Chronogamer - Pinball, Dungeon Hunt, Blockout (APF MP1000, 1978)

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Pinball, Dungeon Hunt, Blockout (APF MP1000, 1978)

 

Oh, how sad.

 

I'll start with my disappointment rather than with my surprise fun.

 

Dungeon Hunt is essentially Battleship! except without the stimulating use of a coordinate system.

 

The playfield is 70 tiles representing 70 places one can look in the "dungeon." Up to four players may each take a turn typing in the number under which they'd like to search, eliminating the number and either revealing an empty space on the board or revealing part of one of 8 objects consisting of 1 to 4 parts. Given that there can be four players, there can be "fun" in the competition to uncover the rest of the object. Since one doesn't know how large the object is, and one doesn't know what shape it will take (it isn't a uniform line like a ship in Battleship would be) it's interesting as the other players descend upon the area where the treasure is uncovered and try to uncover the rest of it if the first to find it fails to get the whole thing.

 

Yeah, I've got screenshots, I'll post them later.

 

Overall, however, I was disappointed by the lack of "flavor" in the game. There wasn't any risk of being eaten or magic or anything like that. It was very hard to get into the spirit of being in a dungeon. When I first saw the title I honestly thought it was going to be some initial attempt at an RPG. I was wrong. *sniff* No, I'll be alright, really.

 

Moving on to Pinball.

 

Pinball is . . . different. You remember Video Pinball on the Channel F? How it was just Breakout, 'cept they called in Pinball? Well, this isn't just Breakout, so that's okay. The screen is fairly blinky which a screenshot can't convey so I'll try to upload the small MOV file I made. The ball bounces around the screen and you have a paddle at the bottom which you move back and forth to keep the ball from leaving. In its travels the ball may hit bumpers, some of which generate points, others may merely reflect. The two sides of the play field consist of openness through which your ball may plunge unless you press the fire button to generate sudden walls.

 

Failed Ergonomic Design

 

This is where we discover the failed attempt at primative ergonomics: the fire button. Not content to make the button merely "button-like" they made the edge of it slightly concave, providing a little valley for one's finger to rest. Unfortunately, with a valley one also produces sharp little peaks. In the heat of the pinball game I stabbed my finger on it more than once. Ouch. (Yeah, I took a picture, I'll post it later.)

 

Despite the pain, Pinball is some fun. There are three levels, one which includes two paddles, and they can be challenging but, alas, not interesting enough to drive me to attempt to generate any type of high score.

 

Last but not least: Blockout

 

Equivalent to Checkmate on the Bally Professional Arcade or Surround/Chase on the Atari VCS, Blockout falls short of both versions in that it only allows two players (Bally's allows four) and only has four variations (Atari's has a bunch). Still, my four year old and I had fun playing "what does that look like?" after each round. (we made word "go", the word "to," scary eyes, a duck and a bathroom, among other Rorschach-ian results). The color of the trails change each round, which is a nice switch up from always being pink, green or blue. The sound is actually a low key, almost mechanical-sounding click that doesn't come close to prompting me to turn the sound down unlike Atari's. (yeah, if it's too loud, I'm too old.)

 

So, bottom line: Dungeon Hunt was disappointing, Pinball was better than I thought and we managed to have fun with Blockout.

 

I think next time we'll do the cart that has UFO on it.

 

 

 

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