Moon Patrol

Atari 8-bit version of Moon Patrol

Moon Patrol is an action game published by Avalon Hill for Atari 8-bit computers and the Commodore 64. Not to be confused with the popular Williams Electronics arcade game with the same name, Avalon Hill's Moon Patrol has players controlling a space patrol ship on a horizontally scrolling screen with the goal of shooting several types of flying saucers to earn as many points as possible.

The game screen in Moon Patrol features a ragged lunar landscape along the bottom of the screen which scrolls from right to left. Players control a patrol ship which can move up and down and also speed up or slow down (fully stopping or reversing direction isn't possible). The game consists of 20 missions; in each mission, players need to destroy the invading aliens and then successfully land on the next landing pad when it appears. If players miss landing, the patrol ship runs out of fuel and crashes. There are three different kinds of alien ships which appear throughout the game and attempt to land; initially, only the easier green aliens are found with more difficult purple and red aliens appearing on later missions.

The game provides four different difficulty settings; on the easiest setting, the aliens do not fire back. The two moderate difficulty settings have the aliens firing back either only in the air or only after landing. On the most difficult setting, alien ships shoot back at any time (both in the air and after landing). Players begin the game with a limited number of lives; the game ends when all lives are lost or all 20 missions are completed.