[3] While the arcade original remained obscure, Apple Panic became a top seller for home computers.

[5] The player controls a character that walks left and right along platforms made of green brick and climbs up and down ladders between them.

On each level, the player has only a limited time to dispatch all the enemies, tracked by a bar at the bottom of the screen.

Ports for the Atari 8-bit computers and IBM PC (as a self-booting disk) were done by Olaf Lubeck, who also wrote Cannonball Blitz for the Apple II.

[6] Softline reported in 1983 that it was among the top 30 best-selling Apple software for almost two years, in contrast to the "two to four month life span" of the typical arcade game.

[10] Owen Linzmayer reviewing the TRS-80 version for Creative Computing wrote, "The Apple Panic packaging promises voice and sound effects.