Freak energy

Something you realize when researching games made by trans people is that in the early days of video games, there were a lot of trans women in the industry who hadn't transitioned yet. Much of the time, when I'm looking into a game from the 1970s or 1980s and see a woman's name listed in the credits online, that's not the name she was credited under when the game came out.

Such is the case with Cathryn Mataga, who created several games for Synapse Software under her former name in the early 1980s. She transitioned in the mid/late 1980s and moved into a more behind-the-scenes role, with extensive programming credits through the 1990s and 2000s, notably on the groundbreaking Neverwinter Nights (1991), the first graphical MMORPG.

But today I'm going to talk about Zeppelin (1983), a multidirectional shooter she developed at Synapse for Atari 8-bit systems.



This game is not to be confused with Zeppelin (1982) from Microvations, nor with Zeppelin Rescue (1983) from Intercept Software, nor with Zeppelin! (1994) from Ikarion Software. Those are all unrelated games, which I guess either reflect the dominance of zeppelins in the cultural zeitgeist of the late 20th century, or else the fact that it's easier to get a game to look right when you're piloting a vehicle that's kind of slow and cumbersome to operate.

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You can play Zeppelin in your browser on the Internet Archive. On the title screen you have to press F1 to start the game, and you use the numpad to control it. If you can. Playing with a joystick might be easier, but that's beyond my level of Atari emulation expertise.