Frostbite

Frostbite is a 1983 arcade game designed by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600 video game console. It was published by Activision in 1983. The object of the game is to help Frostbite Bailey build igloos by jumping on floating blocks of ice, while trying to avoid deadly hazards like clams, snow geese, Alaskan king crabs, grizzly-looking polar bears, and the rapidly dropping temperature.

The game depicts a polar scenery. Bottom two thirds of the screen are covered by a mass of water with four rows of ice blocks floating horizontally. The player moves by jumping from one row to another while trying to avoid various kinds of foes including crabs and birds. There are also fish which grant extra points. On the top of the screen is the shore where the player must build the Igloo. On later levels there is also a polar bear walking around on the shore which must be avoided. The game levels alternate between large ice blocks and little ice pieces. The levels with the little pieces are actually easier, since one can walk left or right over them without falling in the water. Each time the player jumps on a piece of ice in a row its color changes from white to blue and the player gets an ice block in the Igloo on the shore. The player has the ability to change the direction in which the ice is flowing by pressing the fire button, but that costs a piece of the Igloo. After the player has jumped on all the pieces on the screen, they all turn back to white and one can jump on them again. When all the 15 ice blocks required for building the Igloo are gathered, the player has to get back to the shore and get inside it, thus proceeding to the next level. On every level the enemies and the ice blocks move slightly faster than in the previous level making the game more difficult. Each level must be completed in 45 seconds, else the eskimo dies frozen. The faster the level is completed the more bonus points are awarded to the player.

The player begins with on active playable character active withre three in reserve. The player can earn extra lives for every 5,000 points. Setting the difficulty switches on the Atari set the game in either Regular mode or Advanced mode. In regular mode, you start at level one, while in advanced mode you start at level five. The other difficulty settings adjust if the game is a single player, or two-player game. The two-player game has players alternating turns.

Steve Cartwright developed Frostbite for Activision in 1983. He joined the company in 1982 and in that year released two games for the system: Barnstorming and Megamania. In 1983, he released three games including Plaque Attack, Seaquest and Frostbite.