Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Aric Wilmunder: Star Raiders II, Temple of Apshai Here’s how Aric Wilmunder introduced himself to me: “When The Last Starfighter didn’t do well in the theaters and marketing re-branded the Atari 800 Last Starfighter game as Star Raiders II, they didn’t take into account that there was already an actual sequel to Star Raiders that was just a few months away from completion.  I was the designer and solo engineer who worked for about a year on the project as a member of an R&D team inside Atari Coin-Op.  A friend helped me copy the disk image a few years back and when I saw Steve Hales post your tweet about the source code [for Star Raiders] I thought there might be some interest. “The game was close to being finished, but there were still parts that needed polishing like the enemy AI, so I’ve been hesitant to release it since it might be judged as a finished work. I’d hate to wait 30 years to release the game just to get a bad review.” Aric Wilmunder started writing programs on the Exidy Sorcerer computer,