Case study

River Raid: an annotated Atari VCS disassembly of river generation and the kernel

Activision's 1982 Atari VCS game River Raid is disassembled into labeled and commented 6502 assembly (version 0.9). Notes explain how random river sections of 16 blocks ending in a bridge are generated, how one fuel tank, enemy or house is placed per block, how a two-line kernel repeated twelve times draws each 32-line block with hardware-only collision checks, and how the score lives directly in the display pointers; switches add screensaver code and a training mode.

Targets: Game
Category: Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
Sources reviewed: 2026-11-09
Evidence class: C3 notes only

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Evidence

Observed: No code found behind the entry URL.
Scope: Notes
Checked: 2026-11-10

How evidence classes are assigned

Requirements & limits

Prerequisites: Assembling needs a 6502 assembler and the vcs.h Atari VCS header that the listing includes.
Limits: Version 0.9 of the analysis, last updated in August 2001.
License: No licence stated on the project page.

Cite

BibTeX

@misc{river-raid-atari-vcs-disassembly-case,
  title = {{River Raid: an annotated Atari VCS disassembly of river generation and the kernel}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.qotile.net/minidig/disassembly/RiverRaid.asm}},
  url = {https://www.qotile.net/minidig/disassembly/RiverRaid.asm},
  urldate = {2026-11-09},
  note = {Awesome REA entry: \url{https://awesomerea.org/resources/river-raid-atari-vcs-disassembly-case/}}
}

Plain text

River Raid: an annotated Atari VCS disassembly of river generation and the kernel. https://www.qotile.net/minidig/disassembly/RiverRaid.asm (accessed 2026-11-09). Awesome REA entry: https://awesomerea.org/resources/river-raid-atari-vcs-disassembly-case/

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About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources.

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Primary sources

https://web.archive.org/web/20260223204810/https://www.qotile.net/minidig/disassembly/RiverRaid.asm