Q*bert

Q*bert is an action game with puzzle elements played from an axonometric third-person perspective to convey a three-dimensional look. The game is played using a single, diagonally mounted four-way joystick. The player is impeded by several enemies, introduced gradually to the game: • Coily – Coily first appears as a purple egg that bounces to the bottom of the pyramid and then transforms into a snake that chases Q*bert. He is often considered the main antagonist and Q*bert's arch-nemesis. Q*bert will die if he collides with Coily. ==Development==

Concept Programmer Warren Davis wrote that he was inspired by a pattern of hexagons implemented by fellow Gottlieb developer and Mad Planets designer Kan Yabumoto. Lee believed a game could be derived from the artwork, and created an orange, armless main character. The character jumped along the cubes and shot projectiles, called "mucus bombs", from a tubular nose at enemies. Lee had drawn similar characters since childhood, inspired by characters from comics, cartoons, Mad magazine and by artist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. Q*bert's design later included a speech balloon with a string of nonsensical characters, "", which Lee originally presented as a joke. Audio A MOS Technology 6502 chip that operates at 894 kHz generates the sound effects, and a speech synthesizer by Votrax generates Q*bert's incoherent expressions. The audio system uses 128 B of RAM and 4 KB of EPROM to store the sound data and code to implement it. Like other Gottlieb games, the sound system was thoroughly tested to ensure it would handle daily usage. In retrospect, audio engineer David Thiel commented that such testing minimized time available for creative designing. Thiel was tasked with using the synthesizer to produce English phrases for the game. However, he was unable to create coherent phrases and eventually chose to string together random phonemes instead. Thiel also believed the incoherent speech was a good fit for the "" in Q*bert's speech balloon. Following a suggestion from technician Rick Tighe, a pinball machine component known as a "knocker" was included to make a loud sound when a character falls off the pyramid. According to Davis, vice president of marketing Howie Rubin championed ' as the title. Although staff members argued it was silly and would be impossible to pronounce, a few early test models were produced with ' as the title on the units' artwork. A copyright claim registered with the United States Copyright Office by Gottlieb on February 10, 1983 cites the date of publication of Q*bert as October 18, 1982. Video Games reported that the game was sold directly to arcade operators at its public showing at the AMOA show held November 18–20, 1982. The game was distributed in Japan by Konami and Sega in March 1983. It was also released in Europe in March 1983. ==Reception==

Q*bert is Gottlieb's only video game that earned considerable critical and commercial success, selling around 25,000 arcade cabinets. A cocktail version of the game was later produced. These machines have since become collector's items. When the game was first introduced to a wider industry audience at the November 1982 AMOA show, it was immediately received favorably by the press. Video Games magazine placed Q*bert first in its list of Top Ten Hits, describing it as "the most unusual and exciting game of the show" and stating that "no operator dared to walk away without buying at least one". The Coin Slot reported "Gottlieb's game, Q*BERT, was one of the stars of the show", and predicted that "The game should do very well". Contemporaneous reviews were equally enthusiastic, and focused on the uniqueness of the gameplay and audiovisual presentation. Roger C. Sharpe of Electronic Games considered it "a potential Arcade Award winner for coin-op game of the year", praising innovative gameplay and outstanding graphics. William Brohaugh of Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games described the game as an "all-round winner" that had many strong points. He praised the variety of sound effects and the graphics, calling the colors vibrant. Brohaugh lauded Q*berts inventiveness and appeal, stating that the objective was interesting and unique. Neil Tesser of Video Games also likened Q*bert to games released in the early 1980s in Japan, like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, due to the focus on characters, animation and story lines, as well as the "absence of violence". Computer and Video Games magazine praised the game's graphics and colors. Video Games Player called it the "Funniest Game of the Year" among arcade games in 1983. Q*bert continues to be recognized as a significant part of video game history. Author Steven Kent and GameSpy's William Cassidy considered Q*bert one of the more memorable games of its time. Author David Ellis echoed similar statements, calling it a "classic favorite". 1UP.coms Jeremy Parish and Kim Wild of Retro Gamer magazine described the game as difficult yet addictive. Author John Sellers also called Q*bert addictive, and praised the sound effects and three-dimensional appearance of the graphics. Edge magazine attributed the success of the game to the title character. They stated that players could easily relate to Q*bert, particularly because he swore. ==Ports==

At the 1982 AMOA Show, Parker Brothers secured the license to publish home conversions of the Q*bert arcade game. Parker Brothers first published a port to the Atari 2600, and by the end of 1983, the company also advertised versions for Atari 5200, Intellivision, ColecoVision, Atari 8-bit computers, VIC-20, TI-99/4A, and Commodore 64. The release of the Commodore 64 version was noted to lag behind the others Parker Brothers also translated the game into a standalone tabletop electronic game. It uses a VFD screen and has since become a rare collector's item. Q*bert was also published by Parker Brothers for the Philips Videopac in Europe, by Tsukuda Original for the Othello Multivision in Japan, and by Ultra Games for the NES in North America. The initial home port for the Atari 2600, the most widespread system at the time, was met with mixed reactions. Video Games warned that buyers of the Atari 2600 version "may find themselves just a little disappointed." They criticized the lack of music, the removal of the characters Ugg and Wrongway, and the system's troubles handling the character sprites at a steady performance. Later, Mark Brownstein of the same magazine was more in favor of the game, but still cited the presence of fewer cubes in the game's pyramidal layout and "pretty poor control" as negatives. Randi Hacker of Electronic Fun with Computers & Games called it a "sterling adaption" Computer and Video Games scored the Atari VCS version 70% in 1989. In 2008, IGN's Levi Buchanan rated it the fourth-worst arcade port for the Atari 2600, mostly because of a lack of jumping animations for enemies, which instead appear instantly on the adjacent cube, making it impossible to know in which direction they are traveling before they land. Entertainment Weekly called Q*Bert one of the top ten games for the Atari 2600 in 2013, saying the port "lost the cool isometric perspective but none of the addictive gameplay." Other home versions were well-received, with some exceptions. Of the ColecoVision version, Electronic Fun with Computers & Games noted that "Q*bert aficionados will not be disappointed." Brownstein called it one of the best of the authorized versions. Antic magazine's David Duberman called the Atari 8-bit version "one of the finest translations of an arcade game for the home computer format", and Arthur Leyenberger of Creative Computing listed it as a runner-up for Best Arcade Adaptation to the system, praising its faithful graphics, sound, movement and playability. Softline was more critical, criticizing the Atari version's controls and lack of swearing. The magazine concluded that "the home computer game doesn't have the sense of style of the one in the arcades ... the execution just isn't there." In 1984, the magazine's readers named the game the fifth-worst Atari program of 1983. Computer Games called the C64 version an "absolutely terrific translation" that "almost totally duplicates the arcade game," aside from its lack of synthesized speech. In 2003, a version for Java-based mobile phones was announced by Sony Pictures Mobile. Reviewers generally acknowledged it as a faithful port of the arcade original, but criticized the controls. Modojo's Robert Falcon stated that the diagonal controls take time to adapt to on a cell phone with traditional directions. Michael French of Pocket Gamer concluded: "You can't escape the fact it doesn't exactly fit on mobile. The graphics certainly do, and the spruced-up sound effects are timeless ... but really, it's a little too perfect a conversion." Airgamer criticized the gameplay as monotonous and the difficulty as frustrating. By contrast, Wireless Gaming Review called it "one of the best of mobile's retro roundup." On February 22, 2007, Q*bert was released on the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network by fellow Sony subsidiary Sony Online Entertainment. It features upscaled and filtered graphics, In contrast, 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish considered the title worth purchasing, citing its addictive gameplay. ==Legacy==

According to Jeremy Parish, Q*bert is "one of the higher-profile titles of the classic era". In 2008, Guinness World Records ranked it behind 16 other arcade games in terms of their technical, creative and cultural impact. Though successful, the creators of the game did not receive royalties, as Gottlieb had no such program in place at the time. However, the video game crash of 1983 depressed the market, and the game's popularity began to decline by 1984. Further titles that have been identified as Q*bert-like games include Cubit by Micromax, J-bird by Orion Software, and in the UK Bouncer by Acornsoft, Hubert by Blaby Computer Games, Pogo by Ocean, Spellbound by Beyond, Vector Hopper by Kristof Tuts, and Hoppy Hop by Josyan. In other media In 1983, Q*bert was adapted into an animated cartoon as part of Saturday Supercade on CBS, which features segments based on video game characters from the golden age of video arcade games. Saturday Supercade was produced by Ruby-Spears Productions, the Q*bert segments between 1983 and 1984. The show is set in a United States, 1950s era town called "Q-Burg", and stars Q*bert as a high school student, altered to include arms, hands, jacket, and sneakers. Gottlieb released the pinball game Q*berts Quest in 1983. It has two pairs of flippers in an "X" formation and uses audio from the arcade game. Gottlieb produced fewer than 900 units, Q*bert is seen being played in the 1984 film Moscow on the Hudson starring Robin Williams. In the 2009 action-adventure game Ghostbusters: The Video Game, a Q*bert arcade cabinet can be seen in the Ghostbusters headquarters. Q*bert characters appear in Disney's Wreck-It Ralph franchise. Q*bert appears in the 2015 film Pixels as a supporting character, the film having produced by copyright owner Sony. In 2014, Q*bert makes a cameo appearance in the RadioShack Super Bowl XLVIII commercial "The '80s Called". The game has been referenced in several animated television series – Family Guy, Futurama, The Simpsons, Robot Chicken, Mad and South Park. High scores On November 28, 1983, Rob Gerhardt reached a record score of about 33 million points in a Q*bert marathon. He held it for almost 30 years before George Leutz from Brooklyn, New York played one game of Q*bert for eighty-four hours and forty-eight minutes on February 14–18, 2013 at Richie Knucklez' Arcade in Flemington, New Jersey. He scored about 37 million points. Doris Self, credited by Guinness World Records as the "oldest competitive female gamer", set the tournament record score of about 1.1 million for Q*bert in 1984 at the age of 58. Her record was surpassed by Drew Goins on June 27, 1987 with a score of about 2.2 million. Self continually attempted to regain the record until her death in 2006. The video ends at a score of 3.7 million points, 1.5 million points over the previous record. Updates, remakes, and sequels Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert Believing that the original game was too easy, Davis initiated development of Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert in 1983, The project was canceled. It was manufactured by Mylstar Electronics and uses the same hardware as the original. The game features Q*bert, but introduces new enemies: Meltniks, Shoobops, and Rat-A-Tat-Tat. Though part of a popular franchise, the game's release was hardly noticed. ''Q*bert's Qubes'' was ported to the ColecoVision and Atari 2600. Version for Atari 8-bit computers and the Commodore 64 were referred to in the instructions of the released conversions. The Atari 8-bit version has not yet been found, but Games That Weren't tracked down a preview of the C64 version in 2017. File:qbertsqubes.png|alt=A square video game screenshot that is a digital representation of a multicolored array of cubes in front of a black background. An orange spherical character, a purple ball, and two purple characters are on the cubes. Statistics related to gameplay are in the corners of the screen.|In ''Q*bert's Qubes'', the player rotates cubes in a line to match the target sample in the top left corner. MSX Q*bert (1986) Konami, who had distributed the original Q*bert to Japanese arcades in 1983, produced a different game, that kept the title Q*bert, released in Japan and Europe for MSX computers in 1986. The main character is a little dragon, and the mechanics are based on ''Q*bert's Qubes''. Each of the 50 stages has a different pattern of cubes. The competitive 2-player mode assigns each side a different pattern, and the players score points either by completing their pattern first or by pushing the other off the board. Q*bert for Game Boy Developed by Realtime Associates and published by Jaleco in 1992, this version has 64 boards in different shapes. Q*bert 3 Q*bert 3 for the Super NES was developed by Realtime Associates and published by NTVIC in 1992. Jeff Lee worked on the graphics. It has gameplay similar to the original, but like the Game Boy game, has larger levels of varying shapes. In addition to enemies from the first game, it introduces Frogg, Top Hat, and Derby. Q*bert (1999) Q*bert is a remake of the 1982 arcade game of the same name with 3D graphics. It was developed by Artech Studios and released by Hasbro Interactive on the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows in 1999 and on the Game Boy Color and Dreamcast in 2000. Q*bert 2004 In 2004, Sony Pictures released a sequel for Adobe Flash titled Q*bert 2004, containing a faithful rendition of the original arcade game, along with 50 levels that use new board layouts and six new visual themes. Q*Bert Deluxe for iOS devices was initially released as a rendition of the arcade game, but later received updates with the themes and stages from Q*Bert 2004. Q*bert 2005 In 2005, Sony Pictures released Q*bert 2005 as a download for Windows and as a Flash browser applet, featuring 50 different levels. Versions for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita were released on February 17, 2015 in North America and February 18, 2015 in Europe. It was released on February 12, 2016 for the Xbox One. According to Mark Caplan, Vice President, Consumer Products, Worldwide Marketing & Distribution at Sony Pictures Entertainment, the release was motivated by "renewed interest in Q*bert, in part due to the cameo in the recent Wreck-It Ralph animated feature film". Q*bert Rebooted contains a port of the classic arcade game alongside a new playing mode that uses hexagonal shapes, increasing the number of possible movement directions to six. Additionally, the 'Rebooted' mode features new enemy types, including a boxing glove that punches Q*bert off the levels The game has 5 different stage designs spread across 40 levels, in association with Sony Pictures was published via the iOS and Android. == See also ==