@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries - Pyramid board, 4 elemental colors, winged disc.... no surprise this game was a hit; Those are some 'elite' concepts. I loved this game, growing up & watched the cartoon. I also owned the Coleco version. I didn't know about the nice-looking Dreamcast version. Thanks for another, excellent mini-documentary.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries my favorite versions will always be the ps1 and sega Dreamcast version. Updated graphics but most importantly new levels and challenges. Lots of Variety
Q Bert was a game I barely played as a lil kid when it came out, but it definitely made an impression as I never forgot it. The merchandise was everywhere for it so it stuck around in pop culture. I eventually got the NES version around 1990 with a couple other games for Christmas. Q bert is a much tougher game than I realized when I really got to get into it. First couple stages are pretty tame as even two colored blocks aren't bad, but eventually you got change the blocks colors 3 times and if you step back on them they change again. It does take some time go all way thru the entire game.I beat it but, but I was using the code for infinite lives with my game genie just see it all way to the end. It's a very unique game concept that takes a simple idea and ramps it to 11.
I was 10 when the game came out and I can recall the merchandise being everywhere as well. I never got into the NES version because I had the Commodore 64 version growing up. I agree about the difficulty on qbert. When the color changes back want to hop on them for a second time that's when I got extremely hard in my opinion
The problem I had with Votrax speech was for the first Gottlieb Game, Reactor. There are some words I just couldn't get right. "10 thousand bonus points" kept coming out "bogus points". In a fit of frustration I created the wacky voice well before Warren was playing with Jeff's background and characters. Once I saw what Warren and Jeff were up to I said to Warren: "Boy, have I got something for you". Such is the role of serendipity in video game design.
Fwiw, the "symbol gibberish" representing profanity is technically called a "grawlix". Q*Bert on the 2600 was the first console game anyone ever got me. I've always loved Q*Bert and I had the immense pleasure of meeting Warren Davis a couple years ago, got to discuss the game's development at length with him and swap some "war stories" (I've been a game developer myself for nearly fifteen years now). Fantastic guy, honored to have met him.
Really when you think about it, what a killer concept. The programmer/creator really hit a Home Run by taking the basic Pac-Man concept (successfully “touch” all the items, avoid enemies or kill them with a power-up) and expanding it into an isometric three-quarters pseudo-3D board, increasing the variety of enemies, increasing the difficulty and not just the speed/number of enemies by turning Q*Bert increasingly into a puzzle game, and injecting a really quirky sense of humor that ensures the game becoming memorable and endearing.
I am 40. The very first game I ever played was a tabletop arcade mini of Qbert in about 1983 that was gifted to me when i was in the hospital for surgery. It will always hold a legendary spot of 'first' to me
Super kewl game!! Decent history!! That pinball noisemaker is called the Knocker. The speech synthesizer was not only difficult to work with, the programmers were under time restraints in learning it, so they fed in random hexadecimal and produced the iconic gibberish that Q*Bert is known for!
There was another Gottlieb version of Q*bert designed for 7-Eleven Stores that features the 7-Eleven logo in the title screen, and Q*bert drinking from a Big Gulp during intermission, similar to the Mello Yello version intermission. I discovered it back in 2008 working the code for the Multi Q*bert project and it's documented in various places on the web. Love your videos, very well done!
Thanks for sharing yet another great video game documentary! Q*Bert was one of my favorite video games back in 1983/84. I was okay at it, but not great. The synthesized speech was what really hooked me. I always thought the faux speech would have made excellent vocals for some extreme electro-pop back in the day (the Swiss electronic group Yello did something like that in a track from their 1981 album "Claro Que Si"). The cartoon was okay, but by the time it came out I was spending my Saturday mornings playing video games or riding my bike into town (to play games at the local arcade, of course). Thanks again!
Thank you for watching. I can make it to the fifth or sixth board but that was it. The speech and sounds really appealed to me as well. Around this time Saturday mornings were either bowling or watching cartoons with a big bowl of cereal :-)
An interesting feature of Q-Bert is that if you put in your quarter, wait until the demo gets to Q-Bert falling off the side and starts saying "Aaahhhh" as he falls, if you press and HOLD the 'Player One' button that falling yell will will continue for a very long time until you release the button. [edit: You can do this when either Q-Bert or Coily falls. It works on the MAME version as well.] The hard part, for me, about this game was getting to grips with the controller that is situated diagonally instead of up-down-left-right. Playing the home computer versions I had to rotate my controller 45 degrees to feel right...
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Yep! I like little features and quirks like that in games, sometimes intentional and sometimes not. Like, on Major Havoc. I played that game fifty times before I noticed that when you're on the pre-mission screen with the "Break-out" game in the lower right, you can actually PLAY that game for a few seconds with the joystick! (Great game by the way).
Great and interesting video! Keep them coming :-) On a side note, although never officially released, there was a Q*Bert conversion for the Spectrum, part of a group of planned releases on cartridge for the ZX Interface 2. Like almost all the titles of that series, however, it leaves a lot to be desired. Most probably, they never went beyond the prototype stage. Much better is the Ocean clone, Pogo, released in 1983, where the pyramid is made with hexagonal blocks instead of square ones.
loved Q*Bert…eventually mastered it and could play for hours on a single quarter until my mind couldn’t handle it any longer…used the Colecovision game to hine my skills…it exactly mirrored the arcade game…FANTASTIC vdo…thank you so much for your efforts…!!!
A few years ago, a collage team used Atari 2600 games to test Artificial intelligence, when the computer played Q-bert on the 2600, it found a hidden bonus room that even the games own programmer had no clue about, the room allowed you to rack up points indefinitely, so one could argue that the world record for 2600 Q-bert is held by a computer program with a score of infinity XD
@@user-sw4qd2up2s Yeah, the only way that even makes the remotest bit of sense is if it were like a testing level or something else incomplete never meant to be included and was just left in the code without anything linking to it from within the rest of the program. The programmer might not realize it was left in when it was intended to be deleted and it never came up because it was inaccessible. HOWEVER, if that were the case there is no way it could have been accessed through gameplay and the only way anyone would know about it is if they went through the source code and found it. So yeah, either the story is getting key details wrong or like you said it's BS.
Just discovered your channel a week ago. And it's one of my new favorite channels! I remember sinking many...MANY tokens into the games you've featured. My all time favorite games are DIG-DUG, KANGAROO, POPEYE, DEFENDER, MRS PACMAN....and soooo many more.
Great video. I remember being somewhat obsessed with this game back then. I somehow had a Q-bert coloring book and I remember renting some type of table top Q bert game. I also owned the game on 2600. I was never good at it but I really liked it and found it addictive. It was a really creative game with cool concepts. Never saw the cartoon or arcade machine back then that I can remember.
According to the movie "Wreck-It Ralph", Q*bert doesn't actually curse, the noises he makes are simply his own language, which we hear Fix-It Felix Jr. refer to as 'Q*bert-ese'.
I actually played Q*Bert when it was called "@!#?@!". It was the name that caught my eye. I thought it was the funniest thing ever. It was at the arcade at The Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, WA. I was so disappointed when I walked in one day and saw the title changed to Q*Bert. We still just called it the cussing game.
Although Q-Bert has not maintained the same level of instant-recognition as Pac-Man, Space Invaders or Moon Patrol, it truly is one of the early greats from the era. It was an original concept (rare even in today's video games) with state of the art graphics and sound for the era, and easy (or impossible) to master controls. Thanks for mentioning the TI-99/4A version. It was easily the best version released for original era computer consoles. I've watched a few of your videos now, but doing a doc on a true classic and mentioning my first 80's computer in one breath won me over. Like and Subscribe have been clicked. (Sorry, the bell invades my personal space far too jarringly.)
I think the game is timeless due to the graphics, sounds and playability. You're right, it doesn't have the same recognition as Pac-Man or donkey Kong but it still a top 10 classic in my book. I used to own a TI 99 but don't remember a whole lot about it. I got it in between my Vic 20 and my Commodore 64. Thanks for the nice words, and thank you for subscribing hope you enjoy the rest of my content
I have the game boy color port. This game is not bad. I remember playing the arcade version in this arcade area when i was a kid. Great video Pat. Keep up thw good work, my friend. 👍💯
I love Q*bert! Great map with the convincing 3D feel to it. I can see why he liked MC Escher. I love the characters with their funky designs. It's funny that he wanted to call it Snots and Burgers! I love the Atari 2600 version, which still had great character. I also have Q*bert 3 for the SNES which has better graphics and sound and also has funky variants on the standard pyramid map. I do love the arcade version with the funny language and play it when I get the chance. I bet the Mello Yello version is rather rare now. The cartoon was really weird, but I enjoyed it. It's ironic that it started out as a video game, then got a pinball table.
What's enjoyable about your videos is recalling which friends had which systems. Only one I knew had the Texas Instruments and kinda felt sorry for the Vic 20 kid learning Basic.
I love Q-bert, and have all these years wondered why he swore! I played the original when I was a kid, then had the Intellivision cart. I've played it on Coleco emulation, and Dreamcast. I really hope it's rebooted on the Amico! Excellent video, very interesting, thanks for making and uploading 👍👍👍
It's certainly possible it could be rebooted. I liked the Intellivision growing up although I never had one, I can recall going to Sears and playing it there. Thanks for the nice words, glad you enjoyed the video
I had the gameboy color version as a kid and I loved the music in it! Interestingly this games soundtrack was jake kaufman 's first project. He would later go on to do the soundtracks for big games like Contra 4 and shovel knight. I always thought this game sounded unique and now I know why!
2:45 - FYI - The "jibberish" in the word balloon are actually called "growlixes", a term coined by comic book writers, as there wasn't yet a term to define said "jibberish in word balloons". There's your fun fact of the day :-) Thanks for the content, btw. New subscriber as of 2 hours ago. Cheers from Milwaukee, WI!
Q*Bert's Qubes was the official sequal. I remember only playing it once in the arcade, and I recall that it was released for the Atari 2600 in extremely limited numbers making it really valuable for collectors
the Atari 2600 version had a bug in it. if you jumped directly at a bad guy at the same exact time they were jumping towards you, you would "teleport" right through him, and not die. I used this trick to "flip" the score (score goes so high, it has to reset back to zero)
Nice one with the Barbra Streisand joke!! Interesting stuff, certainly a game of charm and good-humour. Funny how they wanted to call it "@!#?@!" originally, that might have worked in a way, people saying "hey, that game called...". As aside; I was lying in bed watching this and soon found that when watching with your eyes at 90 degrees to the screen, the 3-D perspective changes, making it really weird - like Q&Bert was leaping around on an inverse of the structure, it made no sense! Keep up the fine work, Patman.
I was reading the script for the 1986 movie: The Color of Money (written by Richard Price) and the video game in opening scene was written as Qbert. In the movie, Tom Cruise is playing the video game "Stocker" and he references it later in one dinner scene. Stocker is pretty obscure. I've only seen one in my life. It's interesting to me that it was written into the script as Qbert. Maybe they couldn't get the rights? I thought I'd share. Thank you for the memories. I'd also picked up a beer from San Diego called Inside Hopping Out which features a Qbert style character on the label. There's also a purple coily snake and a green "hop" wearing sunglasses.
The reason why I chose to listen and watch this documentary video is that, I first listened and watched the cartoon series version of 'Q'Bert.' This is what Q'Val used to say, "like gag me with a rocket ship space ace is next;" it was whenever the 'Space Ace' cartoon series came right after the 'Q'Bert' cartoon series. 🚀
I sucked at this game so I never played it. Always seemed to fall of the sides easily. So I always watched others play this game. Q*bert's voice is Iconic, once you hear it you never forget it.
Whenever Qbert dies, he goes “@$#!%”, and I remember reading Mad Magazine as a kid, and whenever characters would swear, it would be written like that. So I assume that when Qbert dies, he just yells “FUCK!”
There was a handheld version made in about 2000 or so; it was one of the first LCD games to use a dot-matrix display, which a _Sonic Adventure_ handheld and the first Tiger Pokedex also employed. They sort of caught on for a while...
@@kellyhill1852 Well just from out my mind. They could add in kicks, headbutts, snout attacks, assists from his enemies (Coily, Slick, Ugg, etc), bring in his hoverboard, his colorful Cubes, def represent his iconic swearing, etc With imaginative minds they could def do it 👍
Oh man, this game! THIS game! I jumped so high up when I first heard the *CLUNK* it makes when going on those hover disks and having the purple snake drop down. Didn't know Gottlieb did an arcade game that's not pinball and I was quite blown away by the title. Probably one of the most colorful games I've played in a long time.
now the cartoon makes sense with him shooting things out of his nose You can play "Faster Harder More Challenging Q*Bert at "Galloping Ghost" arcade in Brookfield IL...as well as Q*Bert Qubes
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries - Sure thing...actually it was just installed a few months ago...always check their game list before going though since there is a lot of rotation there
I love seeing the origin & history of all these different games arcade games! (However I’ve started skipping the parts about all the home versions’ differences....just not so important to me). Thank you for all the research & vids! REQ: ManocoGP, Mappy, Defender, Pole Position, TEMPEST, Robotron.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries he was very nice, for the brief amou t of time we got to talk. He gave 2 or 3 half hour seminars at the Pittsburgh Replay FX the past few years. Good seminar speaker, interesting stuff. He wasn't focusing on Qbert so much but other projects he worked on like the Aerosmith shooting game.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Nothing to be sorry about. I love watching all your content and seeing all these classic games being brought back into the spotlight!
My sister kicked ass at this game when we were kids. We had the Atari 2600 version, which we played on our Atari 7800. I never got the kick out this game -- I pretty much sucked at it!
Nickelodeon even made a SpongeBob redition of this game called piramid peril. In the game you play as SpongeBob on a reef piramid as you try to avoid jellyfish, theirs also this Anemone that reverts the color blocks back to their original colors, and a seahorse character that chases you similar to coily
I'm honestly surprised you didn't mention either of the Q-Bert ports for mobile phones (Q-Bert Rebooted, which is currently deleted off the App Store on iPhones, and another port simply titled Q-Bert, which isn't)
Love this game but it requires a good controller. It originally came with a 4-way joystick that was indexed 45° for diagonal movement. Tried playing it with a D-pad and it was practically unplayable but an 8-way joystick works great. Thanks for another great review my friend, good stuff indeed!
I had this game for the Colecovision too. I still remember how frustrating this game was, specially after you almost completed a level and that damn onion head thing came down and changed the color again....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Colecovision was my first game Console. I had a love/hate relationship with the Colecovision. I love that the games looked and sounded alot better then the Atari version, but I hated that you could never actually finish a game. Every single game always restarted back to the first stage with a higher difficulty. So you can imagine my joy when the NES came around and you could actually achieve closure when playing a game.
@@hammiranda That's the way a lot of games were back then. There were no real endings and games until the NES such as super Mario which I think was the first one with an ending? I'm not too sure.
Oh dear Lord watching this brought back so many memories. Yes, I was that kid that spent hours playing this game. I mastered it. If I remember correctly, it went to Level 26 and kept repeating it over and over. All you could do is rack up points at this level. Question: I'm not a gamer, but if I want to play this as a middle aged man, which game system best represents the old Q-Bert we all love? Also, how do I find this "Newer, Faster" version if I want to play it? I still remember my "pattern" that I had to conquer each level. Yes, 40 years later! Thanks for the video. It seems you were just like I was as a kid, playing it endlessly. By the way the only other game that i played a lot was Mr. Do! after they got rid of Q-Bert at my local Godfather's Pizza in Fairfax, VA. If I had the money I'd buy a real arcade version for my home, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to afford the repairs needed if it broke down on me. I wish they had one to play nearby in SW Florida...now i want to play it!
This was big when i was a kid , but i wasnt brave enough yet to take a chance😏.... Its a game that always intrigued me and thirty plus years later im finally getting the whole story.. .. Thanks Patman,you are a LEGEND....✌😎
When I was in elementary I use 2 get teased: Ernie where's Bert? But then when our Arcade got Q-Bert I had the high score & they started 2 call me Ernie & Q-Bert! So I have special place for what this game did 4 little me! I also loved the Q-Bert Watch! You can beat the game because the score was displayed on the time slot. So your max score was only 1999. Wish the watch had 24 Hour Mode then the top score would have been 2999. I still have a working Q-Bert watch, but 2 little 2 see with my old eyes I have now! So in the words of Q-Bert...@!#?@!
I could've sworn (No pun intended) that wreck-it-ralph came out in 2012, maybe it was different in other regions? As far as I'm aware, it was released in 2012
What a cool and interesting video -- thank you for making and sharing this! And what an awesome game, I had no idea -- now I want to find an NES copy to enjoy this gem.
Six hours on one quarter and 6 million points, had to kill 23 extra Q-berts to make it in time for dinner. The only game I truly mastered as an arcade rat in the 80's. I used CBS as my initials---Christmas Siletz Benton
Great documentary Patman! I own copies of the ColecoVision port, and the Atari VCS/2600 port. Both are rather good. Will be including a recommendation, and a link to your video on my channel's ColecoVision port review video Wednesday.
You didn't mention that Sony acquired Columbia Pictures from The Coca-Cola Company in November of 1989, in which it owns Q*Bert from the early 1990s onward.
What was not said is that these days SONY owns the rights to Gottlieb Franchises, and so the Sony Ericsson T610 (and T630) phones were delivered with a port of Q*Bert installed by default. The T610 was released in 2003.
I grew up playing this game. Now, as an aspiring solo-developer for almost 10 years now, I'm still stunned by the genius of this game. Mad respect.
Absolutely, the guy was either a genius or did massive amounts of drugs :-)
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries - Pyramid board, 4 elemental colors, winged disc.... no surprise this game was a hit; Those are some 'elite' concepts.
I loved this game, growing up & watched the cartoon. I also owned the Coleco version. I didn't know about the nice-looking Dreamcast version. Thanks for another, excellent mini-documentary.
@@TexasHollowEarth Absolutely, thanks for watching
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries my favorite versions will always be the ps1 and sega Dreamcast version. Updated graphics but most importantly new levels and challenges. Lots of Variety
The developer is Definitely into Saturnian symbolism
Q Bert was a game I barely played as a lil kid when it came out, but it definitely made an impression as I never forgot it. The merchandise was everywhere for it so it stuck around in pop culture. I eventually got the NES version around 1990 with a couple other games for Christmas. Q bert is a much tougher game than I realized when I really got to get into it. First couple stages are pretty tame as even two colored blocks aren't bad, but eventually you got change the blocks colors 3 times and if you step back on them they change again. It does take some time go all way thru the entire game.I beat it but, but I was using the code for infinite lives with my game genie just see it all way to the end. It's a very unique game concept that takes a simple idea and ramps it to 11.
I was 10 when the game came out and I can recall the merchandise being everywhere as well. I never got into the NES version because I had the Commodore 64 version growing up. I agree about the difficulty on qbert. When the color changes back want to hop on them for a second time that's when I got extremely hard in my opinion
The problem I had with Votrax speech was for the first Gottlieb Game, Reactor. There are some words I just couldn't get right. "10 thousand bonus points" kept coming out "bogus points". In a fit of frustration I created the wacky voice well before Warren was playing with Jeff's background and characters. Once I saw what Warren and Jeff were up to I said to Warren: "Boy, have I got something for you". Such is the role of serendipity in video game design.
That is excellent. Thank you for responding to the video and providing some insight into the design. Great job!
Fwiw, the "symbol gibberish" representing profanity is technically called a "grawlix". Q*Bert on the 2600 was the first console game anyone ever got me. I've always loved Q*Bert and I had the immense pleasure of meeting Warren Davis a couple years ago, got to discuss the game's development at length with him and swap some "war stories" (I've been a game developer myself for nearly fifteen years now). Fantastic guy, honored to have met him.
Very cool, thank you for the info
Really when you think about it, what a killer concept. The programmer/creator really hit a Home Run by taking the basic Pac-Man concept (successfully “touch” all the items, avoid enemies or kill them with a power-up) and expanding it into an isometric three-quarters pseudo-3D board, increasing the variety of enemies, increasing the difficulty and not just the speed/number of enemies by turning Q*Bert increasingly into a puzzle game, and injecting a really quirky sense of humor that ensures the game becoming memorable and endearing.
I am 40. The very first game I ever played was a tabletop arcade mini of Qbert in about 1983 that was gifted to me when i was in the hospital for surgery. It will always hold a legendary spot of 'first' to me
That's very cool, thank you for sharing your story
I never could get the hang of Q-bert. I do remember that cartoon though.
It's definitely has a bit of a learning curve but I loved it
Super kewl game!! Decent history!! That pinball noisemaker is called the Knocker.
The speech synthesizer was not only difficult to work with, the programmers were under time restraints in learning it, so they fed in random hexadecimal and produced the iconic gibberish that Q*Bert is known for!
I wasn't aware that, thanks for the info
There was another Gottlieb version of Q*bert designed for 7-Eleven Stores that features the 7-Eleven logo in the title screen, and Q*bert drinking from a Big Gulp during intermission, similar to the Mello Yello version intermission. I discovered it back in 2008 working the code for the Multi Q*bert project and it's documented in various places on the web. Love your videos, very well done!
I remember playing video games at 711!
The Mello Yello version was very fitting because at the time Coca-Cola still owned Gottlieb/Mylstar. Mello Yello was Coke's answer to Mountain Dew.
Thanks for sharing yet another great video game documentary! Q*Bert was one of my favorite video games back in 1983/84. I was okay at it, but not great. The synthesized speech was what really hooked me. I always thought the faux speech would have made excellent vocals for some extreme electro-pop back in the day (the Swiss electronic group Yello did something like that in a track from their 1981 album "Claro Que Si"). The cartoon was okay, but by the time it came out I was spending my Saturday mornings playing video games or riding my bike into town (to play games at the local arcade, of course). Thanks again!
Thank you for watching. I can make it to the fifth or sixth board but that was it. The speech and sounds really appealed to me as well. Around this time Saturday mornings were either bowling or watching cartoons with a big bowl of cereal :-)
idk why but your videos are just so good, your sense of humor is just out of this world
Hey thanks :-)
An interesting feature of Q-Bert is that if you put in your quarter, wait until the demo gets to Q-Bert falling off the side and starts saying "Aaahhhh" as he falls, if you press and HOLD the 'Player One' button that falling yell will will continue for a very long time until you release the button. [edit: You can do this when either Q-Bert or Coily falls. It works on the MAME version as well.]
The hard part, for me, about this game was getting to grips with the controller that is situated diagonally instead of up-down-left-right. Playing the home computer versions I had to rotate my controller 45 degrees to feel right...
LOL, I did not know that but I'm off to try it :-)
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Yep! I like little features and quirks like that in games, sometimes intentional and sometimes not. Like, on Major Havoc. I played that game fifty times before I noticed that when you're on the pre-mission screen with the "Break-out" game in the lower right, you can actually PLAY that game for a few seconds with the joystick! (Great game by the way).
another awesome throwback. i remember playing this on my 2600 and my cousin's c64. Still one of my fav classic arcade games. Keep up the awesome vids!
Thank you, it's one of my favorite arcade games
Great and interesting video! Keep them coming :-)
On a side note, although never officially released, there was a Q*Bert conversion for the Spectrum, part of a group of planned releases on cartridge for the ZX Interface 2. Like almost all the titles of that series, however, it leaves a lot to be desired. Most probably, they never went beyond the prototype stage.
Much better is the Ocean clone, Pogo, released in 1983, where the pyramid is made with hexagonal blocks instead of square ones.
Thank you, I know there were a lot of clones out there but I will have to check out the ones you mentioned
Awesome, thanks for another great classic arcade game docu!
Thank you glad you enjoyed it
I'm not a big fan of Q*bert, but I'm a big fan of this video. Nice work!
That's very nice of you to say, thank you
Ditto🤓🐿😎
loved Q*Bert…eventually mastered it and could play for hours on a single quarter until my mind couldn’t handle it any longer…used the Colecovision game to hine my skills…it exactly mirrored the arcade game…FANTASTIC vdo…thank you so much for your efforts…!!!
Great video. The green critter that changed the cubes back to their previous color used to infuriate me! Still a classic game, though.
LOL, a used to annoy the heck out of me to. Thanks for the nice words
Sam and Slick.
So bad at this game, but I love watching other people play. Great vid.
Thank you
Me TOO . Can't play but love others playing!👌💚🙏🗿🎮
A few years ago, a collage team used Atari 2600 games to test Artificial intelligence, when the computer played Q-bert on the 2600, it found a hidden bonus room that even the games own programmer had no clue about, the room allowed you to rack up points indefinitely, so one could argue that the world record for 2600 Q-bert is held by a computer program with a score of infinity XD
No kidding, that's very interesting. Thanks for the info
How could the programer not know about it??? I call bs.
@@user-sw4qd2up2s Yeah, the only way that even makes the remotest bit of sense is if it were like a testing level or something else incomplete never meant to be included and was just left in the code without anything linking to it from within the rest of the program. The programmer might not realize it was left in when it was intended to be deleted and it never came up because it was inaccessible. HOWEVER, if that were the case there is no way it could have been accessed through gameplay and the only way anyone would know about it is if they went through the source code and found it. So yeah, either the story is getting key details wrong or like you said it's BS.
Just discovered your channel a week ago. And it's one of my new favorite channels! I remember sinking many...MANY tokens into the games you've featured. My all time favorite games are DIG-DUG, KANGAROO, POPEYE, DEFENDER, MRS PACMAN....and soooo many more.
Thank you very much, those are all classic games. Glad you enjoyed the content
Great video. I remember being somewhat obsessed with this game back then. I somehow had a Q-bert coloring book and I remember renting some type of table top Q bert game. I also owned the game on 2600. I was never good at it but I really liked it and found it addictive. It was a really creative game with cool concepts. Never saw the cartoon or arcade machine back then that I can remember.
According to the movie "Wreck-It Ralph", Q*bert doesn't actually curse, the noises he makes are simply his own language, which we hear Fix-It Felix Jr. refer to as 'Q*bert-ese'.
Back in the day though everyone thought he was cursing which is why I referred to it as such
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Not arguing Dude, just a funny bit of information I thought I'd share.
Yes, I knew I'd heard this somewhere. Didn't the developers also confirm this?
I was about to go to sleep and i saw your new upload. Keep them coming
Thank you
I actually played Q*Bert when it was called "@!#?@!". It was the name that caught my eye. I thought it was the funniest thing ever. It was at the arcade at The Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, WA. I was so disappointed when I walked in one day and saw the title changed to Q*Bert. We still just called it the cussing game.
LOL, that's hilarious. Thanks for sharing
I never got to play Q-Bert as a kid, but I was hooked on the Commodore 64 clone called Slinky. Those death cutscenes were terrifying, though.
Although Q-Bert has not maintained the same level of instant-recognition as Pac-Man, Space Invaders or Moon Patrol, it truly is one of the early greats from the era. It was an original concept (rare even in today's video games) with state of the art graphics and sound for the era, and easy (or impossible) to master controls.
Thanks for mentioning the TI-99/4A version. It was easily the best version released for original era computer consoles.
I've watched a few of your videos now, but doing a doc on a true classic and mentioning my first 80's computer in one breath won me over. Like and Subscribe have been clicked. (Sorry, the bell invades my personal space far too jarringly.)
I think the game is timeless due to the graphics, sounds and playability. You're right, it doesn't have the same recognition as Pac-Man or donkey Kong but it still a top 10 classic in my book. I used to own a TI 99 but don't remember a whole lot about it. I got it in between my Vic 20 and my Commodore 64.
Thanks for the nice words, and thank you for subscribing hope you enjoy the rest of my content
I have the game boy color port. This game is not bad. I remember playing the arcade version in this arcade area when i was a kid.
Great video Pat. Keep up thw good work, my friend. 👍💯
Thanks Fredd, I enjoyed the Game Boy color version. Especially when I was on the road
Props to you good sir, for letting the full Saturday morning cartoon theme song play! 👏
LOL, thanks. I always thought it was catchy :-)
Your video was awesome and really helpful when I was setting up my questions for Warren Davis for an interview on my show. Thank you so much!!!
Fantastic, glad to hear it. Thank you so much
I love Q*bert! Great map with the convincing 3D feel to it. I can see why he liked MC Escher. I love the characters with their funky designs. It's funny that he wanted to call it Snots and Burgers! I love the Atari 2600 version, which still had great character. I also have Q*bert 3 for the SNES which has better graphics and sound and also has funky variants on the standard pyramid map. I do love the arcade version with the funny language and play it when I get the chance. I bet the Mello Yello version is rather rare now. The cartoon was really weird, but I enjoyed it. It's ironic that it started out as a video game, then got a pinball table.
No mention of Q*Bert's Qubes, the arcade sequel that did come out?
Other than that, nice video!
Qbert's cubes was such a departure from the original gameI didn't think it was necessary to show it. Glad you enjoyed the video, thanks
@Scott The Atheist Exactly
What's enjoyable about your videos is recalling which friends had which systems. Only one I knew had the Texas Instruments and kinda felt sorry for the Vic 20 kid learning Basic.
I had both of those growing up. I learned basic on the Vic 20 as well
Great video man very informative 😉👍
Thank you so much, glad you enjoyed it
I love Q-bert, and have all these years wondered why he swore!
I played the original when I was a kid, then had the Intellivision cart. I've played it on Coleco emulation, and Dreamcast. I really hope it's rebooted on the Amico!
Excellent video, very interesting, thanks for making and uploading 👍👍👍
It's certainly possible it could be rebooted. I liked the Intellivision growing up although I never had one, I can recall going to Sears and playing it there.
Thanks for the nice words, glad you enjoyed the video
I had the gameboy color version as a kid and I loved the music in it! Interestingly this games soundtrack was jake kaufman 's first project. He would later go on to do the soundtracks for big games like Contra 4 and shovel knight. I always thought this game sounded unique and now I know why!
Excellent, I did not know that thanks
2:45 - FYI - The "jibberish" in the word balloon are actually called "growlixes", a term coined by comic book writers, as there wasn't yet a term to define said "jibberish in word balloons". There's your fun fact of the day :-) Thanks for the content, btw. New subscriber as of 2 hours ago. Cheers from Milwaukee, WI!
Thanks for the tip, and also thanks for subscribing
Q*Bert's Qubes was the official sequal. I remember only playing it once in the arcade, and I recall that it was released for the Atari 2600 in extremely limited numbers making it really valuable for collectors
You are correct, I didn't really care for the follow-up but I sure did enjoy the original
As a programming exercise, I ported this game to the C64 around 1986, in BASIC!
Also, did it turn out good?
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Not really, but here's a video.
ua-cam.com/video/4do66_RNvWM/v-deo.html
the Atari 2600 version had a bug in it. if you jumped directly at a bad guy at the same exact time they were jumping towards you, you would "teleport" right through him, and not die. I used this trick to "flip" the score (score goes so high, it has to reset back to zero)
Did not know that, thanks
Nice one with the Barbra Streisand joke!! Interesting stuff, certainly a game of charm and good-humour. Funny how they wanted to call it "@!#?@!" originally, that might have worked in a way, people saying "hey, that game called...". As aside; I was lying in bed watching this and soon found that when watching with your eyes at 90 degrees to the screen, the 3-D perspective changes, making it really weird - like Q&Bert was leaping around on an inverse of the structure, it made no sense! Keep up the fine work, Patman.
Thank you, glad you enjoy my humor :-)
Nice choice to cover. Found this very insightful
Thanks a lot, glad you enjoyed it
Not a problem, I hope Qbert learned some manners after his expletive statement to you at the introduction of the video
@@theanomaly5228 LOL, I sure hope so
I grew up on the Atari 2600 version and loved it. I also had that cool Q*Bert watch. Man I wish I still had that.
It looks really cool, I always wanted to try it
To my knowledge, when the arcade was first powered on, Q*bert would say "Good Morning" and at game over, "Bye bye".
I was reading the script for the 1986 movie: The Color of Money (written by Richard Price) and the video game in opening scene was written as Qbert. In the movie, Tom Cruise is playing the video game "Stocker" and he references it later in one dinner scene. Stocker is pretty obscure. I've only seen one in my life. It's interesting to me that it was written into the script as Qbert. Maybe they couldn't get the rights? I thought I'd share. Thank you for the memories. I'd also picked up a beer from San Diego called Inside Hopping Out which features a Qbert style character on the label. There's also a purple coily snake and a green "hop" wearing sunglasses.
That's very interesting, I had no idea. Thanks for the info
The reason why I chose to listen and watch this documentary video is that, I first listened and watched the cartoon series version of 'Q'Bert.' This is what Q'Val used to say, "like gag me with a rocket ship space ace is next;" it was whenever the 'Space Ace' cartoon series came right after the 'Q'Bert' cartoon series. 🚀
I don't recall too much about that cartoon to be honest
I sucked at this game so I never played it.
Always seemed to fall of the sides easily.
So I always watched others play this game.
Q*bert's voice is Iconic, once you hear it you never forget it.
LOL, that's true :-)
Whenever Qbert dies, he goes “@$#!%”, and I remember reading Mad Magazine as a kid, and whenever characters would swear, it would be written like that. So I assume that when Qbert dies, he just yells “FUCK!”
LOL, I knew it was some sort of expletive that he said
Anybody remember the game Slinkster? It was a qbert clone I used to play on my Tandy 1000 computer way back in the day. Old School!!
Another good one - QC Rocks :)
Thank you my friend
There was a handheld version made in about 2000 or so; it was one of the first LCD games to use a dot-matrix display, which a _Sonic Adventure_ handheld and the first Tiger Pokedex also employed. They sort of caught on for a while...
I don't recall seeing that, Thanks for the info
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Might have been a Wal-Mart exclusive. I remember seeing it at the Bonita Springs Supercenter twenty years ago.
That loud clack the arcade game made when Q-Bert fell off the pyramid was very unnerving.
Yes it was, the same knocker was used in pinball machines when you won a free game
The first dark souls
I see you've never played Ghouls 'N Ghosts.
Q*bert for Smash Bros/PlayStation All-Stars Please! Being a Gaming Icon, he’d be Great for Both!
I 100% agree
I agree
What Would He's Moveset Even Be?
@@kellyhill1852 Well just from out my mind. They could add in kicks, headbutts, snout attacks, assists from his enemies (Coily, Slick, Ugg, etc), bring in his hoverboard, his colorful Cubes, def represent his iconic swearing, etc
With imaginative minds they could def do it 👍
@@joshdrake981 Yeah, kinda like how Pac-Man can use the Ghosts.
I like the atari 2600. It was one of my favorites growing up. It was nice hearing the sounds again here
Q*Bert is peashooter 2.0
Funfact Q*Bert is actually an alien called a Trebhum, the aliens in the game, The Eternal Cylinder
Also loved Q Bert since the beginning. Another great video.
Thank you very much :-)
Oh man, this game! THIS game!
I jumped so high up when I first heard the *CLUNK* it makes when going on those hover disks and having the purple snake drop down. Didn't know Gottlieb did an arcade game that's not pinball and I was quite blown away by the title. Probably one of the most colorful games I've played in a long time.
This game is an absolute classic one of my all-time favorites
Gotta love Q*bert's "cow costume" in the Apple II version.
now the cartoon makes sense with him shooting things out of his nose
You can play "Faster Harder More Challenging Q*Bert at "Galloping Ghost" arcade in Brookfield IL...as well as Q*Bert Qubes
I didn't realize that galloping ghost had the faster Harder more challenging version. Thanks for the info
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries - Sure thing...actually it was just installed a few months ago...always check their game list before going though since there is a lot of rotation there
@@riverdealer Will do. I was supposed to go earlier this year to record some footage from my channel but the plans fell through at the last minute
I love seeing the origin & history of all these different games arcade games! (However I’ve started skipping the parts about all the home versions’ differences....just not so important to me). Thank you for all the research & vids!
REQ: ManocoGP, Mappy, Defender, Pole Position, TEMPEST, Robotron.
A lot of people like the conversions but at least you're enjoying part of my video. Thanks for the nice words
Good video,. Love q*bert, have met Warren Davis a few timee.
Awesome, was he a nice guy?
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries he was very nice, for the brief amou t of time we got to talk. He gave 2 or 3 half hour seminars at the Pittsburgh Replay FX the past few years. Good seminar speaker, interesting stuff. He wasn't focusing on Qbert so much but other projects he worked on like the Aerosmith shooting game.
13:42 John's Arcade.
The only thing I think you missed was the "Q*Bert's Cubes" game that came out during its lifetime. Loved this walk back through history!
Thanks, sorry about the omission
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Nothing to be sorry about. I love watching all your content and seeing all these classic games being brought back into the spotlight!
My sister kicked ass at this game when we were kids. We had the Atari 2600 version, which we played on our Atari 7800. I never got the kick out this game -- I pretty much sucked at it!
LOL
A great port on the ZX Spectrum is POGO by Ocean released in 1983, lovely version of Q*Bert.
Thanks for the tip, but I usually only put in officially licensed versions in my videos.
Another great video sir! Great to find out why he had the nose, and the origin of the swearing! Thanks!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it.
Nickelodeon even made a SpongeBob redition of this game called piramid peril.
In the game you play as SpongeBob on a reef piramid as you try to avoid jellyfish, theirs also this Anemone that reverts the color blocks back to their original colors, and a seahorse character that chases you similar to coily
Wasn't aware of that, thanks
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries here’s a link to a gameplay
ua-cam.com/video/TqaBFIzahQE/v-deo.html
I'm honestly surprised you didn't mention either of the Q-Bert ports for mobile phones (Q-Bert Rebooted, which is currently deleted off the App Store on iPhones, and another port simply titled Q-Bert, which isn't)
Love these in-depth videos. Well done.
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed it
This channel is gold.
Thanks a lot!
Childhood nostalgia, I really like the game and cartoon
I love everything Q*bert! Thanks Pat, you video is awesome
Love this game but it requires a good controller. It originally came with a 4-way joystick that was indexed 45° for diagonal movement. Tried playing it with a D-pad and it was practically unplayable but an 8-way joystick works great. Thanks for another great review my friend, good stuff indeed!
Q*Bert for smash!!!!!!
Love this video!
Great job as always :)
Thank you!! 😊
I had this game for the Colecovision too. I still remember how frustrating this game was, specially after you almost completed a level and that damn onion head thing came down and
changed the color again....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL, you're right that was terrible. Good conversion for the Coleco though
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Colecovision was my first game Console. I had a love/hate relationship with the Colecovision. I love that the games looked and sounded alot better then the Atari version, but I hated that you could never actually finish a game. Every single game always restarted back to the first stage with a higher difficulty. So you can imagine my joy when the NES came around and you could actually achieve closure when playing a game.
@@hammiranda That's the way a lot of games were back then. There were no real endings and games until the NES such as super Mario which I think was the first one with an ending? I'm not too sure.
Oh dear Lord watching this brought back so many memories. Yes, I was that kid that spent hours playing this game. I mastered it. If I remember correctly, it went to Level 26 and kept repeating it over and over. All you could do is rack up points at this level.
Question: I'm not a gamer, but if I want to play this as a middle aged man, which game system best represents the old Q-Bert we all love?
Also, how do I find this "Newer, Faster" version if I want to play it?
I still remember my "pattern" that I had to conquer each level. Yes, 40 years later!
Thanks for the video. It seems you were just like I was as a kid, playing it endlessly.
By the way the only other game that i played a lot was Mr. Do! after they got rid of Q-Bert at my local Godfather's Pizza in Fairfax, VA.
If I had the money I'd buy a real arcade version for my home, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to afford the repairs needed if it broke down on me.
I wish they had one to play nearby in SW Florida...now i want to play it!
Mr. do is another classic. The newer faster version is a ROM set for the Mame emulator so check Google
Q*Bert was a favorite of mine as a kid. It was quirky and surreal… and fun!
All of the above :-)
Your videos are entertaining and informative!!! Keep up the good work👍
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed them
I loved Q-Bert. ❤❤❤ As you said it was colorful and fun to play.
Such a unique concept, one of my favorites
Played Qbert at my local Walgreens. They always had a couple games.
This was big when i was a kid , but i wasnt brave enough yet to take a chance😏.... Its a game that always intrigued me and thirty plus years later im finally getting the whole story.. .. Thanks Patman,you are a LEGEND....✌😎
Thank you so much, yes the game is definitely a classic
When I was in elementary I use 2 get teased: Ernie where's Bert? But then when our Arcade got Q-Bert I had the high score & they started 2 call me Ernie & Q-Bert! So I have special place for what this game did 4 little me! I also loved the Q-Bert Watch! You can beat the game because the score was displayed on the time slot. So your max score was only 1999. Wish the watch had 24 Hour Mode then the top score would have been 2999. I still have a working Q-Bert watch, but 2 little 2 see with my old eyes I have now! So in the words of Q-Bert...@!#?@!
I could've sworn (No pun intended) that wreck-it-ralph came out in 2012, maybe it was different in other regions? As far as I'm aware, it was released in 2012
Excellent video! Had the TI-99/4a version and loved it. Never made it after Level 8....
Thanks a lot
The best game ever. Many times topping a million, including a 2 million+ game Feb '88 at DisneyWorld, closing time got me.
That's pretty awesome, kudos
Q-bert is supposed to have an iOs version now courtesy of Lucky Kat Studios. Here is their page with it: www.lucky-kat.com/qbert
Cool thank you
Another great review.
Thanks a lot
I recall the cartoon gave back the shooting slippy dooz from his nose.
Was not aware of that, thanks for the tip
What a cool and interesting video -- thank you for making and sharing this! And what an awesome game, I had no idea -- now I want to find an NES copy to enjoy this gem.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you
Six hours on one quarter and 6 million points, had to kill 23 extra Q-berts to make it in time for dinner. The only game I truly mastered as an arcade rat in the 80's. I used CBS as my initials---Christmas Siletz Benton
Holy cow that's fantastic
Hey Pat...you're awesome and so are these videos!!! 🥳
Great documentary Patman! I own copies of the ColecoVision port, and the Atari VCS/2600 port. Both are rather good. Will be including a recommendation, and a link to your video on my channel's ColecoVision port review video Wednesday.
Thanks, the Coleco one is really good
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries you're welcome! I know the ColecoVision port is widely considered the most arcade perfect.
Imagine the burn of drinking Mello Yello through your nose
LOL
You didn't mention that Sony acquired Columbia Pictures from The Coca-Cola Company in November of 1989, in which it owns Q*Bert from the early 1990s onward.
Q*bert is now a mobile game, a very cool mobile game.
Awesome, I will have to check it out
What was not said is that these days SONY owns the rights to Gottlieb Franchises, and so the Sony Ericsson T610 (and T630) phones were delivered with a port of Q*Bert installed by default. The T610 was released in 2003.
the profanity symbols are called "grawlix". I owe that bit of trivia knowledge to Q*Bert
I never knew that, thanks
I had the watch when I was really young. Its the only one I ever saw until watching this
I never had the logic but I Had a friend who did