Surround
- $9.99
- Regular price
-
$11.99 - Sale price
- $9.99
- Unit price
- per
Game and manual, no box — the collector’s middle ground. Game condition guide →
Ships in 1–2 business days·Tracking on every order·Signature required on orders $250+
Item Condition
Game + manual: the cartridge and its manual, no box. Look over the photos for condition, packaging and details. Every cartridge's shell, label and board are checked for authenticity when it comes into the store, and it's tested before it's listed. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.
Item Description
Every game of Surround starts with plenty of room and ends in a claustrophobic tangle. You and your opponent each steer a block that leaves a solid wall behind it, and the first one to crash into a trail loses. Within seconds the screen is a maze of your own making, and the tension comes from cutting off your rival's escape route before they cut off yours.
Surround brought Gremlin's 1976 arcade game Blockade home, making it the first home console version of the idea later known everywhere as Snake. The cartridge holds 14 games, with options that change how a match feels: speed-up that ratchets through five speeds, diagonal movement, wraparound edges that let you vanish off one side and reappear on the other, and an Erase option that lets you stop drawing your trail at a crucial moment. Two-player matches can combine these freely, and a solo player can take on the computer. The last two games drop the competition entirely for Video Graffiti, a drawing mode that works like an Etch A Sketch, a feature that early consoles loved to include.
It was one of the nine Atari VCS launch titles of September 1977, sold by Sears as Chase, and it was the first assignment for programmer Alan Miller, who later co-founded Activision and designed Starmaster. The game has also resurfaced in modern Atari compilations, a sign of how well the idea has aged.
Simple as it looks, it is still a sharp head-to-head duel. With a friend on the other joystick, Surround plays like a fast game of chicken, and owning it puts the console's very first lineup, and the home debut of the Snake formula, on your shelf.
Fast factsgame data via IGDB
- Released
- 1977
- Publisher
- Sears
- Developer
- Atari
- Genre
- Arcade
- Players
- Single player, Multiplayer
About the game
Surround was an unofficial port of the arcade game Blockade, released the previous year by Gremlin. As such, it was the first home console version of the game that would become widely known on other platforms as Snake. As with other early Atari games, it was licensed to Sears, which released it under the name Chase. The cartridge was subdivided into 14 different games. The first 12 of these were variations on the Blockade theme. Like its predecessor Blockade and successor Snake, the object of Surround was to maneuver a sprite across the screen, leaving a trail behind. A player wins by forcing the other player to crash into one of the trails. Various options allowed for speed-up, diagonal movement, wrap-around and "erase" (the choice to not draw at a given moment); in addition, the sprites could be set to operate at a beginning "slow" speed, or progressively speed up through five speeds.
Summary from the IGDB community database — the condition and contents of this listing are described above and in the photos.Watch gameplaySurround on Atari 2600
Make an offer
Request more photos
Ships in 1–2 business days (Monday–Friday, excluding major U.S. holidays). During the holidays and big sales, allow one extra business day.
- Live USPS and UPS rates at checkout. Every order ships with tracking.
- We ship to all 50 states, U.S. military addresses (APO/FPO/DPO), and Canada. Canadian orders may owe duties and taxes on delivery.
- Orders of $250 or more ship with signature confirmation.
- Delivery dates shown at checkout are estimates, not guarantees.
Read the full Shipping Policy, including holiday order-by dates.
Most of what we sell is one of a kind, so all sales are final unless something goes wrong on our end.
Contact us within 14 days of delivery if your item doesn’t work, arrived damaged, is the wrong item, or isn’t as described. We’ll send a prepaid return label and make it right with a replacement or a refund. Orders placed November 1–December 24 can be reported through January 15.
Not covered: change of mind, compatibility issues, and opened sealed trading-card products.
Email support@coolection.com with your order number. Read the full Refund Policy.
Atari 2600
Surround
$9.99
Offering on several items? Build an offer list →
Submitting an offer does not guarantee acceptance. Items aren’t held while an offer is open, and prices can change until then. We reply within 1–2 business days.
Atari 2600
Surround
$9.99
Real photos of this exact item: we’ll photograph what you ask for and email them to you, usually within 1–2 business days.
