Page "Asteroids (video game)" Paragraph 8

Like many games of its time, Asteroids contains several bugs that were mostly the result of the original programmers underestimating the game's popularity or the skill of its players.

The maximum possible score in this game is 99, 990 points, after which it " rolls over " back to zero.

Other common terms for this bug were " turn over " and " flip over ".

Also, an oversight in the small saucer's programming gave rise to a popular strategy known as " lurking " — because the saucer could only shoot directly at the player's position on the screen, the player could " hide " at the opposite end of the screen and shoot across the screen boundary, while remaining relatively safe.

Another popular method of exploiting this bug was to simply use thrust to keep the ship in motion with 1 or 2 asteroids in the play field, allowing the player to pick off as many 1, 000 point UFOs as possible.

This led to experienced players being able to play indefinitely on a single credit.

This oversight was addressed in the game's sequel, Asteroids Deluxe, and led to significant changes in the way game developers designed and tested their games in the future.