Bigfoot Bonkers

Arcade Video game published 48 years ago:

Bigfoot Bonkers (c) 1976 Meadows Games.

This game was 2-player only, you must have a live human opponent to play against, or else the other players mouse (the games promotional material said the character was a mouse), will go straight into a wall, making for a very quick and boring game. Each player moves their mouse around leaving a solid line behind them. All moves are made on an invisible grid, so you can only turn at 90 degree angles. Scattered around the gameboard are several 'fee' that you must avoid, as hitting a foot is just like smashing into a wall or a line. To win you must last longer than your opponent before hitting something (first person to hit something loses). One good strategy is to try and box your opponent in to a small section of the screen, and then just move carefully until they crash. Pushing backwards on the stick will cause you to crash into your own line, so avoid that at all cost.

- TECHNICAL -

Main CPU : S2650 (@ 672 Khz)
Sound Chips : DAC (@ 672 Khz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 256 x 230 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 3

Players : 2
Control : 4-way joystick

The machine came in an upright format, used a black and white open frame monitor, and a single speaker. The control panel only had a pair of 4-Way joysticks on it. There were not any other buttons on the whole machine. Inserting a coin started the game at once. Both players got to play for a single coin. The game ended after one player chalked up two wins, but this was operator adjustable up to as high as five. One particularly annoying thing about this title is the demo sounds, the machine would emit a series of bleeps almost constantly. You could not turn this off at all.

- TRIVIA -