Skeet Shoot

Games by Apollo

Company type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	1981
Founder	Pat Roper
Fate	Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982, ceased operations in 1983
Headquarters	United States
Key people	Pat Roper (founder), Ed Salvo (Director of Development)
Products	Skeet Shoot, Spacechase, other Atari 2600 titles

Skeet Shoot is a skeet shooting video game developed for the Atari 2600 and launched by Games by Apollo in December 1981 as their inaugural release. The gameplay involves shooting clay pigeons, with a two-player mode that allows players to take turns.

Created by Ed Salvo in his residence in Iowa, the title was acquired by Pat Roper of Apollo. Although it received unfavorable critiques, the game achieved commercial success and secured Salvo’s position as Director of Development at the company.

Gameplay

Players take control of a skeet shooter targeting clay pigeons. Pressing the controller button releases a pigeon; pressing it again fires the shot. The joystick is used to adjust the angle of the gun. Points are awarded for successful hits, and different difficulty settings modify the speed of the pigeons.

The Atari 2600 difficulty switches enable two two-player modes: one where players alternate shooting turns, and another where one player shoots while the other manipulates the pigeons’ flight angles. Additional options include selecting the shooter’s placement and the direction from which birds appear.

Development

Ed Salvo independently programmed Skeet Shoot after teaching himself Atari 2600 development. Initially hired to create a flight simulator for a dealer (which was never released), Salvo spent roughly a month working on Skeet Shoot at home. Upon seeing an advertisement from Games by Apollo seeking programmers, he contacted founder Pat Roper and presented the game. Roper deemed it appropriate as a debut title and offered Salvo employment; however, Salvo declined due to perceived risks. Subsequently, Roper purchased the game outright for $5,000.

The final release contained some bugs, including an image inversion issue corrected by Salvo; only European versions retained this flaw.

Reception

Critical response was predominantly negative, as acknowledged by Apollo’s publicist Emmit Crawford. He attributed Skeet Shoot’s poor reception to its lack of challenge and hurried release schedule, later conceding that "All in all, Skeet Shoot wasn't a spectacular game to start off with." Nonetheless, sales figures were strong.

Brett Alan Weiss described Skeet Shoot as "a shoddily programmed, graphically primitive game" with unsatisfactory controls and difficulty settings that rendered it "virtually worthless." An Atari HQ reviewer labeled it mediocre, while Lee Peppas of ANALOG Computing remarked that "Atari & Activision have nothing to fear from the graphics on this first release." The magazine TV Gamer criticized it as among the worst games available for the system, citing monotony and difficulty in hitting targets.

Mark Androvich from Classic Gamer Magazine echoed similar sentiments, noting that although Apollo released some quality titles before their bankruptcy, their initial offering demonstrated limited programming expertise on the Atari 2600. He concluded that while playable, it was not "a step in the right direction" for Apollo.

Legacy

Following Skeet Shoot, Salvo signed a contract resulting in the development of Spacechase. He eventually became Apollo’s Director of Development and recruited 25 programmers to expand the company’s portfolio. After this debut, Apollo released seven additional titles. However, on November 12, 1982, Apollo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to owing $2.5 million to its advertising agency, Benton & Bowles, which accounted for half of its total liabilities. Despite hopes for a reduced settlement, the company ceased operations in 1983 after unsuccessful restructuring efforts.

External links

• Skeet Shoot available at the Internet Archive Console Living Room