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Q*bert is a 3rd person platformer arcade game that was made in 1982 for the arcade. In the game, Q*bert, a little two-legged orange ball with an odd snout hops around on a pyramidal stack of cubes in attempt to change them all to one color. Q*bert is constantly trying to escape Coily, Ugg, and Wrong Way to survive; however, when he does not he bleeps the iconic "@!#?@!" that contributes to the games quirky feel. It was produced and developed by Gottlieb and considered to be their biggest success selling over 25,000 cabinets. Jeff Lee created the concept of Q*bert and all the characters. Warren Davis did all the
programming and game mechanics. One of the main innovations that Q*bert introduced was the idea of gravity and moving around in a 3D world; it was an amazing feat to create a game in which the character moved in 3D while the graphics were still 2D. The character Q*bert is attributed to much of the games success; Q*bert was a marker for the beginning of characters themselves to be an important part of games. The game was a huge critical success and is still praised for it graphics, gameplay, and addictive quality, however difficult it may be.
Also:
Published by: Gottlieb
Developed by: Gottlieb
Designer: Warren Davis and Jeff Lee
Platform: Arcade
Year Released: 1982
Significant Contributors to Game Development: David Theil and Richard Tracy
Genre: Platform-Puzzle
Other Games in Series: Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert (Never Published), Q*bert's Qubes (Arcade), Q*bert 3 (NES), Q*bert's Quest (Pinball machine), and many ports and modernized versions including a port to PS3 arcade.
History
History
The characters in Q*bert were created way before the game was even thought of when Jeff Lee was a kid; They are inspired by Mad Magazine cartoons and the Ed "Big Daddy" Roth School of Monster Hot Rods. When Davis' saw Lee's sketches he knew he wanted to use them in his game. Q*bert was Warren Davis' first videogame. He was using it as a study of gravity, randomness, and bouncin
g. Little would he know the great success it would become.A huge dilemma about Q*bert was what to name the main character and the game. The project name for the game was Cubes. Lee suggested Snot and Boogers; Lee originally intended Q*bert to shoot black blobs from his nose, but in favor of simplicity Davis choose not to include projectiles but to focus on survival of the character. The game was briefly named Snots and Boogers and "@!#?@!", during the development the game. However, "@!#?@!" was ruled out because gamers wouldn't know how to pronounce it and because it suggested a curse world. Finally, during a brainstorm someone suggested hybriding the name Hubert with Cube making Cubert. The spelling was changed to Q*bert however because they worried it would be pronounced Cub-bert instead of Cube-Bert.
To the left are Jeff Lee's original concept art drawings for Q*bert.
Game Design Elements
Game Design Elements
Gameplay
Gameplay
Q*bert is a platformer with puzzle elements in which Q*bert, the main character, hops diagonally up and down a pyramid of cubes in order to change all the tops of the cubes to the target color indicated on the screen. As the game progresses the player may have to hop on a cube multiple times to get it to the target color. Even later in the game if Q*bert re-steps on a cube it may return it to the original color adding puzzle elements to the game as the player must figure out how to turn all the cubes the target color without re-stepping on them. Every level you start at the top of the pyramid. There are several four rounds in every level. The difficulty of a level progresses all the way up to level 9 after which the levels stay the same difficultly for infinity. The speed of the game also increases up to level 9. While the players main goal is to stay alive and progress through the levels there is also a score which allows for players to compete for the highest score. In two player mode players alternate turns and compete for the highest score.
To create conflict the character is constantly trying to escape from the games villains, Coily, Wrong Way, and Ugg as well as the red blobs. None of the enemies shoot projectiles, they simply have to land on the same cube to kill Q*bert. The first enemy that appears is the red blob that starts at the top of the pyramid, it starts at the top of the pyramid and goes down until it drops of the bottom. Ugg and Wrong Way show up at the same time and defy gravity by traveling on the sides of the cubes, Ugg on the right side and Wrong Way on the left side, they continue down until they either kill Q*bert or reach the bottom. Coily starts as a purple blob, once it reaches the bottom of the pyramid it transforms into Coily and follows Q*bert until he either kills Q*bert or is tricked into falling off the pyramid. If Q*bert or any other characters jump off of the pyramid they die.
Q*bert can evade attacks and trick Coily into falling of the pyramid by taking floating discs that are on either side of the pyramid. The discs travel back to the top of the pyramid and can be used as strategy for the puzzle or for survival or the character.
Green objects are not lethal for Q*bert; Sam and Slick, who appear together and serve the same purpose, bounce down the pyramid from the top and change the color of every cube they land on to a color other than the target color. If Q*bert comes in contact with them they disappear and the player earns an extra 300 points. Green blobs are the most valuable and rare object in the game; while they only are worth 100 points to grab they stop time and allow the player to move around the pyramid freely.
The directions that are displayed on the screen before the game read as follows:
Jump on square to change them to the target color.
Stay on Playfield! Jumping off results in a fatal plummet unless there is a disk there.
Avoid all objects and creatures that are not green.
(Text is Not Italic, All Caps)
Controls
Controls
Q*bert is controlled by an arcade style joystick. This is used to jump left-up, left-down, right-up, and right-down. Rather than using the standard up, down, left, right that other arcade joysticks used Q*bert's Joystick was rotated 45 degrees to match Q*bert's actual hopping in the game. This different configuration that was changed for this specific games purpose was one of the first controls to stray from the traditional joystick and to change specifically to the gameplay. Two buttons, one for one player and one for two player, were also used to indicated the number of players and start the game.
The joystick from an arcade cabinet is pictured below showing Q*bert's Joystick; the arrows indicated the angles that the joystick could pivot.
Plot
Plot
There is no substantial plot in Q*bert. You are Q*bert, an cute and quirky little orange ball with legs, and you hop around on colored cubes changing their colors and evading the villains that are to thwart your plan to change all the cubes to a certain color. There are no thematical cut scenes to explain However, the game has many characters that the player interacts with during the game, mostly villains; this gives the player some context without giving a clear story. Lack of plot is not a weakness of this game as Q*bert is such an endearing and quirky character so full of personality, which was not common in that time, that it is a strength of the game to focus on the character rather than the story and let the player come up with stories and scenerios for Q*bert to be in. The creators of Q*bert often made stories about Q*bert in their heads, which serves as a prime example for the game to encourage player's imagination.
There is no substantial plot in Q*bert. You are Q*bert, an cute and quirky little orange ball with legs, and you hop around on colored cubes changing their colors and evading the villains that are to thwart your plan to change all the cubes to a certain color. There are no thematical cut scenes to explain However, the game has many characters that the player interacts with during the game, mostly villains; this gives the player some context without giving a clear story. Lack of plot is not a weakness of this game as Q*bert is such an endearing and quirky character so full of personality, which was not common in that time, that it is a strength of the game to focus on the character rather than the story and let the player come up with stories and scenerios for Q*bert to be in. The creators of Q*bert often made stories about Q*bert in their heads, which serves as a prime example for the game to encourage player's imagination.
In some later version's Q*bert is placed in a different setting such as the Jungle or space, but it still gives no story.
Surprisingly, for a game that had no story Q*bert spawned a cartoon. It was part of CBS's Saturday Supercade and the segments aired from 1983-1986. It featured Q*bert, plus arms and legs, various other Q*bert-like characters, and the other character that appear in the game.
Characters
Characters
Q*bert is the main character; hence the game being named after him. He is an cute orange ball with two legs, a big nose, and
a bad mouth. When ever he is killed he says "@!#?@!" and makes a sound similar to cursing. The quirks and personality of this character were unique at this time as many characters did not have strong personalities. Q*bert's silly, bright orange body captured the attention of gamers and critics alike; the success of this game is often attributed to the unique character.
Coily is a purple snake and the main villain of the game. He starts as an amorphous purple blob and then transforms into the spring-like purple snake, another bright color, following the game's tone. However, it should be noted that purple is the darkest value hue in the color wheel which indicates the villainy of the character and keeps the character whimsical but threatening.
Wrong Way and Ugg are also purple and both defy gravity. They travel on the sides of the cubes rather than the tops. Wrong Way has huge pointy teeth and four limbs and Ugg is a pig and has two legs; both are grotesque monsters that defy nature and therefore are
pegged as the villains.
Sam and Slick are green blob like things with only two legs; Sam has bulging white eyes and Slick has sunglasses. They are mischievous characters that don't wish to cause harm to Q*bert just to cause some trouble. Their shape resembles fire which is associated with mischief and Slick sunglasses are associated with mischievous youth.
Art
Art
Visual
Q*bert is a very art element intensive game full of bright colors and decisive art choices that affect the game play significantly; Q*bert made leaps and bounds in the world of Game Art adding many art aspects from traditional art into gaming.
Q*bert was one of the first games that depended on the art, primarily the character designs, for its success and the feel of the game immensely; many critics agree that it is the quirky characters that are what pushed this game into arcade legend. Before the idea for the game was every made Jeff Lee had already designed and come up with the characters. Having a game come out of art rather than the art be made to cater to the game was a huge jump for art in gaming at this time. The characters in Q*bert are designed visually with associations such as the mischievous Slick in sunglasses. Jeff Lee in this way used cultural symbolism to describe the nature of the characters, rather than using text like many games of this time
did. Also the use of the speech bubble with only "@!#?@!" gave the character personality through visual means and the sound accompanying it was made to reflect the incoherent cussing. The speech bubble cussing also allowed the player to relate to the character as their frustration in dying is shared by Q*bert; the visual lends to the player relating to a character that is alien to them, yet another innovation in character development. Jeff Lee also uses color theory to describe the nature of characters in the game. Q*bert is the color orange, a warm color, which is associated with positive things; but also a quirky color. The villains are all purple, while purple still fits in with the whimsical art style of the game it is the darkest value hue on the color scale; dark colors are often associated with villainy and the use of purple visually describes the dark nature of the characters. The red blobs are red which gives a sense of urgency to get out of the way. Q*bert was one of the first games in which colors and character design choices were made for specific reasons, not just representationally but to project a sort of feeling with the art style; the art elements contributed to the context of the game and were immensely vital to the overall gameplay experience.
To the left is original concept art for the game by Jeff Lee.
The pyramid structure that the characters move on tricks the eye into seeing the cubes as 3D; the use of traditional art principles, such as perspective and different colors for the sides, to create a 3D looking cube--with the restrictions of the graphics--is astounding. Many current ports of the game in flash look exactly the same just without the pixelated edges. The 3 dimensional pyramidal tower was inspired by M.C. Escher; the idea that characters could travel on all sides of the cube was instrumental to the game play as certain enemies defied gravity and walked on the sides of the cube so it was very important to make them look like convincing 3 dimensional cubes. The idea that game art was actually inspired by something is unique in itself the fact that it was inspired by a very traditional master artist is even more influential in the history of game art.
Sound
Sound
The sound in Q*bert is 8 bit sound, except for the sound that is made when Q*bert falls off the pyramid which is made by an coil that hits the inside of the cabinet. There is no overall music to Q*bert, sounds are only made in reaction to movements and events in the game. Every time Q*bert jumps he makes a noise that sounds similar to a suction cup being pulled of something. The the blobs, Wrong Way, and Ugg make low pitched short noise when they jump. When Coily changes from blob to a snake his jumping noise changes as well; it is higher pitched and goes from low to high. When Q*bert completes a round a short upbeat song is played. When Q*bert is on the moving platform it makes a whizzing noise and when he jumps off it makes a high pitch to low pitch noise. When a free life is gained a short song is played. When a new level start a short song is played during the short animation. When the game start Q*bert say "Hello, I'm turned on." and when it ends he says "Bye, Bye" which was programmed with a SC01 speech synthesizer.
The sound in Q*bert is 8 bit sound, except for the sound that is made when Q*bert falls off the pyramid which is made by an coil that hits the inside of the cabinet. There is no overall music to Q*bert, sounds are only made in reaction to movements and events in the game. Every time Q*bert jumps he makes a noise that sounds similar to a suction cup being pulled of something. The the blobs, Wrong Way, and Ugg make low pitched short noise when they jump. When Coily changes from blob to a snake his jumping noise changes as well; it is higher pitched and goes from low to high. When Q*bert completes a round a short upbeat song is played. When Q*bert is on the moving platform it makes a whizzing noise and when he jumps off it makes a high pitch to low pitch noise. When a free life is gained a short song is played. When a new level start a short song is played during the short animation. When the game start Q*bert say "Hello, I'm turned on." and when it ends he says "Bye, Bye" which was programmed with a SC01 speech synthesizer.
The most significant thing about the sound of Q*bert was the sound made when Q*bert was killed. Right when Q*bert is killed there is a crushing noise and then accompanying the speech bubble with "@!#?@!?" is a number of random sounds created by a SC01 speech synthesizer.
"We wanted the game to say, 'You have gotten 10,000 bonus points', and the closest I came to it after an entire day would be 'bogus points'. Being very frustrated with this, I said, 'Well, screw it. What if I just stick random numbers in the chip instead of all this highly authored stuff, what happens?'"
"We wanted the game to say, 'You have gotten 10,000 bonus points', and the closest I came to it after an entire day would be 'bogus points'. Being very frustrated with this, I said, 'Well, screw it. What if I just stick random numbers in the chip instead of all this highly authored stuff, what happens?'"
—David Thiel on the creation of Q*bert's incoherent swearing
—David Thiel on the creation of Q*bert's incoherent swearing
Rather than make Q*bert say something coherent, Theil chose to make the sounds fit more to the random speech bubble. This approach made very convincing sounds that sound like cursing; an innovative way to use sound in response and conjunction with gameplay and game art.
References
References
"Q*bert Videogame by Gottlieb (1982)". Killer List of Videogames. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
Edge Staff (January 2003). "The Making of Q*bert". Edge (132): 114–117. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
Greenebaum, Ken; Barzel, Ronen, eds (2004). "Retro Game Sound: What We Can Learn from 1980s Era Synthesis". Audio Anecdotes: Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Digital Audio, Volume 1. A K Peters, Ltd.. pp. 164–165. ISBN 1568811047.
Cassidy, William (2002-06-23). "Hall of Fame: Q*bert". GameSpy. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
"Q*bert High Score Marathon Rankings". Twin Galaxies. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
"Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert Videogame by Mylstar (1983)". Killer List of Videogames. Retrieved 2009-06-02.
Weiss, Brett A.. "Q*bert – Overview". Allgame. Retrieved 2010-02-021.
Warren Davis (2006-03-22). "The Creation of Q*Bert". Retrieved 2010-02-21.
Links
Links
YouTube - Q*Bert (Arcade) Gameplay- Video of Q*bert being played
YouTube - Q-Bert's Monster Mix-up- One of the Saturday Supercade Q*bert minisodes
Q bert - Online flash action video game at 1980-games- Playable Flash version, has original arcade version available
Art Spawned by Q*bert
Video Game Zoology: How 5 8-Bit Characters Would Really Look | Cracked.com
woolygeeks’ fuzzy, felted video game characters on [technabob]
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