Eugene smiles upon you

The arcade game, Robotron: 2084 was published in 1982 by Williams Electronics and is my favorite video game of all time on any platform. It is the perfect combination of elegantly simple game design and lightning-fast frenetic seat-of-your-pants gameplay.

The genius of two joystick control was a design perfected first in the eyes of the chameleon. The menagerie of characters is small enough to have memorized in one's first playthrough although the nuances of each behavior takes only a few more hours of training.

I had a unique opportunity to practice my skills at the game on Robert Birmingham's machine at Atari Games in Milpitas. Over the course of a month of games, playing on 'Tournament' settings, I recorded many attempts on Hi-8 video and on a spreadsheet, the top three being 704,000, 657,675, and 624,000, only the last of which I captured on tape.

I sent the tape in to Twin Galaxies and the performance was good enough for 5th place! Check out the link: Twin Galaxies - Robotron High Scores.

In the summer of 2002 I delivered a speech on my attempt at the high score at Gavilan College in Gilroy vowing that not only would I take the top spot, but that I would surpass 1,000,000 points. I haven't made good on my promise, but I was voted 'most likely to become a speech instructor' by my classmates.

When you barely survive an overwhelming onslaught by the skin of your teeth, Robert and I would chant, "Eugene smiles upon you" in honor of Eugene Jarvis, one of the Designers of the game.