Gridlee

Arcade Video game published 41 years ago:

Gridlee (c) 1983 Videa.

A game where the player controls a bottle-shaped character named Gridlee who has to catch colored balls (or the crystal) for points & shoot the enemies while they are overhead. Shooting enemies also awards the player points, but more importantly, the only way to pass a level is to shoot every enemy. The player knows when the enemy is overhead by looking at his shadow on the grid. Each red ball is worth 100 points. The green ball appears after catching 3 red balls & isworth 500 points. The crystal appears after catching 3 red balls, a green ball and 3 more red balls. It is worth 1000 points and must be caught before it lands since it will not bounce, but instead disappear. The green balls bounce very high and can bounce far, making them hard to catch. The player has to avoid touching the bouncing enemies, the charged tiles that flash after enemies land on them, and the worm that moves horizontally across the tiles while charging them. There is a character named Igor that spits a sticky gum-like substance, which turns the tile it lands on pink and causes Gridlee to move slow when walking on that tile. Also, if there's one enemy left bouncing for a while as the player catches the
balls, the enemy eventually charges tile after tile, which makes it dangerous for the player as the walking space is limited.

- TECHNICAL -

Main CPU : Motorola M6809 (@ 1.25 Mhz)
Sound Chips : Custom (@ 1.25 Mhz), Samples

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 256 x 240 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 2048

Players : 2
Control : trackball
Buttons : 1

- TRIVIA -

Originally named 'Pogoz', this prototype was never released. The game was put out on field test and did poorly, so Gottlieb decided not to build it. Only one unit was built.

Videa was started in November of 1981 as a video game development company. Around that time were 'Gridle' was submitted and refused by Gottlieb, the assets of Videa (but not the corporate entity) were acquired by Pizza Time Theater. The new corporation, formed from the combination of the existing Pizza Time engineering department and the employees of and assets of Videa, was named 'Sente Technology'.

The former principles of Videa, Ed Rotberg, Roger Hector, and Howard Delmann, gave the developers of MAME permission to add the game and freely distribute it. The game code remains copyrighted and owned by the three men.

- SCORING -

Red ball : 100 points.
Green ball : 500 points.
Shinning ball : 1,000 points.

Yumperz : 200 points.
Fergies : 400 points.
Igor : 500 points.

- STAFF -

Programmed by : Ed Rotberg
Video graphics by : Roger Hector
Sound by : Howard Delman