Something Deep: Submarine Commander for the VIC 20

Submarine Commander (Thorn EMI Video, 1983)

Written by Dean Lock, VIC 20 Version by Gary Yorke 

Big, bold two-page magazine advertisements heralded the arrival of Thorn EMI’s Submarine Commander, proudly showing off several screenshots of the game and boasting of its complexity. You see, Thorn EMI was a British publisher that was making big money at that point with the emerging home video market (VHS format), and was dipping into computer games with a huge budget for games development and marketing. 

One of the things I wanted to see when I reacquired a Commodore VIC 20 was just how sophisticated  the games managed to get for the machine before it was completely eclipsed by its successor the Commodore 64 - as well as just being abandoned due to the collapse of the videogame market in 1983. I've already covered some pretty complex games for the VIC 20 - Crush, Crumble, & Chomp, Sword of Fargoal, Renaissance, and Monster Maze - but I've acquired soooo many more than I had ever thought were made.

So I knew of Submarine Commander for the Commodore VIC 20 back in the day when I owned one - but I passed on purchasing it as it looked too technical and not that much fun to my teenage self. Forty years later I'm a more seasoned gamer who loves a variety of experiences and is, I like to think anyway, more patient and better prepared to learn such a challenging game. 

Still, it took some willpower to pick it up and put the time into it to get good enough to where I could actually sink ships. And the tiny manual, while complete, did not organize all of the information the player needs to run the submarine, so, yeah I made my own command summary card, and I made it small enough to fold up and put it inside the nice plastic case that Thorn EMI used to hold the game and manual.  

It details what is showing on all of the indicators and smaller screens along the left and right side of the screen. I mostly paid attention to the ATD indicator, the compass, and the depth. Torpedoes can only be fired and the periscope only works at  certain depths. The large center screen can be switched between the map, a sonar screen, and the periscope view if the depth allows. After getting familiar with that, it was time to head out into the open Mediterranean Sea and take out convoys of ships.

My first focus was to just learn how to steer and move the unwieldy sub. The joystick is used like a realistic rudder, where left and right steer that way, but pushing up/forward lowers the depth and pulling back/down raises it. Think of it as steering the front nose end of the submarine. On the left side instrument panel, horizontal and vertical lines help the player monitor the steering. The rudder only goes so far left and right so, just like real life I suppose, the sub cannot turn on a dime. Making turns involves strategic use of speed and rudder control to head the direction one wants.

 Before I could gain any competence at steering, though, I encountered an enemy convoy and they sure spotted me, hurling depth charges my way and doing damage to all systems, as shown on four little indicator squares in the bottom right. Figuring I was about to be sunk, I focused on the fun part - hitting ships with torpedoes - and managed to knock them out before they got me. All four of those indicators had nearly filled with red pixels, but to my surprise that damage was repaired over time.

The other enemy convoys were way over in the western Mediterranean or screwing around near Corsica, so I got back to steering training, failing a few times to thread the ninety mile wide Strait of Sicily before heading their way. In my subsequent encounters, I kept a safe distance and had time to aim my torpedoes. Soon I was sinking convoys with little difficulty and taking little damage as I only got close enough for them to spot me one more time.

The score of the game is really the total weight on what the player sunk in tons, or tonnage, and here is where I got on the easiest level before stopping my play session. 

I think the next time I play I'll do a practice session on level 1 and then try the next level up from that in difficulty. Submarine Commander is a challenging to learn but fun to play simulation game with light arcade elements, sure, but it's also a fine example of how early computer game design was really an open field with so much potential to create all new game experiences. Thankfully, they brought it to the Commodore VIC 20 (after releasing it on Atari computers first) and pulled it off on a machine that even at its height was not known for these types of games.