✦ A SMALL GAME. A BIG BEGINNING.

Before the rockets,
there were pixels.

EST. 1984 / REBUILT FOR THE WEB

A tribute to the space shooter Elon Musk wrote as a kid. Five ships. One alien freighter. A little piece of computer history.

Explore the backstory

BLASTAR // FLIGHT CONSOLE01 — SINGLE PLAYER

SCORE000000

PERSONAL BEST000000

SHIPS▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲

A NEW FLIGHT AWAITS

Blastar

The mission is simple. Surviving is another story.

OR PRESS ENTER

SYSTEM ONLINE

DRAG TO FLY
HOLD TO FIRE

THE FIRST LAUNCH

Every big story
starts somewhere.

Long before SpaceX, a young Elon Musk was already sending spaceships across a screen.

Biographical accounts describe Musk writing Blastar around age 12 and selling the code for about $500. The BASIC listing appeared in the December 1984 issue of South Africa’s PC and Office Technology.

Players piloted a small ship against an alien freighter carrying hydrogen bombs and “status beam” weapons. A compact idea, built for the Spectravideo era.

12~AGE WHEN WRITTEN

$500REPORTED CODE SALE

1984MAGAZINE PUBLICATION

A TRIBUTE, REPROGRAMMED

New code, new pixel art, classic inspiration. This version adds smoother controls, progressive difficulty, touch play, and saved scores. It’s a recreation, not an emulator of the original.

Read the BASIC listing ↗See the earlier HTML5 port ↗Read the biographical account ↗

Before the rockets,there were pixels.

Blastar

Every big storystarts somewhere.

Before the rockets,
there were pixels.

Every big story
starts somewhere.