Gorf
Developer(s)	Midway
Publisher(s)	Midway
Designer(s)	Jay Fenton
Release date(s)	1981
Genre(s)	Shooter
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Platform(s)	Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Commodore 64 Commodore VIC-20 and ColecoVision
Input	8-way Joystick, trigger
Arcade cabinet	Upright, cabaret, cocktail
Arcade display	Raster, 19" monitor

Gorf is an arcade game released in 1981 by Midway Mfg., whose name was advertised as an acronym for "Galactic Orbiting Robot Force" . It is a multiple-mission fixed shooter with five distinct modes of play, essentially making it five games in one. It is well-known for its use of synthesized speech, a new feature at the time. Image File history File links Gorftitlescreen. ... A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates video games. ... Midway Games (NYSE: MWY) is an American video game publisher. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Midway Games (NYSE: MWY) is an American video game publisher. ... A game designer is a person who designs games. ... Jamie Faye Fenton (born Jay Fenton) is a transgender software programmer. ... Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... Video games are categorized into genres based on their gameplay. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ... The Atari 2600, released in October 1977, is the video game console credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in. ... The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, or simply Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari as a replacement for the famous Atari 2600. ... The Commodore 64 is the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. ... The VIC-20 (Germany: VC-20; Japan: VIC-1001) is an 8-bit home computer. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Joystick elements: 1. ... This arcade cabinet, containing Centipede, is an upright. ... A computer display monitor, usually called simply a monitor, is a piece of electrical equipment which displays viewable images generated by a computer without producing a permanent record. ... Suppose the smiley face in the top left corner is an RGB bitmap image. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ... Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... Midway Games (NYSE: MWY) is an American video game publisher. ... A fixed shooter game, also known as a 2-D shooter or shoot-em-up (shmup for short), is a video game where the player has limited control of their character and the focus is almost entirely on annihilation of their enemies. ...

Description

Gorf's objective is to simply destroy all enemies. The player controls a spaceship that can move slowly left, right, up and down. (Its vertical movement is limited to the lower one-third of the screen.) The ship can fire a single shot (called a "quark laser" in this game), which travels slowly up the screen. Unlike similar games, where the player cannot fire again until their existing shot has disappeared, the player can "re-fire" their laser at any time, causing their existing shot to disappear immediately (if it hasn't already). One of the fictional ships called the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, one of the most famous fictional starships. ...

Gameplay is broken up into five distinct "missions", each one essentially a minigame in its own right. Successfully completing all five missions will increase the player's rank and loop back to the first mission. The game continues until the player loses all of their lives. The player can advance through the ranks of Space Cadet, Space Captain, Space Colonel, Space General, Space Warrior, and Space Avenger, with a higher difficulty level at each rank. Along the way, a robotic, synthesized voice heckles and threatens the player, often calling the player by their current rank (for example, "Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet!"). A cadet is a future officer in the military. ... Captain is a rank or title with various meanings. ... This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Drawing of a Thracian peltast of 400 BC A warrior is a person habitually engaged in warfare. ... Look up Avenger in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. ...

Vague collision detection was a feature of the game intended to shorten the playing time - enemy shots that did not appear to actually impact on the ship object would still destroy it if they passed in close proximity.

Gorf is well-known for introducing or popularizing two new features (for its time) to the video game market. Its most notable feature is its robotic voice, powered by the Votrax speech synthesis chip. Most games, even today, that feature human and robot speech use digitized voice samples rather than a speech synthesizer. Also, Gorf is one of the first games to allow the player to buy additional lives before starting the game. Most games offer a predetermined number of lives (usually three) and allow the player to earn additional lives throughout the game. Gorf, which was usually set to offer two lives per coin, allows the player to insert extra coins to buy up to seven starting lives. Votrax Inc. ...

The underlying hardware platform for Gorf allowed arcade operators to easily swap the pattern, CPU and RAM boards with other similar games, such as Wizard of Wor. Only the game logic and ROM boards are specific to each game. Gameplay screenshot from the C64 Wizard Of Wor is an arcade game from 1980, developed by Midway, and later ported to the Commodore 64 as well as the Atari 2600. ...

Gorf was originally intended to be a tie-in with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but when the game designers read the film's script, they realized that the concept would not work as a videogame and changed its title. Even so, the player's ship bears a passing resemblance to the Starship Enterprise. Also, the enemy flagship looks very similar to the USS Reliant, though this is almost certainly a coincidence — Gorf was released one year before Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the movie in which the Reliant first appeared. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount Pictures, 1979; see also 1979 in film) is the first feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series and is released on Friday, December 7. ... Enterprise or USS Enterprise are the names of several fictional starships, some of which are the focal point for various television series and films in the Star Trek franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. ... The USS Reliant (NCC-1864) In the fictional Star Trek universe, the USS Reliant was a Miranda class starship with the registry number of NCC-1864. ... Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Paramount Pictures, 1982; see also 1982 in film) is the second feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series. ...

Missions

The central goal of each mission is to destroy all enemies.

Mission 1: Astro Battles

Mission 2: Laser Attack

Mission 3: Galaxians

Mission 4: Space Warp

Mission 5: Flag Ship

Mission 1: Astro Battles
The first mission is almost an exact clone of Space Invaders. This is the only mission that is not set in space, but rather against a sky-blue background. A small force of enemies (24 in Gorf vs. 55 in Space Invaders) attacks in the classic pattern set by the original game. The player is protected by a glittering parabolic force field that is gradually worn away by enemy fire. The force field switches off temporarily while the player's shots pass through it. Image File history File links Gorfmission1. ... Image File history File links Gorfmission2. ... Image File history File links Gorfmission3. ... Image File history File links Gorfmission4. ... Mission 5 of the arcade game Gorf This is a screenshot of a copyrighted computer game or video game. ... Space Invaders is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978. ... A parabola A graph showing the reflective property, the directrix (light blue), and the lines connecting the focus and directrix to the parabola (blue) In mathematics, the parabola (from the Greek: παραβολή) (IPA pronunciation: ) is a conic section generated by the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane... In science fiction and fantasy literature, a force field is a physical barrier made up of energy to protect a person or object from attacks or intrusions. ...

Mission 2: Laser Attack
In this mission, the player must battle two formations of five enemies each. Each formation contains three yellow enemies that attempt to dive-bomb the player, a white gun that fires a single laser beam, and a red miniature version of the Gorf robot. Experiment with a laser (US Military) In physics, a laser is a device that emits light through a specific mechanism for which the term laser is an acronym: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. ...

Mission 3: Galaxians
This mission is a direct clone of Galaxian, with the key differences being the number of enemies (24 in Gorf vs. 46 in Galaxian) and the way the enemies fire. Gameplay is otherwise similar to the original game. Galaxian is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade game by Namco. ...

Mission 4: Space Warp
Mission 4 places the player in a sort of wormhole, similar to Gyruss, where enemies fly outward from the center of the screen and attempt to either shoot down or collide with the player's ship. It is possible to shoot enemy shots in this level. For other uses, see Wormhole (disambiguation). ... Gyruss is a shoot-em-up video arcade game developed by Konami, and released in 1983. ...

Mission 5: Flag Ship
The final mission is a one-on-one battle with one of the earliest bosses in the video game industry. The Flag Ship is protected by its own force field (similar to the one protecting the player in Mission 1), and it flies back and forth and fires at the player. To defeat it, the player must break through the force field and destroy the ship's core — if they hit a different part of the ship, the part breaks off and flies in a random direction, potentially posing a risk to the player's ship. If successful, the Flag Ship explodes in a dramatic display, the player advances to the next rank, and play continues on Mission 1. Flag Ship from the video game Gorf A boss is a particularly challenging computer-controlled enemy in video games. ...

Sequel

The sequel, Ms. Gorf, was never released. It was programmed in the programming language Forth programming language. The source code for the prototype is owned by Gorf programmer Jay Fenton (now known as Jamie Fenton). Unfortunately, the game exists only as source code stored on a set of 8-inch floppy disks, and is difficult to retrieve.^[1][2] A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... Forth is a programming language and programming environment, initially developed by Charles H. Moore at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the early 1970s. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... A game programmer is a software engineer who primarily develops computer or video games or related software (such as game development tools). ... Jamie Faye Fenton (born Jay Fenton) is a transgender software programmer. ... A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible (floppy) magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. ...

Ports

Gorf was ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and ColecoVision game consoles and the Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Commodore 64 and VIC-20 personal computers in 1982. Due to copyright issues, the Galaxians mission was removed from all ports. It was later ported to the Atari Jaguar by a hobbyist programmer, but quickly removed from the market because the author neglected to secure any permission from the copyright holders. In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e. ... The Atari 2600, released in October 1977, is the video game console credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in. ... The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, or simply Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari as a replacement for the famous Atari 2600. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Atari built a series of 8-bit home computers based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU, starting in 1979. ... The BBC Microcomputer System was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers Ltd for the BBC Computer Literacy Project operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. ... The Commodore 64 is the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. ... The VIC-20 (Germany: VC-20; Japan: VIC-1001) is an 8-bit home computer. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ... The Atari Jaguar is a video game console that was released in November 1993 to rival the Mega Drive/Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as a powerful next generation platform. ...

References

1. ^ "ClassicGaming Expo 2000: Arcade Games Get A Personality" from Classic Gaming.com
2. ^ Secrets of Ms. Gorf

External links

• Gorf at the Killer List of Videogames
• Gorf guide at StrategyWiki
• The home versions of Gorf at MobyGames
• Article at The Dot Eaters, featuring a history of Gorf