Gato

GATO is a real-time submarine simulator first published in 1984 by Spectrum HoloByte for DOS. It simulates combat operations aboard the Gato-class submarine in the Pacific Theater of World War II. GATO was later ported to the Apple IIe, Atari ST, and Macintosh. In 1987, Atari Corporation published a version on cartridge for the Atari 8-bit family, to coincide with the launch of the Atari XEGS. Gameplay The player is tasked with chasing Japanese shipping across a 20-sector map while returning for resupply as necessary from a submarine tender. The islands on the map are randomly generated and not based on real-world geography. Combat is conducted using a screen with a view through the periscope and at various gauges and indicators. The game has multiple difficulty levels, the highest of which requires the player to translate mission briefings which are transmitted only as audible Morse Code. The MS-DOS and Apple IIe versions contain a boss key which replaces the game screen with a spreadsheet. Development Gato was developed by student programmers in Boulder, Colorado.