Amidar arcade game retro review
Konami’s Unique Arcade Puzzler
Apart from Amidar, in what other arcade game can you play the part of a paint roller being chased my evil pigs? None other that’s what. Just Amidar.
In 1981 Stern/Konami launched this arcade game onto a public that was recovering from Pac-Man, launched in the previous year, and Amidar featured many similarities.
The name Amidar comes from the Japanese word Amidakuji, describing a form of lottery involving ladders drawn on a page with random rungs, and tracing a line between top and the bottom. Just like an Amidar bonus screen.
Amidar Arcade Gameplay
In the first level of Amidar you play the a plucky Gorilla who must collect coconuts dotted around random shaped tiles, whilst avoiding the tribesmen patrolling the maze. Eat all of the coconuts around a tile and the tile is coloured in. Colour in the corner tiles and (pacman style) you become invulnerable for a while. As an added defence mechanism, if you are trapped by a tribesman you can use one of three “jumps” to make him bounce over you.
On the next levels it gets more weird, with you playing a paint roller who must evade murderous porkers whilst colouring in adjacent squares. Try to stray too far from your last coloured square and the paint runs out and you have to go back. This makes these even numbered levels a lot more tricky, with careful planning required to complete the stage.
Amidar Bonus Stage
If that is not weird enough for you, in between levels there is a bonus stage which requires you to send a pig down one of a number of pathways, a bit like those kids puzzles in pizza restaurants, in order to pick up the bonus bananas and 5000 points. Why bananas? Surely this would be a bonus for a Gorilla, not a pig?
Amidar Enemy Movement
On both levels the enemy behaviour is pretty predictable, with no “homing” in on the player, except for one character who will start to chase you after a certain time period has passed. Each enemy will have a specific pattern, only moving diagonally up or down, and when they reach an edge will move around the last box and come back in the opposite diagonal direction. On later levels the number of enemies increases, and the time taken for the enemy to home in on you reduces, as well as the grids becoming more complex to navigate.
Amidar Home Conversions
As well as the classic arcade version, there was a home port for the Atari 2600 by Parker Brothers, what until recently I believed be the only official release under the Amidar name. On researching this post, I did however uncover another official home conversion of Amidar, this time for short-lived Casio PV-1000 video game console. Amidar was one of only 12 games released for the Japan-only machine, and survived less than a year after its release in 1983.
As a fan if the arcade game I wouldn’t recommend either. Although the Casio version has higher definition graphics than the Atari, the primitive hardware on both machines rendered the gameplay a slow, flickery mess.
Despite the lack of official ports, there was a handheld game, made by prolific Japanese tabletop game producer Gakken. As was often the case with Gakken games, a UK version of the tabletop game was released by CGL (as well as Lansay in France) which I happen to have in my collection.
Amidar fans looking for an authentic home version should also avoid this tabletop game, the crude VFD graphics were colourful but couldn’t replicate the arcade gameplay. A great looking collectible item, not a great gaming experience.
Unofficial clones of Amidar
Various unofficial home computer conversions were released, my favourite being Crazy Tracer for the BBC Micro. Finally, this unofficial Amidar conversion for the UK-only market represents the most authentic gameplay experience at home. AcornSoft also created home versions of Pac Man, Mr Do and Galaxians, and were quite good at this.
For completeness I’ve listed the known conversions of Amidar below:
- Atari VCS/2600 (1982) – Parker Brothers
- BBC B Acorn Electron (1983) “Crazy Tracer” – Acornsoft
- BBC B (1983) “Crazy Painter” – Superior Software
- Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1983) “Colour Clash” – Romik Software
- Sinclair ZX81 (1983) “Damper” – Quicksilva
- Commodore 64 (1984) “Rollin”
- Commodore 64 (1987) “Omidar”
- VFD tabletop game (1981) by Gakken/CGL/Lansay
Amidar feels like a classic, it has everything an old school arcade game should have: black background, lives and scores at the top, credits at the bottom, catchy tune and simple but colourful graphics and addictive, score chasing gameplay. Not a game that everyone raves about but in my opionion they should.
