Q*Bert Talk

Phetishboy

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Let's talk about Q*bert. I have been playing mine a lot lately and wondered if anyone else loves this game as much as me? I just read a bunch of history on the original development of the game and thought it was pretty frickin' interesting. If you haven't already read this, or don't know the history of Q*bert's development, give this a read:

http://angriest.blogspot.com/2011/01/qbert-1982.html
 
I remember playing Q*Bert on a friend's Atari 2600 when I was seven. I loved it, but I think my mom loved it even more.

Two years later, when everything Atari was dirt cheap, I finally got a console, and my mom and I had a hell of a time trying to track down a copy of it. Once we finally did, I think we played a total of 24 hours of Q*Bert the first week it came home...
 
When I played Q-Bert at your party last year Phetty, it was the first time since about the mid-80's.

I was quickly reminded of how bad I am at the game. Next party you owe me some pointers.....
 
When I played Q-Bert at your party last year Phetty, it was the first time since about the mid-80's.

I was quickly reminded of how bad I am at the game. Next party you owe me some pointers.....

I am no expert, but I am certainly getting a better feel for the rhythm of the game. Truth be told, I actually like Q*bert's Cubes as much as the original. The bonus rounds rock on Cubes.
 
My wife is pretty good at it.


Back when Jeff Rothe had the open chat with Warren Davis she asked a bunch of questions about the game. Doesn't look like Jeff has the transcript up on his site though. Warren and Devid Theil talked about some sort of secret "Howie switch" in the DIP settings.
 
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It's funny, this quote was exactly true with me. I hated the game for 25 years until I finally played one again:

At first the game wasn't particularly successful. A lot of players had difficulty with the diagonal layout of the game, which differed from the more square, 'up-down-left-right' mechanic. One bone of contention regarding the design was the player's ability to direct Q*Bert off the pyramid – at which point he or she lost a life. Davis admitted the problem himself, saying that 'some people would put their quarter in, jump off the pyramid three times in a row, and not even realise why the game was over.'6
 
I would love a Q*Bert, but will never own one so long as I live in CA. *sigh*
 
It's a keeper.

There really is no other game like it. It forces you to think and think quickly. Especially in later rounds, one wrong move can have you practically doing the whole pyramid over again, twice even.

My brain gives up about the time where if you change the color of the square too many times it goes back to the original color and you have to do it all over again.

I have watched Bill Carlton play the game for hours. It maxes out at level 9, so if you can play at that level, it will just keep repeating over and over again. I think it would fry your eyeballs after too long.

I dig the levels with the black backgrounds. They have an M.C. Escher-esque quality to them.

So here is my question. Do you bother putting a monitor with a good tube in one? Or do you just roll with the burn?
 
I dig the levels with the black backgrounds. They have an M.C. Escher-esque quality to them.

Me too, thought my monitor was adjusted too dim at first. What's really cool is if you move to the side of the macheen and view the monitor at an angle on any of the levels. The perspective just gets screwed and it it becomes even more Escher-esque.

So here is my question. Do you bother putting a monitor with a good tube in one? Or do you just roll with the burn?

I capped the chassis and left the tube, burn and all.
 
I need to get my side art ordered and put on my cab. I spent a lot of time working on mine last summer and had a pretty good resto when it was all said and done.

I remember playing Q*Bert at a "five and dime" type store. I can still remember just where it was located in the store and the last time I was there, I had to walk back to that area. Of course there's nothing there now, but I noticed these replacement 2 prong plug heads they sell are the same as the one that was on my Q*Bert. :eek: ;)
 
That's exactly what I did. I figured it will just get burnt again, so why bother. Can't see the burn while you are playing anyway.
I'm still using the original tube on mine as well. The burn in doesn't bother me as long as it's from the same game.
 
Q*Bert is one of my favorite classic games, up there with Pengo and Ms. Pac-Man. I remember being terrified of the thwacker as a kid.
 
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Q*bert was "my game" as a kid as I could last pretty long on 1 quarter, just not an expert. I still love it, but after playing so long you start to hallucinate and the individual steps start to appear upside. I have managed to get to level 9 and it repeated a few times before I lost my game.

It was the first game I would really yell at the game as a kid. That Slick and Sam always frustrated me, more than coily. At least with coily you can make him go in certain directions, kind of like Pacman. Not Slick or Sam though. Also, I remember always being fascinated with the knocking sound in the game. Never did figure it out, that is until I bought the arcade game as an adult.

Glad to hear you have yours running smoothly again.
 
I never played it in the arcades as a kid. I dont even think I saw one at an arcade that I can remember. We had it on the atari 2600(still have the cartridge today). I got mine when a co-worker told me there was a pacman sitting on someones porch. A quick drive down and I find out it was a jamma converted (and well abused) qbert cab. I bought it for $50. Several hundred dollars and about as many hours time restoring it and its like new again. Its one of my favorite games in my collection and one that will probably never leave.
 
My wife is pretty good at it.


Back when Jeff Rothe had the open chat with Warren Davis she asked a bunch of questions about the game. Doesn't look like Jeff has the transcript up on his site though. Warren and Devid Theil talked about some sort of secret "Howie switch" in the DIP settings.

I would like to hear more about this secret Howie switch anybody know anything about this or what it does ?
 
Ugg and Wrongway

I think one of the most clever things is that you have two characters who are operating on your playfield under completely different gravitational rules. Ugg and Wrongway jump against gravity and then some alternate gravity brings them down on the sides of the boxes that you can not access. Trying to figure out which side of the cube they are on to figure out where they are going is very tough. It is like you have enemies from another dimension who have a different physical reality.
 
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