Quantum (video game)

Quantum, a color vector arcade game, was created by General Computer Corporation for Atari, Inc. and hit arcades in November 1982. Its designer, Betty Ryan, was the first woman to work as a developer at GCC. The game takes loose inspiration from quantum physics: players guide a probe using a trackball, drawing a tail behind it to encircle atomic particles and score points, while steering clear of other particles.

In each stage, the player moves the probe with the trackball, leaving a trail. As the attract-mode demo explains, completing a loop requires circling around and crossing the tail. Any particles trapped inside a closed loop are eliminated. A level ends when all nuclei—solid circular particles—are destroyed.

The player must also avoid contact with any particles except electrons, which are safe, and stay away from active red particle bonds. Colliding with these causes the scene to collapse and destroys the probe. Other deadly particles may appear periodically.

For entering initials on the high score table, the player uses the trackball to circle letters, mirroring the gameplay action. If the player achieves the top score, an additional screen appears before the initials entry, allowing skilled players to draw their initials with the trackball.

A clone called Tachyon was previewed in ANALOG Computing magazine for Atari 8-bit computers, but the game was never finished. A remake, Quantum Recharged, launched in August 2023 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, as part of Atari SA's Recharged series.