The Gamer's Quarter

[kirkjerk]

So a while back on impulse I bought Westminster's Pocket Arcade 256 games in 1.

It was very cheap at Walgreens I think. Probably $10 or less.

I messed with it a bit, then recently rediscovered it while decluttering.

It's... intriguing from a minimalist game design point of view. (And I do know a bit about minimal hardware after programmed a game for the Atari 2600 in assembly)

There are some things in it that are surprisingly clever, but other ones that seem like they could have been done better, even given the severe hardware limitations.

Those limitations are, most notably, a 10x20 pixel gamefield. Each pixel is a small square surrounded by a framing rectangle... I don't believe any of the games light the center separately from its frame, so they'll probably linked. There's a 4 digit score (well, 5, but the first digit can only be 1, a small 4 x 4 grid of the same pixels usually used for indicating number of lives (so the games tend to give 4 chances rather than the more traditional 3) two 1-10 selections for speed and level, and a pause indicator with a cute coffee cup icon.

Besides a serviceable crosspad and fire button, there is a row of 4 buttons: Pause (which probably should also have been labeled "start"), an on/off button, a somewhat gratuitous reset button (basically the same as hit on/off twice), and a mute button that cycles through 3 volume levels and silence. I think there were some choices in color, I got a transparent one w/ purple highlights, showing off the lightly populated circuit boards.

Games are selected through a not particularly simple use of crosspad and firebutton, going through games A-M. Each game has 2-16 variants (often with twists like inverting the motion of play) and then lets you start at any speed and level 1-10. As you cycle through A-M the screen shows a little animation of the gameplay which is a nice touch.

This would be a perfect system for a tetris clone, but perhaps the powers that be have stopped that kind of intellectual property borrowing. So the variants are as follows
(I lost my instructions, so I don't know the official names for these. At least one is "dragon ball" though.)

A Tanks.
This is the one that probably got me to buy the unit. You steer a simple blocky tank (your cannon is a single block, the body of your tank a 3 x 2 grid behind that, looking not unlike the cannon from space invaders) Against 3-4 enemy tanks (like yours, but the pixel to the back of the tank is removed), on a field sometimes with obstacles. You can shoot a small stream of bullets which comes in useful.

B. Two Lane Raceway
A distressingly unambitious car game, since you can either be in the left lane or the right lane and nowhere in between. Cars block one lane or the other and never switch lanes either. Pressing the button speeds thing up.

C. Three Lane Raceway
Sigh. A bit easier than the 2 lane variant

D. Breakout
Simple brick bashing, but the programmer didn't bother to make sure you didn't get stuck in endless loops. As far as I can tell, if you get in a rut you're out of luck, so it's not easy despite the player's bat taking up 4 of the 10 available squares.

E. Two Padde Breakout
Similar to D but you also control a paddle at the top of the screen

F. Galaxian
Interestingly your gun fires faster than you can see. Formations of invaders at the top of the screen and descend, and one regularly peels off from the squad to dive in a very regular zig zag pattern. A bit of pixelart in the formations though, a coffee cup, fork, and even a cute little space invader.

G. Falling Box Cutter
You get the same laser as in F to protect yourself from the rows of falling blocks from the top of the screen... each hit removes one block from the irregular descending rows. A boring sweep back and forth strategy is probably the best bet.

H. Tetris Invaders
An interesting variation on G... the same falling blocks, but this time your cannon *adds* a block (i.e. your shot is stopped at the ceiling or on a descending block, and sticks there) and if you complete a horizontal row it disappears.) It is a bit like Tetris meets Space Invaders. A fairly prosaic strategy is the best bet, but it's deeper than "G". I like making a big stalactite and then having it descend to stab the player when I finally got bored of it.

I. Shape Match
So 3 vaguely tetris-y shaps descend from the top, and you have 3 at the bottom. You have to toggle each one with the cross pad 'til it matches the descending shape right above it (variation one cycles 1-4 squares, variation 2 goes through all the the tetrominoes except straight line and 2x2 block) then hit the button.

J. Frogger Logs
Just like the log part of frogger, except you fill in all 10 empty spots at top. Variations influence log directions and general orientation of game

K. Snake
Like that one snake game you see on cellphones sometimes. Oddly, pressing the crosspad tends to bypass the usual "time 'til you move a square" timer, thus speeding you up. Some of the other games tend to speed up when the player uses the crosspad, which is a kind of interesting from a programming geek standpoint.

L. Dragonball
(I assume that's the name) A bit like E, except the other paddle is controlled by the player, you have to get the ball past it and into the middle of the screen above (there are some bumpers across the top diagonal corners)

M. Tunnel
A bit like C, but rather than cars it's a tunnel, and both you and the tunnel shift in one block increments (rather than just occupying one of 3 possible locations.)

So that's it. I could see some of these providing a certain amount of entertainment for a while, especially the tanks. Though I'm struck by the pathos of the hypothetical well-meaning but un-with-it and maybe poor grandparent or parent buying this for a kid on account of its cheapness and superficial resemblance to a gameboy... I mean it's 256 games in one!

It would be interesting to write some kind of simulator of this, ideally with as many restrictions as the programmers of this one had (I mean, despite a cheap sound thing and a 20 x 10 screen, if you had unlimited ROM and/or processor speed you could do quite a bit) and see what other games would have fit the paradigm.
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[dessgeega]

kirk israel, are you responsible for the hundredgames blog?
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[kirkjerk]

No I am not.

I tried to Google for it after seeing that thread about it. Is there anything more than the blank screen at http://hundredgames.blogspot.com/ ? Or is it one of the other similarly named things?
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[kirkjerk]

Also, I meant to speculate a bit more on who programmed this. It is such a mix of cleverness and "yeesh, gotta think of SOMETHING to stick in there" that I wonder if I would get along well with the person who programmed it. (Assuming we get past any language barrier that would quite possibly be there.)
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[Cycle]

can we get some photos or something of it and stuff?
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