"Falling Stars"
By Super Software (Robert Rosenhouse).
Tape 10, Side 1.
1981.

"Radioactive meteorites are descending on a major metropolitan city. The city's 
only protection is a weak shield and your limited laser weapon (you are 
supplied with one gallon per round). Once an area of the shield becomes 
damaged, the city is vulnerable. Do your best to save the city for as long as 
you can."

This Bally BASIC game was typed in and archived by Kevin Bunch in December 2022 
in this thread on the Bally Alley discussion group:

https://groups.io/g/ballyalley/topic/95502052#19790

In the thread, on December 15, 2022, Kevin writes:

"Success! I was able to clean up the last couple bugs and the game ran through 
to the end without crashing. There are some graphical glitching (sometimes the 
meteors leave a solid path, etc) but the game is quite playable and as far as I 
can tell the code matches the listing. Pretty fun take on Missile Command! 
Attaching the wav file and the txt.

"Also attaching a screenshot of the game in action. You have these meteors 
dropping from the top of the screen onto the city below, with a shield overtop 
the buildings to take a single hit. You can fire an energy beam that will 
destroy any meteors in its horizontal path (represented by the square on either 
side); you have a limited number of these shots, represented by the number in 
the bottom left. The upper left number is the number of meteors that have been 
destroyed to finish the round, either by your efforts or from crashing into 
something. The game ends when too much of the city is destroyed (as represented 
by the number in the bottom right). Top right number is both the wave you're on 
and the score multiplier, which increases with each wave."

On the same day, Adam Trionfo wrote"

"I loaded and played one game of "Falling Stars" on my real Astrocade using the 
300-BAUD interface.  The game plays different than I expected, but it does play 
the way that Kevin describes it.  I've attached the final score of 4,240 points 
for my one game from a screenshot I took of my 14" CRT TV with my camera.

"I'm not sure of the details, but pressing the trigger doesn't always destroy 
the "falling stars" that are hit by the player's laser.  This game reminds me, 
just a bit, of the part in "Cosmic Ark" on the Atari 2600 when the player goes 
down to the planet to retrieve the animals.  The enemy lasers fire in that 
Atari VCS game by Imagic in a similar manner to the player's laser in "Falling 
Stars."

"I'll try to add this game to the website soon so that it doesn't fall through 
the cracks and get put off for a few weeks or months.  I encourage others to 
give this one a try.  You'll have to have a real Astrocade with a 300-BAUD tape 
interface, as the MAME emulator doesn't support loading 300-BAUD programs.

"Thanks for taking the time to archive this BASIC program, Kevin.  You've 
earned yourself 1 Million Bally Alley Bonus Points!"

The original printout of the Bally BASIC listing for "Falling Stars" is 
available here:

https://ballyalley.com/type-
in_programs/super_software/super_software.html#Falling_Stars_Super_Software_Pri
ntout

End of Document