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Atari XL/XE - Rescue on Fractalus [Lucasfilm Games] 1985

StaxX280 HN recommenders · 2011–2025
136K views · demo · evergreen · Uploaded 2007-04-16

Intro and gameplay footage of Rescue on Fractalus, the 1985 Lucasfilm Games title for Atari XL/XE, programmed by Loren Carpenter and David Fox. It shows the game's fractal-generated mountain terrain.

Shown as a historic example of fractal terrain rendering in games, in threads about voxel and terrain rendering.

Game history & retro gamingComputer graphics & renderingDemoscene & retrocomputing

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3 comments from Hacker News

@danieldk2011 · in “Ace of spades, Minecraft like FPS ”

I fondly remember NovaLogic's Comanche series. While it isn't of the 'world building' genre, its voxel engine was very impressive for its time: [LINK] Also interesting (historically) is 'Rescue on Fractalus'. Not just for its cheesy name, but also due to its reliance on fractals to draw 3D mountain sceneries: [LINK] ! Edit: videos of both games: [LINK] [VIDEO]

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@keithnz2021 · in “Vector Games 32c3”

one of my favourite vector games on my Atari 800XL was Mercenary. It was this open world type game, felt amazing at the time. [LINK] it wasn't that graphics was the best (compared to something like rescuse on fractalus [VIDEO] ), it was just a big vector world with quite a lot of places to explore.

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@karmakaze2025 · in “VoxelSpace: Terrain rendering algorithm in less than 20 lines of code (2020)”

I remember Commanche and how it reminded me of being wowed by "Rescue on Fractalus"[0] (aka Behind Jaggi Lines pre-release) procedural generation on the 8-bit Atari. [0] [VIDEO] (landing on planet is at 1:00)

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