Spacewar!

Spacewar! is a two player shooter where both players engage in a dog fight with space ships (called The Needle and The Wedge respectively). At the centre of the screen there is a star which pulls the ships constantly towards it. The space ships have limited fuel with which to manoeuvre, and a limited number of torpedoes which are used to destroy the opponent. The ships follow Newtonian physics and can use tactics such as a gravity assist. Players can also activate hyperspace which teleports the ship to a random other location, but with an ever increasing chance of self-destruction.

The game was initially controlled with switches, but a gamepad was later developed to make the game easier to play.

In initial versions the background stars were randomly generated. In later versions the game incorporated the Expensive Planetarium program which was based on real star charts.