Round About

Round About
Title screen of the game
Game No.	509
Voting	5.00 points, 1 votes
Developer	Douglas Ansell, Ray Gari
Company	Gumby Bitworks
Publisher	Datamost, Aackosoft, Pubblirome (Super Game 2000)
Release	1983
Platform	Apple II, Atari 400/800, C64
Genre	Shoot'em Up
Gamemode	Single player
Operation
Media
Language
Information	aka Giro Tondo

Description

In the game "Round About", the player controls a spaceship, defending low Earth orbit against 24 different groups of enemy invaders. These enemies appear in swarms of eight spacecraft each, which — if the player doesn't skillfully fight and defeat them — will be joined by more powerful opponents. All enemies are unarmed and attempt to destroy the player's ship by ramming it. The player starts with a supply of three spaceships and unlimited ammunition; after successfully completing four levels, they also receive an additional ship as a bonus.

The title screen is repeatedly interrupted by brief appearances of the opponents from the game

The player attacks the invaders from all sides — but after some time they receive reinforcements.

The opponents are trying to destroy the player's spaceship by ramming it

Despite the familiar premise of "defend the Earth / the solar system / the galaxy against alien villains through wild shooting", found in many other computer games, the description on the original game packaging emphasizes that "Round About" is simply meant to be fun, entertaining, and to make the player happy ("ROUND ABOUT is the kind of game you never grow tired of because it's sheer fun, sheer enjoyment on every level! It's a happy game ... that lets you pass the minutes, or hours, or days in a carefree way."). Accordingly, successfully completed levels are sometimes celebrated in an exuberant manner, for example as "Very uncredibly totally awesome", sometimes commented on with funny swear words ("Golly", "Neato", "Lemon Curry?").

Backstory

The following brief backstory is based on the manual for the Atari version of the game, as the C64 version is not available online and is quite rare and usually quite expensive on online auction platforms.

As commander of the spaceship "Roundabout", the player's mission is to make space a relatively safe border zone. To achieve this, they must shoot down as many alien invaders as possible. The enemy spaceships can take various forms, but all attempt to destroy the player's ship. The enemies appear in groups, and as soon as one swarm of attackers is destroyed, the next one takes its place.

Design

The entire game takes place within a rectangular screen area, along the edge of which the player can move their spaceship. The projectiles fired by the player always travel perpendicular to the edge closest to the spaceship, necessitating frequent changes of position during combat against the invaders. A status bar at the bottom of the screen displays the current game progress and high score.

Even fighting only against extra enemies can be fun for a while

A mysterious insert between levels 6 and 7...

...and between levels 18 and 19

Graphics

The actual game — the player's spaceship battling their opponents — has a very simple design, with white figures on a black background in a 30 × 19 character grid. However, this grid is bordered by a rainbow-colored frame that occasionally flashes, and the on-screen messages are composed of brightly colored letters; therefore, the overall graphical presentation is still colorful and cheerful.

Sound

"Round About" doesn't offer any background music, but it underscores numerous in-game events with a variety of monophonic and polyphonic sound effects. The following illustration, for example, clarifies the sound output when advancing to the next level: Initially, a monophonic, completely chaotic sequence of sounds accompanies the acquisition of a bonus ship, followed by two opposing sequences of sounds at the end of the level and a trill lasting almost two seconds at the start of the next level. Eight short notes with a rapidly decreasing frequency then accompany the appearance of the eight enemy spaceships, which subsequently move throughout the game to rhythmic, repetitive sounds.

Sequence of sound effects when advancing to the next level (green: second voice of the SID, red: third voice)

Hints

The sole objective of the game is to destroy the 8 alien invaders as quickly as possible in each round by shooting them, without allowing them to destroy the player's spaceship by ramming it.

Screen Layout

Typical scene from the game

Controls

"Round About" is controlled either with the keyboard or a joystick in port 2. Pressing the fire button or the <SPACE> key starts the game. During gameplay, pressing <F3> pauses the battle; pressing <F1> resumes. <F5> quits the current match and returns to the title screen.

After the game starts and the enemies appear, you can control your spaceship as follows:

• or <.> (period): Spaceship moves right (if at the top or bottom edge)
• or <CONTROL>: Spaceship moves left (if at the top or bottom edge)
• or <A>: Spaceship moves up (if at the left or right edge)
• or <Z>: Spaceship moves down (if at the left or right edge)
• or <SPACE>: Fires a projectile, or, if held down, a full volley

Enemies

The following gallery presents all the enemies that challenge the player in the 24 levels of "Round About". As you can see from the captions, each enemy spaceship destroyed in the first level is worth 25 points; with each additional level, this reward increases by 10 points.

Level 1: "Hoops" 25 points

Level 2: "Fops" 35 points

Level 3: "Joonz" 45 points

Level 4: "Woox" 55 points

Level 5: "Dimunz" 65 points

Level 6: "Flooz" 75 points

Level 7: "Stars" 85 points

Level 8: "Boxes" 95 points

Level 9: "Walkers" 105 points

Level 10: "Gaabs" 115 points

Level 11: "Dingos" 125 points

Level 12: "Zoots" 135 points

Level 13: "Roodoodoo" 145 points

Level 14: "Flaps" 155 points

Level 15: "Grunts" 165 points

Level 16: "Stratz" 175 points

Level 17: "Runners" 185 points

Level 18: "Spinz" 195 points

Level 19: "Rollers" 205 points

Level 20: "Aints" 215 points

Level 21: "Skats" 225 points

Level 22: "Pulses" 235 points

Level 23: "Stix" 245 points

Level 24: "This is it" 255 points

If the fight against the enemy invaders lasts too long (typically more than 8 seconds), they receive reinforcements in the form of individual, additional spaceships that move quickly and sometimes seem to be specifically targeting the player's spacecraft. Fortunately, these enemies disappear on their own after a while, so it's not absolutely necessary to destroy them to successfully complete a level.

First extra enemy 150 points

Second extra enemy 200 points

Tips

• The fastest and most successful way to play "Round About" is to position your spaceship at the start of each level where all the enemies will pass by in quick succession. Once this is the case, a single salvo is enough to destroy all the enemy ships. The following gallery illustrates this strategy for levels 1-24, i.e., for the first appearance of each enemy.

Levels 1-9 in fast forward

Levels 10-17

Levels 18-24

• You should also memorize where the enemy ships will appear at the start of each level. Otherwise, it's possible to collide with an opponent and lose your spaceship before the level has even properly started and before you've taken control of it:

Loss of a spaceship due to unfortunate placement in the previous level

Solution

As briefly explained in the "Tips" section, in most levels it's enough to position your spaceship in a suitable spot and wait there until the enemies come by in a line and can be shot down with a single salvo. The following gallery shows where the spaceship should be positioned for levels 1-24. Only in level 21 should you note that you should shoot down the enemies from a rightward movement to avoid colliding with them as soon as they appear in the next level.

Level 1: "Hoops"

Level 2: "Fops"

Level 3: "Joonz"

Level 4: "Woox"

Level 5: "Dimunz"

Level 6: "Flooz"

Level 7: "Stars"

Level 8: "Boxes"

Level 9: "Walkers"

Level 10: "Gaabs"

Level 11: "Dingos"

Level 12: "Zoots"

Level 13: "Roodoodoo"

Level 14: "Flaps"

Level 15: "Grunts"

Level 16: "Stratz"

Level 17: "Runners"

Level 18: "Spinz"

Level 19: "Rollers"

Level 20: "Aints"

Level 21: "Skats"

Level 22: "Pulses"

Level 23: "Stix"

Level 24: "This is it"

From level 25 onwards, the enemy spaceships repeat, but their movement patterns change. Therefore, anyone who wants to easily complete even higher levels should determine the ideal location for their spaceship and expand the above diagram accordingly.

Cheats

In the CSDb database, there is a crack by Commo Bam that offers several trainer functions:

Trainer by Commo Bam

Votes

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
5.00 points at 1 vote. You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
Lemon 64	6,75	January 22, 2026 - 4 votes
Atarimania	7.3/10	January 23, 2026 - 11 votes
Rombach	8	September 1984 - "Verdict 2"

Critics

Stephan64: "Round About is a very simple shooter from the early days of the C64 — and it fully meets the expectations of such a program: colorful flashing lights, discordant beeping, and hordes of enemies that move predictably and can therefore be easily shot down one after the other. Not a game that will keep you hooked for days or really get your brain working — but remembering the fascination that such games held back then, I'm giving it a tongue-in-cheek 5 points."

Miscellaneous

Cover

Images of the Atari version's cover can be found at Moby Games, C64 Games, and Atarimania. Ready 64 also shows a low-resolution image of the cover, which doesn't indicate which target hardware the program on the corresponding disc supports (see section "Weblinks").

The cover image depicts an apparently cheerful young man firing a rotating laser cannon from a colorful pulpit at a series of spinning, green flying objects.

Video Recording

Short demonstration of the first 8 levels

Trivia

The cheers that announce the successful completion of a level represent a remarkable collection of English swear words from the 1980s. They include exclamations like "Killer!" and "Wow!" "Oh gee!", "All right!", "Rad!", "Great!", "Fantastic!", "Super!", "Good show!", "Neato!", "Far out!", "Choice!", "Nifty!", "Golly!", "Narley!", "Outrageous!", "Osculating!", "Tubular!", "Radical!", ""Awesomating!", "Lemon Curry?", "Cool!" as well as the intensifying exclamations "Awesome!", "Totally awesome!", "Incredibly totally awesome!" and "Very incredibly totally awesome!".

Easter Egg

In two enigmatic cutscenes, already shown in the section "Design", between levels 6 and 7 and between levels 18 and 19, Pac-Man and an athletic-looking man, respectively, are crushed by a massive weight. The question "How high can you get?" shown during the second video sequence, in particular, suggests that an Easter egg can be found by pressing the correct keys or using the joystick.

However, using a debugger, it can be shown that during these video sequences, only the kernel's keyboard input accesses the ports of CIA1 (at I/O addresses $DC00 and $DC01). The joystick is not being accessed, and any codes from user-pressed keys that the kernel might have written to the keyboard buffer are not initially retrieved. This buffer is even cleared before the next level starts.

An enigmatic inset raises the question of what actions are expected of the player here...

...and the question "How high can you get?" fuels the hope of advancing to a higher level

Technical Details

Graphics Display

"Round About" consistently uses monochrome text mode (screen memory starting at address $0400, character set starting at $3000), thus relying on the simplest form of screen display. Sprites are not used; collisions between the player's spaceship, their projectiles, and enemies are therefore determined solely by the program checking for overlaps between these objects.

Highscore

Topscore of Stephan64

1. Stephan64 - 13.250 - 16 (03.02.2026)
2. Nobody - 0 (tt.mm.jjjj)
3. None - 0 (tt.mm.jjjj)

	#2 Nobody		#3 None

Links

• C64Games.de - Game No. 4502
• Lemon64 - Game No. 5370
• Gamebase64.com - Game No. 6489
• Gamebase64.com - Game No. 21119 aka Giro Tondo
• ready64 - Game No. 6322
• CSDb - Release No. 73776 Crack with trainer by Commo Bam
• CSDb - Release No. 21156 Crack by Antiram
• Round About at MobyGames

• Universal Videogames List
• Atarimania