SATURN SWEEPER

Five moons. One buggy. No way back.

A new game for the Atari 7800 by Abysmal Games.

The Saturn Sweeper title screen: the buggy on a dusk road under Saturn

Testers build v0.17.1. The final release follows after testing.

Drive the moons of Saturn to Sector 78. Jump the craters, hover the lakes, light the dark, and break every robot the Xentenials send.

Two players, one buggy

Saturn Sweeper is made for two. One player drives, the other rides on the roof as the gunner: one console, two joysticks, one buggy.

The driver left joystick

Speed: full, slowest or cruise. Speed is your best tool.
Jumps the craters and rocks; from world 2 on, holds the jump to hover on the thrusters.
The forward gun. Hold fire to charge a bolt: the only thing that breaks a rock wall.
In the dark of world 4, the high beam.

The gunner right joystick

A roof turret with ten directions, up to six shots in the air at once.
Charged shots destroy any ship, armoured or not.
The shield: a honeycomb around the buggy that takes five hits.
In world 4, the sky flares that light the whole scene.

With a gunner aboard the sky is the gunner's: the driver fires forward only and keeps the buggy on the road. Some locks and boss parts need both of you. The gunner joins with a press of a button on joystick 2, on the title screen or at any time during a game.

Playing alone? That works too. The driver then also fires straight up and looks after the sky as well, and the code locks and the bosses' finishers change to suit one player. Solo and co-op scores go into separate high score tables.

The road to Sector 78

Far out on Saturn's moons stands Sector 78, a lonely relay base with no crew, only machines and a long-range uplink. One day it went dark. The Xentenials, alien robots, took it to use the uplink for themselves. Now their ships fill the skies of every moon between you and the base, and they drop craters into the road faster than anyone can fill them.

So you drive out there, moon by moon and sector by sector, in a four-wheel buggy with a forward gun, a thruster pack, and room on the roof for a friend with a turret.

Five moons

Each world is a drive of 8 or 9 sectors, and each sector ends with your time against a target and a bonus. At the end of every world waits its guardian: a giant robot built from parts.

World 1: a dusk sky, purple peaks and Saturn

1The First Moon

A dusk sky, purple peaks and Saturn hanging overhead. World 1 teaches you the buggy: craters, rocks, rollers, the first ships and their bombs, rock walls, gates and the charged bolt.

8 sectors. Boss: the Pacing Tank.

2Enceladus

No air: a black sky over pale blue ice. The thrusters come online, and with them the hover over ice-spike fields and crevasses. Geysers erupt taller than any hover, and metal walls turn every shot.

8 sectors. Boss: the Laser-Cage Craft.

3Titan

A thick amber haze and a sea of dunes. Every crest launches the buggy into the air. Methane lakes, tar pits, tailgaters ramming from behind, the first code lock, and a lake that only a full tank will cross.

8 sectors. Boss: the Dune Chaser.

4Iapetus

The two-faced moon: from bright white ice the road drives into the black, until only your lights and Saturn are left. The high beam, sky flares, a chain multiplier, escape pods to catch, and a crowd of enemies that hide in the dark.

9 sectors. Boss: the Searchlight Walker.

5The Ring-Shepherd Moon

Saturn's rings edge-on as a thin gold band, a ring foundry of girders and dishes, and low gravity that floats every jump. Debris showers, drifting ice blocks, a crimson storm and a code bomb.

8 sectors. Boss: the Ring Carrier.

And beyond world 5? A last surprise. Keep your spare buggies.

The guardians

Boss 2 — **The Laser-Cage Craft**, world 2

Boss 4 — **The Searchlight Walker**, world 4

Each boss has a pattern and a moment it can be hurt. At the end its core opens and wants two charged hits in quick succession: with a gunner, one from each of you.

On the road

Craters are holes in the road: jump them. Rocks can be jumped or shot. Some ships drop bombs that blow new craters ahead of you, but never right next to another crater, rock or wall, so there is always room to land. And the Xentenials keep coming:

Skimmer

Gouger

Roller

Diver

Sentry

Tailgater

Heavy

Lurker

Shade

Shard swarm

Features

Two-player co-op on one console: a driver and a gunner. Or play alone.
Five worlds of 8 or 9 sectors, five bosses, and more past world 5.
EASY, NORMAL and HARD. The difficulty changes only your spare buggies and continues: the worlds, the enemies and the bosses are the same on every level.
Continues start you again at the sector where the game ended, or at the boss. On EASY and NORMAL every world you clear gives an extra buggy.
High Score Cartridge support, with six tables: EASY, NORMAL and HARD, each SOLO and CO-OP. The 7800 GameDrive and the Atari 7800+ (firmware 2.0.1.4 or later) emulate one. Without one, the game remembers your best scores until you switch it off.
POKEY music: a tune for each world, and another for the storm. Every tune also plays on the console's own sound chip when the cartridge has no POKEY.
256K cartridge. Any Atari joystick works; two-button ProLine joysticks are recommended.
PAUSE freezes everything, the music too. RESET starts over.

	Spare buggies alone	With a gunner	Continues
EASY	6	5	unlimited
NORMAL	4	3	5
HARD	3	2	none

Ways to play

Best: a real Atari 7800 with a cartridge, two ProLine two-button joysticks and two people. Our hardware testing so far is on the 7800 GameDrive.

Joysticks: any Atari joystick works. Two-button ProLine joysticks are recommended: the gunner's shield needs the second button. With a one-button stick the driver pushes up to jump.
Other flash carts (Concerto and others) should work: please tell us.
Atari 7800+: not working yet. The Plus copies the cartridge it is given before running it, and it can't read 256K carts like this one yet; we're looking into it. Flash carts like the GameDrive don't work on it.
Runs on NTSC and PAL consoles (separate PAL build), real hardware and emulators including A7800 and JS7800. A7800 is our main test emulator, and the game is checked in it every build. Reports from other emulators are welcome.

Open testing

Saturn Sweeper is in an open testing phase. Before the final release we want to hear from players: what is fun, what is too hard, what is unclear, and anything that goes wrong.

Testers who send feedback can be credited in the game's ending credits (the Top Ten Testers: the ten whose feedback helped most) and in the manual.

Want to be a tester?

Ask for the testers' page. It has the testers build, the manual and the feedback form.

Email testers@abysmal-games.com with the subject "Saturn Sweeper tester", and tell us what you play on.

Saturn Sweeper, a game for the Atari 7800. Testers build v0.17.1. The final release follows after testing.
Music by Abysmal Games.
(c) 2026 Abysmal Games LLC