JOURNEY TO THE PLANETS FAQ v1.3 ------------------------------- by David J. Stein, Esq. 0. Foreward and Version Info 1. Getting Started 2. Gameplay and Controls 3. Planets 3.1 Home Planet 3.2 Factory 3.3 Combination Lock 3.4 Key Blocks 3.5 Space Invaders 3.6 Crab World 3.7 Prize Machine 3.8 Bowling 4. Endgame 5. Revision History 6. Credits ------------------------------- 0. INTRODUCTION 0.1 FOREWARD Journey To The Planets is a game written in 1983 for the Atari 800XL by a company called JV Software/Roklan Systems, and specifically by a gentleman named Jack Verson. It features a space traveler who visits various alien worlds, solves puzzles on them, and collects items to carry back to his ship. It's pretty routine fare, and the gameplay is quite easy and forgiving, but what really draws the player into the game is the minimalist environment. It has the same appeal as the original Myst - uninhabited worlds, inexplicable objects - though, of course, it predates Myst by a decade. To today's gaming crowd, its blocky graphics and simplistic gameplay may not appeal, but to a nine-year-old boy during the eight-bit computing age, this game inspired the imagination more than a hundred Pac-Men and Donkey Kongs. I wrote this FAQ in December 2004, while blowing off steam after a semester of rigorous studies on artificial intelligence and database design theory. I obtained the cartridge ROM and a copy of Atari800Win, which appears to run the game quite well (though the current version shows an odd artefact on the title screen.) 0.2 VERSION INFO The game was released on a standard Atari 800XL. It does not appear to have been released for any other platform. However, two versions were released: a cassette/diskette-based version and a cartridge version. The versions differ slightly in a few aspects, and some fans of this game have gone to great lengths to document the differences. (Thanks to Anthony Ramos and Scott Stilphen for this information!) Version differences: * Credits screen: On the cassette/diskette version, the opening screen reads "JV SOFTWARE" in the status bar at lower right. On the cartridge version, this reads "JV/ROKLAN". * Normal/Hard Landings: The cassette/diskette version of the game allows the player to change the difficulty of the game (slightly) by making the landings "hard" - see below. The cartridge version offers no such change. * Death animation: On the cassette/diskette version, When the player dies (spaceship collision, player shot, etc.), the game draws a set of concentric rectangles over the screen. On the cartridge version, the game draws horizontal lines down the screen. * Planet reentry: On the cassette/diskette version, the stratospheric view of each planet displays a miniaturized version of the structures on the surface. The cartridge version of the game displays only a flat plain for each planet. * Endgame: The cassette/diskette version of the game plays "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" during the endgame sequence, while the cartridge version continues to play "Anchors Aweigh." Also, the cassette/diskette version of the game makes entering the atmosphere of the final planet more difficult - see the endgame section below for more info. Finally, the cassette/diskette version displays the final "Game Over" victory message on a banner carried by a small, brown man; the cartridge version simply displays "Game Over" in the status bar. ------------------------------- 1. GETTING STARTED Journey To The Planets features only one gameplay mode, but the diskette/ cassette version of the game offers one difficulty setting: at the opening screen, the landing difficulty can be toggled between "Normal" and "Hard" (toggle between this by pressing "Select" on the Atari 800XL, or by pressing F3 in Atari800Win.) The game is started by pressing "Start" on the Atari 800XL (F4 in Atari800Win.) ------------------------------- 2. GAMEPLAY AND CONTROLS The primary goal of the game is to collect seven treasures: the Diamond, the Bag of Gold, the Snake Plant, the Magic Accordian, the Ruby Chain, the Eternal Fountain, and the Candelabra. Each treasure is located on a different planet, and you'll need to solve several puzzles to obtain each treasure and return it to your ship. You can tackle the planets in any order you wish. At the start of the game, you'll see "Planets: 7" in the status bar at the top of the screen. Each treasure that you recover will reduce the "Planets" count by one, so you can monitor your progress this way. Your player is equipped with a limited amount of Energy. You start with 9999 units, and if your reserves ever reach zero, the game immediately ends. If you encounter anything fatal - spaceship crash, contact with something dangerous on the planet surface - then you will lose 1,000 energy and be returned to the home planet surface (but if you don't have 1,000 energy, it's game over.) The good news is that you'll find an energy source on your home planet surface where you can refill to 9999 energy, so you should monitor your energy supply and head home to replenish your reserves whenever they fall below 3000 or so. (The energy source takes away one point for each 1,000 energy, but you will acquire so many points throughout the course of the game that this is never a concern.) The game consists of three main sequences: planet surface, stratosphere, and space. Planet Surface: These sequences show a side view of your character, a small fellow wearing a blue shirt and green pants, and his surroundings. You may walk left or right by using the arrow keys (800XL joystick.) You can pick up some objects by simply walking over them - note that you can only carry one at a time - and you can drop it by pressing the fire button (usually a Control key or Space on the emulator, and the joystick fire button on the 800XL.) In certain cases, you may use two objects together, but the mechanism for doing this changes (either walk up to one object while carrying another, drop one object onto another, try to pick up one object while also carrying another, etc.) You may also enter your spaceship by pressing the fire button. Very early in the game, you will find a gun that you will carry and use during all of the other planet exploration sequences. The gun can be fired in three directions: straight ahead, straight up, or at a 45-degree angle. To fire in any direction, press the fire button; push the joystick/arrow key down (to fire ahead), left or right (to fire at a 45-degree angle), or up (to fire upward); and release the fire button. The angle is retained, so if you'd like to fire in the same direction again, simply tap and release the fire button. Note that your movement is stopped while the fire button is held down - this is helpful if you're trying to fire precisely on the run (you can pause until you want to release the shot, and you'll immediately start running again.) Practicing aiming will help a lot with the later action sequences. Stratosphere: These sequences occur when you enter the atmosphere of a planet and negotiate a landing, or when you're leaving a planet. Controls for the sequence are quite simple - your directional controls fire the left, upward, right, and downward thrusters - but getting the hang of this style of piloting may be difficult. Note that pushing up fires the downward thruster, which makes your ship move upward. Again, practice will help. Leaving is easy - usually, you can just thrust upward until you've attained sufficient momentum to carry your spacecraft out of the atmosphere. You may have to avoid some obstacles. Landing is more difficult, as you have to touch down on the landing pad at low speed (see below.) Both tasks are complicated by gravity and obstacles (you should avoid clouds, solid objects, etc. at all costs while traveling through the atmosphere.) Also, if you have selected Hard Landings (only available in the diskette/cassette verion of the game), the planets may have Light Winds (will randomly blow your spaceship left or right), Heavy Winds (same thing, only stronger), Obstacles (moving horizontal lines in the lower atmosphere that you must avoid), Heavy Gravity (will double the rate at which you fall), or the rather odd Reverse Gravity (will push you away from the planet surface rather than dragging you toward it.) Additionally, the atmosphere may have clouds that throw off your direction of travel if you touch them. Landing can be difficult - you have to descend through the atmosphere and land on a landing pad (a different-colored spot on the ground) at a very low speed. As you navigate, you'll see the color of the title bar at the top of the screen change color: green for slow speed, yellow for medium, and purple or red for fast. Important Note: A successful landing is only accomplished at slow (green) speed. If you touch the landing pad while going too fast, you will crash. One good strategy for this is to navigate (slowly) until you are near the landing pad, then try to neutralize your speed so that your spaceship is hovering. You can then let gravity pull you down, slowly, while using an occasional upward thrust to reduce your falling speed. So you want to tap upward occasionally, but not so often that you overcome the slow downward pull of gravity. Space Travel: Between planets, you will of course find yourself in open space. Controls are the same as before (directional keys/joystick to thrust), but gravity is not a factor. You have at your disposal a map of known space - pressing the fire button displays an 8x8 grid of symbols, with each character representing one screen-full of space: + indicates your current position. * indicates a sector containing a planet. . (period) indicates an empty sector. ? indicates a sector beyond sensor range, with unknown contents. Your spaceship sensors will automatically scan and map all sectors within one screen of your current position - beyond this range, you'll have to travel near each sector to see what it contains. Aside from running out of fuel, two dangers exist in space. First, this region of space appears to be filled with comets. The tails are harmless, but contact with the head of the comet is fatal, and will earn you a trip home (at the expense of 1,000 energy.) Second, you should slow down while approaching planets; entering atmosphere too quickly (while your speed indicator - the title bar - is red or purple) is fatal. Either yellow or green are fine, so you needn't be as careful as while landing. Note that navigation burns up energy *very* quickly, so you should aim to conserve energy while flying around in space. As a general rule, it's better to travel slowly through space - faster travel requires more energy both to speed up and to slow down again, and you're more likely to run into something unfriendly. ------------------------------- 3. PLANETS Each planet has a distinctive color, and will appear as such from space. However, the locations of the planets are randomized every game, so you'll have to explore to find them. You should remember the location of your home planet on the star map - if you find yourself terribly low on fuel, this might be the difference between refueling and losing the game. ----- 3.1 Home Planet Prize: None Color: Orange You start on the home planet, which has a few empty buildings and odd, blank signposts. Walking right, you'll find your spaceship on a landing pad - when you're ready to leave, you can walk up to it and press Fire to board it. Before you do, you should go to the right a few more screens, past some more buildings (one of which looks like a temple), until you find your gun. You should pick it up by walking over it, and you should also practice shooting it (see Controls section above.) Each shot requires 1 energy unit, but this is such a minor draw on your energy store that you shouldn't worry about it. Also, before leaving, travel left several screens until you find the large temple. If you enter the temple, you'll see a beam of energy that fills your energy reserves to 9999. Once you've refueled, you can blast off into space. You should return to this planet periodically to refuel, and when you have secured all seven treasures (see Endgame section.) ----- 3.2 Factory Prize: Ruby Chain Color: Aquamarine On descent, you'll notice that this planet has two distinctive features: a large building off to the right, and a chasm to the left. When you land, you'll first notice a flashing gateway to your right - simply walk through it. You'll find yourself on one side of the chasm, with a flashing gateway on either side (though you can only reach one of them now, both lead back to your spaceship.) Walk up the hill to your right and over to the next screen. You'll see a small pit in the ground, and two objects randomly appearing and disappearing up in the sky: one black rectangle and one brown ball. If you continue to the right, you'll see the factory - a building with a moving platform (where you can put an object) and a mysterious, flashing object that transforms objects into other objects.) First, you should shoot down one of the objects in the sky - when you do, it comes crashing down into the pit. Note that it creates a lightning effect while falling, and that getting in the way of this lightning is fatal, so stay a few steps away from the pit! You should first shoot down a black box, and once it's arrived in the pit, you can pick it up and carry it over to the factory. It will enter the transformer and be changed into... well, a brown stick-like object. You should pick up this stick-like object and carry it two screens to the left. Drop it at the top of the hill on the right (do not carry it down into the flashing gateway - this causes it to disappear.) Then, go back to the screen with the pit and shoot down the brown ball (again, stay away from the pit while you're doing this!) Pick up the ball, and then go back to the hill where you dropped the brown stick-like object. Now, standing on the stick, press up - this will cause it to move over to the top of the left hill, carrying you and the ball with it. Pick up the ball and then go to the left. You're now on a screen with two flashing portals - one on either side of the ruby chain. If you're not carrying the ball, touching the first portal will take you back to the spaceship, and you'll have to start over again. Instead, you should either carry the ball into the portal, or drop the ball somewhere above it on the hill (where it will roll down into the portal.) Either step causes the portal to disappear, so that you can now reach the Ruby Chain. Pick it up, and then get back to the spaceship (either via the portal just past the chain or the one near the chasm.) Once you board the spaceship with the Ruby Chain, you'll be rewarded for obtaining a Treasure, and your "Planets" count will drop by one. You'll also notice two other changes about each planet you complete: (a) instead of being two different colors in space, the planet will appear only one color; and (b) while you can land your ship on that planet, the game won't let you explore it any more (you can't get out of the ship.) Note that you can actually walk into the transformer - it just takes you back to the ship. You can also put the ball onto the transformer platform, but it just disappears after entering the transformer. ----- 3.3 Combination Lock Prize: Bag of Gold Color: Grey When you exit your spaceship, head to the right, where you'll see two bricks in the sky moving back and forth. They are initially blue/purple, but if you shoot them, they will change colors through brown, grey, and orange, and then go back to blue/purple. If you head to the left past your ship, you'll see a screen with a hill, and you might see one of three objects falling out of the sky: a key, a chest, and a stick. (Or, you might see nothing at all.) If you head further left, you'll see a flashing river with a bridge over it, and the bridge has a section missing. The secret to this set of objects is that the two bricks in the sky act as a kind of combination lock. Different color combinations make different objects fall from the sky in the room with the hill. The left brick sets the type of object: blue/purple = nothing, brown = key, grey = chest, and orange = stick. The right brick sets the color of the object. However, the colors are irrelevant, except for the fact that you should use the same color for the chest and key. In other words, you never have to mess with the right brick. First, set the left brick to orange. Go back to the screen with the hill and grab the stick when it falls to the ground. Then, go to the edge of the bridge, right before the gap, and press the fire button. This will rebuild a portion of the bridge over the gap. Do this three more times to complete the missing bridge section. Now, if you walk across, you'll see a flashing rod. It's initially white, but when you pick it up it cycles through all of the colors. This doesn't help you for the moment, so don't worry about this just yet. Go back to the room with the bricks and shoot the left one until it's grey. Go back to the room with the hill, where you'll see a chest fall out of the sky. Let it hit the ground, and then go back to the room with the bricks. Shoot the left one until it's brown, then return to the hill - the chest will still be there, but a key will fall from the sky (hopefully of the same color - if not, go back to the room with the bricks and shoot the right one until it's the same color as the chest, then return to the hill.) The problem is that you can't seem to pick up the key. You can carry the chest around, and you can drop it on top of the key, but this does nothing. Head back to the room with the rod and pick it up. When you're carrying this, you will be able to catch the key *before* it hits the ground (if you're too late, you'll have to try again - just leave the screen and enter it again.) If you then touch the chest while carrying the key, you'll unlock the chest and find the bag of money. Pick it up (you will probably be carrying the empty chest, so drop it first) and take it back to your spaceship to complete this planet. ----- 3.4 Key Blocks Prize: Eternal Fountain Color: Purple/Lilac Upon descending, you'll notice some random bits floating around in the lower atmosphere - just avoid these. After landing, head right to see a large doorway (which appears to do nothing) and a pool of some kind on the right. You'll also see a block appear over the pool - it may look like one small square, or it may look like a slightly larger block with two dots on it (like a "2" on a standard die.) You can't reach these blocks, but you can shoot them with a well-placed diagonal shot. If you do, it will fall into the pool, which will start flashing, as will the gate. If you shoot the "1" block, the gateway will take you back to the ship. If you shoot the "2" block, the gateway will take you to a new screen. This new screen has a new block on the ground (this one has three pips.) You'll also notice three ominous-looking guns pointing at the block. This is a trap - if you pick up the block, the guns will fire and you'll probably be shot. You can avoid this by shooting the block; this won't set off the trap, but it will move the block a little bit out of the way. Shoot it repeatedly (about fifteen times) to push it off to the side, then pick it up - the guns will fire but will come nowhere near you. (Note: Another way to solve this puzzle is just to pick up the block quickly - just keep walking to the left. The guns will barely miss you, and you'll be fine. It's a less elegant solution, but it works.) Once you have the "3" block, walk back to the right, where you'll emerge from the gateway. If you drop the "3" block, it will slide down into the pool, causing the gateway to glow again. This time, it will take you to a room with a "4" block - and a guy who looks like you guarding it and shooting at you. This sequence is difficult. The shots fired by your opponent are blocked by a vertical barrier in the middle of the room with occasional gaps. As the barrier moves downward, most of the continuous shots fired by your opponent will be blocked by the barrier, but one will occasionally get through the gap. The only way you can avoid this is by stepping back behind the barrier to the far right, which will block these shots. Your goal is to get a well-timed shot through one of the gaps and hit your opponent (without getting shot in return.) It's tricky, and there's no secret here - you'll have to keep retrying until you succeed. Once you've succeeded, pick up the "4" block and again head back (to the right) to emerge from the gateway. Again, drop the block and watch it slide into the pool to activate the gateway. This time, it will take you to a screen with the eternal fountain, and some odd cloud-like structures moving overhead. No problem getting to the fountain - just walk over and pick it up - but once you do, it will start raining from the top of the screen, and these raindrops are deadly. Fortunately, the clouds block the raindrops, and you can avoid most of it by walking underneath the clouds on your trip back. When you pass the clouds, you'll emerge from the gateway once again, and this time you'll see the "1" and "2" blocks reappearing above the pool. Drop the fountain for a moment and shoot the "1" block to reactivate the gateway, then pick up the fountain and carry it back to the spaceship to end the mission. ----- 3.5 Space Invaders Prize: Diamond Color: Green/Olive This planet involves a lot of action sequences, so plan on visiting here more than once (or at least, plan on using the "save state" feature of your Atari 800XL emulator of choice.) Upon exiting your spacecraft, head to the right to see your first encounter with some, uh, surprisingly familiar aliens... they start at the top of the screen, moving left and right and gradually moving downward while firing down at you. You know what to do. You can hit them with diagonal shots as well as upward shots, and you might find that easier. When you've destroyed all three, the flashing barrier on the right will disappear, so walk over to the next screen. This next area is somewhat harder - you have two aliens on the left firing at you while randomly moving up and down. (You'll also see a cannon below them - but just ignore this for the moment.) The trick is that you can't shoot them dead on; you have to get underneath them and fire upward. (Although they can't fire downward at you, they can decend to your height, and physical contact is fatal.) There's no special strategy here - just keep trying until you manage to maneuver right beneath them and then take them out. Again, once you destroy them, the flashing barrier on the right will vanish, so walk to the right. Be sure to pick up the cannon and carry it to the next screen. On the third screen, you'll see another invader - but this one moves randomly left and right, and fires much faster. It doesn't descend, but its firing and movement speed make it a tough opponent. In this case, firing upward randomly (without aiming) is a pretty good strategy. Once you've taken it out, you should take a moment to notice the candle on the right side of the screen. Doesn't help you much for now, so pick up the cannon again and walk right to the final screen. Here, you'll see a flashing block. Drop the cannon, walk back to the candle, pick it up, and walk over the cannon. It will fire a cannonball into the flashing block, which will turn into a diamond. Of course, you should pick this up and return to the ship to complete youtr mission here. ----- 3.6 Crab World Prize: Candelabra Color: Green/Olive While approaching, you'll notice a large hill. When you land, you should climb it and head to the left, where you'll see that you are on the top floor of a two-level structure. Walking left, in sequence, you'll see four screens: the first has some kind of pump mechanism on the first floor; the second has a lift connecting the floors and a small balloon; the third has a mean-looking crab on the first floor; and the fourth has some strange lasers protecting the candelabra on the first floor, and what appears to be a cage on the second. First, pick up the cage and head back to the lift. Take the lift down, and head left to the room with the crab, and drop the cage. (The crab moves randomly left and right, but never comes past the red hill-like barricade, so as long as you stay to the right of that, you're safe.) Next, walk to the right, pick up the balloon, and carry it to the pump. The balloon will inflate, but will still be in your possession. Go back to the crab room and walk over the cage. The balloon will carry the cage upward and to the left until it reaches the ceiling, then will move to the left. The trick is to use an upward-left gunshot to pop the balloon at the right time so that the cage falls onto the crab and traps it. This will be tricky - the crab moves randomly and quickly, and the delay between shooting and popping the balloon makes timing tricky. You might miss, or you might completely fail to pop the balloon. If you miss either way, just go to the right to pick up another balloon (you'll see that another one is available in the same spot), inflate it, and go back to the crab room (the cage is waiting for you again - very convenient!) Eventually, you'll succeed in trapping the crab. You can then walk past it and head over to the room with the lasers. No trick here - the lasers rotate in sequence, so just step past each one, pick up the candelabra, and work your way back. Return to the ship to complete the planet. Shortcut: For some reason, the game engine confuses the balloon with the candelabra! If you just pick up the uninflated balloon and head back to the ship, the game will register you as having completed the planet. :shrug: ----- 3.7 Prize Machine Prize: Magic Accordion Color: Orange This planet features a difficult orbital descent, involving a zigzag set of obstacles. If you have something like Reverse Gravity or Heavy Gravity to deal with, it's especially hard. Ease your way past these obstacles and land. When you head to the right, you'll see a ball blocking your path, and you can't get past it. If you return to the screen with your ship, you'll see something new - a long stick has appeared. Pick it up, then walk to the right and use the stick to push the ball out of the way. You can then drop the stick before proceeding. On the next screen, you'll find yourself on the top level of a two-story structure. Below, you can see the accordion; there are also two thin patches on each side of the second story, and a hole in the ground near the accordion on the first floor. Together, these features comprise a game like a prize machine: the trick is to maneuver the accordion to get it to drop into the hole. But how do you manipulate it? If you head to the right, you'll see a tall set of stairs; in the middle will be a black brick that appears to be holding a ball in place. If you head to the right again, you'll see an identical screen with a brick and ball (but you can't go right a third time.) If you pick up the brick (either one), you'll notice that the ball falls down and rolls away and off the screen. However, you're still carrying the brick. The trick is to use this brick as a backstop to retrieve the ball on the other screen. Go to the other room and drop the brick a little past the foot of the stairs. When you pull out the second brick, the ball will hit the first brick and stop. You can then go back to the bottom of the stairs and pick up the ball. Once you have the ball, walk back to the screen with the accordion. If you drop the ball through either one of the thin patches on the second level, it will drop down to the first floor and knock the accordion to the side. This doesn't appear to help much - you've only moved the candelabra a few inches, and you still can't reach it. But if you repeat this process two more times, the accordion will fall through the hole in the bottom of the floor. (You can use either patch for the repetition, but use the same one for all three ball drops so that you consistently knock the accordion in the same direction. Note that the first floor of this screen wraps around - knocking the accordion off the screen to the left makes it reappear on the right side, and vice versa.) Once this is done, return to the screen with your ship - the accordion will drop out of the sky, and you can retrieve it before boarding your ship to complete the planet. ----- 3.8 Bowling Prize: Snake Plant Color: Blue While descending, you'll see a snow-capped mountain. After you land and exit the ship, you can go right to see two aliens - one big and one small - moving up and down and firing at you. You can try shooting them, but this doesn't help. If you go to the left past your ship, you'll see two screens with balls floating in the air. The ball on the second screen will be slightly larger than the one on the first screen. You can shoot each of these down, and when they hit the ground, you can pick it up. When you drop it, it will roll away (and another floating ball will appear.) If you return to the screen with the two aliens, you'll notice that the ground is sloped toward them - you're standing on the top of a small hill. If you drop the ball you're carrying, it will roll toward them. If you miss, the ball will vanish, and you'll have to go back and get another one. If the big ball hits the big alien, the big alien will disappear; if the small ball hits the small alien, the small alien will disappear. You have to drop each ball at just the right time, at the top of the hill, to contact the correct alien. (Note that the big alien is in front of the little alien - if the small ball hits the big alien, it will disappear. So you should start with the big ball and take out the big alien.) Once you've taken out both aliens, head right to the next screen to find the snake plant, protected by a few lasers. Just like the ones protecting the candelabra, these lasers rotate through three cycles, so just step past them, pick up the plant, and work your way back. Return to your ship and board it with the plant to complete this planet. (For some reason, the plant will slide back down the hill - like the balls did - if you drop it in that screen.) ------------------------------- 4. ENDGAME Once you've completed all seven planets, head back to your home world (an easy shortcut is just to crash into something! - though of course you lose 1,000 energy when you reappear.) If you walk all the way to the right, where you first found your gun, you'll now see a candle. Pick this up and take it to the temple (your energy recharge spot) - but notice that your spaceship is no longer on the landing pad. When you get to the temple and fully recharge, your spaceship will appear above you, and you will be drawn up into it. Suddenly, you will find yourself in your spaceship in space, but something has changed - your map has all +'s, and your current position is not shown on the map. If you're playing the cassette/diskette version of the game, the music changes from the normal "Anchors Aweigh" to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." You'll also notice that there don't appear to be any planets (or comets) - it's just empty space. Well, not quite empty. First, even though you can't find your current position, you can get your bearings by finding an edge of the map. You'll notice that when you move from one sector of space to the next, the stars behind you change position - unless you're flying off the edge of the 8x8 grid. This just wraps around, so that you stay in the same sector - and the stars don't change position. If you can find an edge, or better yet a corner, you can determine your position. Second, there is one planet in this 8x8 grid. It's tough to find, but your scanners will pick it up if you travel through an adjacent sector of space. Now, what happens when you touch it depends on which version of the game you're playing. On the cartridge version, when you touch it, you enter its atmosphere as you'd expect. The cassette version is much trickier. When you touch the planet, it disappears. It will reappear in an adjacent sector, though your scanners won't pick it up until you move to a different sector (and, of course, you must move to a sector adjacent to the new location of the planet.) The secret here is that the planet moves in the direction opposite how you approached it. If you touch the planet from the top, it will move up one sector. If you touch the planet from the left side, it will move one sector to the left. The trick is to maneuver the planet into a corner sector of the galaxy, and then to approach it in that sector from that corner. In essence, you want to trap the planet in a corner, and then approach it in such a way that it can't move. Thus, you could maneuver it into the top-right sector of the galaxy, enter that sector, and touch the planet on its top-right edge. Once you have done this, you will be allowed to enter the atmosphere of the planet. Once you descend through the upper stratosphere, you will see a set of four landing pads; three pads are occupied by ships exactly like yours, and the fourth is empty. When you land on the pad, the game will give you some points. If you're playing the cassette version of the game, you'll see a small brown man walk onto the screen with a "Game Over" banner; but if you're playing the cartridge version of the game, you'll just see the words "Game Over" in the status bar at the top of the screen. ------------------------------- 5. REVISION HISTORY Version 1.0 - First release. Version 1.1 - Added endgame information, courtesy of David Sussman. Version 1.2 - This is pretty cool - I received email from a gentleman named Jack Verson, who appears to have authored the game. He provided some info about the correct engame sequence, and also about the different versions of the game. Version 1.3 - Fixed some glitches in the new endgame info, and added a section with info on the different versions - thanks to Anthony Ramos and Scott Stilphen for the help with this. ------------------------------- 6. CREDITS This FAQ was written by David J. Stein, Esq. on December 20, 2004 during a break from classes in the Masters in Computer and Information Sciences program. This program has been both a boon and a curse: I have learned much about programming - both tools (technologies, techniques, programming languages) and targets (uses and applications) - but I'm also too busy to do anything useful with it (except during semester breaks.) I anticipate picking up the game programming habit after graduation in May 2005, and I may end up creating a spiritual successor to this small gem of a game. Special thanks to: JV Software and Jack Verson - For creating this cool game. David Firth and the Atari800 Development Team - For writing a great and exceptionally compatible emulator. Darren Hanson - My childhood friend who introduced me to the game on his Atari 800XL. Anonymous - Whichever kind soul dumped this game from Atari to PC. Starbucks - the sine qua non of this FAQ. Anthony Ramos and Scott Stilphen - for the encyclopedia-quality help with info on the different versions of the game. Contact Info: Please feel free to contact me at djs10@po.cwru.edu with information about this game. Be sure to include "Journey to the Planets" in the subject line - otherwise, your message will probably get eaten by my spam filters. -------------------------------