.
Published by Epyx in North America, and Activision in Europe in 1985.
Converted for Apple II by K-Byte, and published by Epyx in 1985.
Converted for Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Graeme Devine for Program Techniques, and published by Activision in 1986.
Converted for Amstrad CPC by IC&D, and published by Activision in 1986.
Converted for the MSX computers by Mr. Micro Ltd., and published by Activision in 1987.
Converted and published for Nintendo Famicom by Pony Canyon Inc. in 1988.
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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
This one has been a long, long time in coming, since a comparison of Ballblazer was first requested by a reader by the handle of "cubamanuel" many years ago. Sorry for the delay, but here it is. The thing is, for the longest time, I couldn't figure out, how to play this game, but some time ago, I realized my mistake being to only try to play the C64 version, which would usually be the most natural and logical choice for me to try out first. Of course, Ballblazer was developed for the Atari computers, and should be played there first, but my "a-ha!" moment actually came through playing the Famicom version after getting that one into my collection a few years ago... which might seem a bit weird, in hindsight, but there's a perfectly good explanation for this, which might become clear eventually.
Being as heavily occupied as I am these days, I found myself in luck, because Gaming History Source had made a video comparison of Ballblazer a long time ago for their YouTube channel, but then I found to my utter horror, that the game Masterblazer on the Amiga and Atari ST is basically an updated version of the same game, but with some new elements, so I have to include a separate segment for Masterblazer near the end of this thing.
