Atari Asteroids Arcade Game Manual

The original Asteroids arcade cabinet features five buttons for gameplay: Rotate Left, Rotate Right, Fire, Thrust, and Hyperspace. It does not use a joystick, meaning players must navigate the zero-gravity environment using the rotation and thrust mechanics.

According to the original Atari game settings, players earn an extra life by reaching a default score of 10,000 points. However, arcade operators could adjust the DIP switches on the machine's circuit board to change this threshold.

The large UFO appears periodically and fires randomly, making it a moderate threat to the player. The small UFO, which appears once your score reaches higher thresholds, fires its shots directly at your ship and is much harder to hit.

Asteroids was developed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg and released by Atari in 1979. It became one of the best-selling arcade titles of the golden age of arcade video games by utilizing unique vector graphics.