| Intellivision |
· HIDDEN MESSAGE: “ASTROSMASH! JOHN PARK SOHL 1981” can be found near the beginning of the compiled code. {Scott Stilphen}
· An alternate version has been found that has a timer option (pictures #1 and #2). It seems to be from either the Astrosmash competition or one of the TV POWW games.
· An obscene version was developed for in-house use only. Programmers Keith Robinson and Gene Smith felt that the digitized word "can't" in the MCP's line "I can't allow this" from Tron Solar Sailer sounded...well...obscene, even though Deidre Cimarusti from the Voice Department insisted it had tested fine. To prove their point, Gene edited the voice file to isolate the word. They then altered the Space Spartans title screen so that it read and said "Mattel Electronics presents Space C—t”. This title screen became so popular among some programmers that a game was inevitable. They tacked the screen onto a version of Astrosmash with new graphics: the missile launcher, the missiles and the flying saucer were replaced with respective genitalia. {BSR}
· BUG: The game has a score overflow bug which causes negative numbers, letters, and other ASCII characters to be displayed in the socre counter. According to the Blue Sky Ranger website, the bug occurs with scores higher than 9,999,999. However, former Astrosmash contest competitor Doug Leighty stated the highest score possible before the rollover bug occurs is 32,767, 995. The manual also proves BSR’s score is impossible since the right-most digit can only be a 0 or a 5 (ironically, the catalog description promises "Unlimited scoring potential"). {Doug Leighty}
· BUG: Astrosmash started out as a clone of the arcade game Asteroids, called Meteor!. The game wasn't very big, so John Sohl used the extra room in the cartridge to come up with a variation called Avalanche using the same graphics and sound effects. At the last minute, afraid of a lawsuit from Atari, the Mattel lawyers killed the Asteroids-like Meteor!. Rather than risk introducing bugs by deleting code, John simply put a branch around the opening-screen menu straight into the Avalanche! variation, which was released under the name, Astrosmash. Very rarely, when there's a glitch hitting RESET, the Asteroids version will show up on screen (this would be a dandy Easter egg if it was intentional or reliably repeatable, but it's neither). {BSR}
