Uploaded May 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Discovered in 2015 and is fully playable but missing sound effects.
From my interview with Anthony Weber in 2004, which can be seen on the Atari Compendium website:
ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/anthony_weber/interview_anthony_weber.html
Q: You also did at least 2 Roklan titles that I know of that never were published- one being Rockball. Christian Scott posted this comment of yours (?) regarding it:
"The one that I worked on for the Atari never got released... Rockball, a clone of an arcade game by the same name."
Anthony Weber: Yes, Rockball was an arcade game variant of Asteroids. The concept of big rocks (that were really small sets of concentric rings), and a spaceship that could blast them into smaller rocks was essentially identical to Asteroids. The player's ship received energy by destroying the rocks, which split apart into smaller rocks, each time hit by a player's missile. Where it differed was in the startup, which created a rectangle in the center of the screen, which disappeared at the same time the ship appeared, but only if no 'rocks' were within the rectangle. The twist in the game was a gravity force would randomly appear in the middle of the screen and teleport the player. If unlucky enough to get sucked into it, it would drop the ship somewhere else on the screen, possibly on top of or in the path of one of the rocks. Another variation was the box that appeared around a new ship until no rocks were within. It played really well, but was never officially released that I know of.
It was the first game I did for Roklan. The internals of the arcade game (i.e., screen, platform, joystick, etc.) were shipped to me while I was still in Michigan. I finished it before we physically moved to Chicago.
Q: Do you recall who made the arcade game? I can't find any information about it on any of the major arcade database sites...
Anthony Weber: I don't remember who actually made the game, but discovered a possibility, Techstar, who apparently holds the trademark to an arcade game called "Rockball", circa 1982 (trademarkia.com/company-techstar-inc-1203173-page-1-2), about the right time, since I worked on Roklan's version the spring of 1983.
Q: That must be it. The other game listed there, Eyes, was manufactured by Rock-Ola and game shows the credit "Copyright 1982 Digitrex Techstar".
Discovered in 2015 and is fully playable but missing sound effects.
From my interview with Anthony Weber in 2004, which can be seen on the Atari Compendium website:
ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/anthony_weber/interview_anthony_weber.html
Q: You also did at least 2 Roklan titles that I know of that never were published- one being Rockball. Christian Scott posted this comment of yours (?) regarding it:
"The one that I worked on for the Atari never got released... Rockball, a clone of an arcade game by the same name."
Anthony Weber: Yes, Rockball was an arcade game variant of Asteroids. The concept of big rocks (that were really small sets of concentric rings), and a spaceship that could blast them into smaller rocks was essentially identical to Asteroids. The player's ship received energy by destroying the rocks, which split apart into smaller rocks, each time hit by a player's missile. Where it differed was in the startup, which created a rectangle in the center of the screen, which disappeared at the same time the ship appeared, but only if no 'rocks' were within the rectangle. The twist in the game was a gravity force would randomly appear in the middle of the screen and teleport the player. If unlucky enough to get sucked into it, it would drop the ship somewhere else on the screen, possibly on top of or in the path of one of the rocks. Another variation was the box that appeared around a new ship until no rocks were within. It played really well, but was never officially released that I know of.
It was the first game I did for Roklan. The internals of the arcade game (i.e., screen, platform, joystick, etc.) were shipped to me while I was still in Michigan. I finished it before we physically moved to Chicago.
Q: Do you recall who made the arcade game? I can't find any information about it on any of the major arcade database sites...
Anthony Weber: I don't remember who actually made the game, but discovered a possibility, Techstar, who apparently holds the trademark to an arcade game called "Rockball", circa 1982 (trademarkia.com/company-techstar-inc-1203173-page-1-2), about the right time, since I worked on Roklan's version the spring of 1983.
Q: That must be it. The other game listed there, Eyes, was manufactured by Rock-Ola and game shows the credit "Copyright 1982 Digitrex Techstar".
