AX-1: Arabian Rhapsody

AX-1: Arabian Rhapsody is an action and puzzle game, and the first entry in ASCII's AX series. It consists of a compilation of four games: Arabian Rhapsody, Block Breaker, High Speed ​​Barricade and Simon. It also includes a demonstration program. The game was published right around the time of NEC's PC-6001 release and one of the main draws was that player's could look at the source code and use it to make their own games.

Arabian Rhapsody is an action game played on a grid filled with different numbers from 0-9. Player's take control of Aladdin, represented by a heart, and move around by pressing the numeric keys in the keypad corresponding to their adjacent positions. Stepping on each numbered space will increase their score, and once player's have stepped on all spaces, the stage will reset. Player's also have to avoid the bandit, represented by the character X, otherwise they'll be sent back to the starting position. There is also an energy meter that depletes with time, but can be refilled by stepping on special numbers marked in green.

Block Breaker is a standard Breakout clone. Player's control a paddle and have to bounce a ball around the screen, while trying to hit the block at the top and collect points. Once all blocks are cleared, the game will go to the next stage. If the player misses the ball they lose a life, and when all lives are lost they'll get a game over.

High Speed ​​Barricade is a variation on the Snake sub-genre. The game is played in a closed arena, and player's control a moving character that leaves a trail behind it's previous positions. The computer also controls a character that behaves in the same way. Touching either of the trail characters left behind or the walls of the arena will result in a game over. The objective is to try to stay alive for as long as possible, while trying to make the opponent touch one of the walls.

Simon consists of 4 different colored panels shown on screen, which will flash in a random order. The player will them have to reproduce the order in which they were shown, and will gain points for completing a successive round, or get a game over for failing. As the game progresses, the sequences become longer and harder to reproduce.