198? Atari
Platform: Atari 2600 or Atari 8-bit (Unknown)
From the archives of Atari graphic artist Jerome Domurat, archivist John Hardie found a disk labelled “Earthquake”, and so begins our look at yet another lost Atari game.
John got in touch to flag his finding with us, which he originally posted about on the AtariAge forum in June 2025. On the disk, he found a series of graphic images that show many elements of a possible earthquake type of game with buildings, debris and a fireman.
As John mentions, one particular screen seems to show a fireman in a Berzerk style maze looking for injured people with a flashlight that illuminates a portion of the screen, similar to the effect used in Haunted House.
It isn’t clear if the game was intended to be an Atari 2600 or Atari 8-bit release. There are suggestions that the game may have been an attempt at a licence of the 1974 movie, but this has yet to be confirmed.
It seems a lot of work was started on the graphics, but nothing seems to have appeared on any development lists. John has started to reach out to ex-Atari folk to see if he can learn anything more – we’ll update this page if anything else does come to light. If you know anything more, please do get in touch!
In the meantime, we hope to add the graphic assets themself to the page in the near future.
With thanks to John Hardie for flagging up his recovery and sharing his story.
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