When the ship is pointing to the right, it is positioned left of center on the main screen when pointing to the left, it is positioned to the right of center. A side effect of the reverse button is that the position of the ship on the screen changes. To change back to your original direction of travel, the reverse button must be depressed, released, and depressed again. Each time the reverse button is depressed, the ship changes direction. This button changes the direction your ship is pointing. The button immediately to the right of the altitude lever is the reverse button. After practicing for a while, you’ll be able to confidently fly your Defender ship at high speed through small gaps between mines or bullets. This subtle feature allows precise control of your altitude in tight situation, because you can apply short bursts of upward or downward acceleration as need. Note that the altitude lever controls vertical acceleration, rather than actual position. Whenever the altitude lever is release, it snaps back to center position, and the ship’s vertical motion slowly stops. Holding the lever below center will make the ship accelerate downward. If the lever is held above center, the ship accelerates upward. In the center position, the ship will stay at the same altitude on the screen. The altitude lever is connected to a three position switch. This is a knob that looks like a miniature automobile stick shift, and is used to move your ship up and down. The first control on the left is the altitude lever. The player who has to look at the controls while playing will not be able to react quickly enough to keep up with the game as it progresses. Because Defender has more controls than most video games, it is very important that their position and function be memorized. Understanding the effect of all of these controls is the first challenge in learning to play Defender. The layout of these controls is pictured on the next page.
Layout of the controlsĭefender has six different controls: an altitude (up-down) lever, reverse button, hyperspace, smart bomb button, thrust control, and fire button. Just try to get comfortable with the controls at first, and concentrate on proper strategy rather than fancy fingerwork. There’s no denying that fast hands can help your Defender playing, but they aren’t terribly important – I’ve even played to a million points while wearing heavy wool mittens. The controls in Defender are so hard to master that some players assume that’s all there is to the game – fast fingers and good hand-eye coordination will automatically make you a good Defender player. Although using the controls should be intuitive, with no conscious thought involved, it pays to think about them a little at first so you don’t develop bad habits that are hard to break. You must master the controls before you will be able to effectively carry out the maneuvers in Chapters 3 through 8. There is, however, another side to playing Defender well – the physical side, the use of the controls. This book is devoted almost entirely to the strategy and tactics of good Defender playing.
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