Driving Demon is a racing game played from a top down perspective on a single straight. The player has to race down a two-lane road to earn the high score. Other cars occupy the road and these have to be avoided or else the player will crash and lose a life. Crashes also occur when going off the road and hitting an oil slick. A scanner located to the right of the main view allows the player to spot cars down the road. The game uses manual transmission and it's necessary to shift gears at the appropriate time or else the engine might blow and the player will crash. The game ends when time runs out or after five crashes.
Honey Hunt is a simple game where you guide your bee from open flower to flower, collecting nectar and returning it to your hive. Bee assassins, dragonflies, and spider webs are all out to get you. Dragonflies fly around the screen. Bee assassins skip from flower to flower. Spider webs are static, but make navigating nearby very hazardous.
From time to time, a bear wanders by. If the speech synthesizer is attached, you'll hear it say, "Time to get the honey!" You must return to your hive to defend it. Simply being present in the hive is sufficient to ward off the bear.
Rotor Raiders is a game very similar to Pac-Man where instead of you are on cleanup. Your character is that of a drain cleaner where you must navigate through the sewers to clean out the mice and their trail as they navigate. Four mice are typically in the sewer per level and each will make capture difficult and unpredictable.
During gameplay there are brief periods of darkness where knowledge of the map design will come in handy to the user. After a brief outage lights are restored and the map can once again be seen.
Who knew sewer cleanup could be so much fun!
A demo program for the 3-D Goggles. BaronVR described it like this : "The effect is that of a track extending from the monitor surface to about 3 feet inside the monitor surface, the speed controlled by pushing up or down on the joystick..."
St. Nick was the first title Funware released after being bought out in the Summer of 1983 by Creative Software.
In 1983 there were as many as 3 companies interested in buying out Funware, those being Activision, Epyx, and Creative Software. As one might be able to tell from the box scan on this page, Funware was eventually sold to Creative Software. However, both Epyx and Activision would later give a go at marketing TI-99/4A games independently near the end of 1983.
According to Michael Brouthers, it only cost Funware $4 US to make each cartridge game!
Burger Builder is an action platform game similar to BurgerTime. You control a chef, and your goal is to make burgers! The screen consists of various platforms which contain the ingredients you'll need: buns, burgers, and lettuce. When your chef walks over an ingredient, it will fall to the level below. When all the ingredients in a column fall to the bottom of the screen, you'll have a complete hamburger; complete all of the hamburgers on the screen, and you can move on to the next level. Unlike BurgerTime, the ingredients won't cascade downward; there needs to be an open space below for an ingredient to fall into so you'll have to work your way from the bottom of the screen upwards. Of course, there are enemies (in the forms of burgers, pickles, cheese, and mushrooms) that wander about to make your task more difficult! Each platform has an enemy which wanders back and forth; although they can be crushed by falling ingredients (for bonus points), they will appear again and be faster than before! Your only defense
In "Rabbit Trail," you control the eponymous character, trying to collect all of the characters before other critters get you. You follow a static trail, using rabbit holes to climb from platform to platform. Jump to evade weasels and snag carrots. Later levels include hawks - and one badly timed jump could land you right in their claws.
Rabbit Trail is a Donkey Kong style clone.
This game was designed by both Beverly Starke (Milton Bradley graphics artist) and programmer Dave Landon. According to Dave, Sewermania was MB President Jim Shea's favorite game out of all the MBX titles that were in development.
According to early promotional material, the generator located in the upper left corner of the screen was intended to flood the sewer and kill all the rats. This would help the player in locating the bomb since there would be no rats to avoid for a few seconds (although the alligator would still be lurking around). In the released version of the game, however, the generator's functionality was removed making it impossible to flood the sewer. According to programmer Dave Landon the reason for the removal was because the game was initially developed for MB's own video game unit before being brought over the TI-99/4A (read the MBX development history by clicking the link in the above Trivia section). The TI-99/4A's cartridges were smaller in size apparently to what Milton Bradley had envisi
In Sneggit, you control a chicken trying to gather up eggs from the barnyard before the snakes get them! Pick up one egg at a time, bring it back to the nest, and repeat! But it's not just about quickly grabbing the eggs, you also have to make sure to defend the nests, or else a snake might clean it out completely! This is a pretty fun game for the TI-99/4A and deserves a look! Games back then had such clever concepts behind them. OK, games nowadays do too, sometimes.....
Space Bandits is quite possibly the most unique game out of all the MBX titles. You take control of a robot who must collect Earth's Energy Crystals that were stolen by "Computer Controlled Androids". The uniqueness of the game comes from the fact that not only can you walk up and down the corridors on the bottom of the screen, but also on the sides and top of the screen. Therefore, the game has a 3D aspect to it which makes your mission much harder to complete, especially considering that the controls change accordingly with the different sides of the screen (if you are controlling your robot on the bottom part of the screen all that is needed to move forward is a press "up" on the joystick. However, once on the top of the screen, a press "down" on the joystick moves you forward). This change of joystick movement helps create a more realistic feel that really helps the game out and makes it more fun to play, however frustrating it may be first. After you have the controls for the game down, which can prove to be v
Story Machine is a product aimed at children for teaching language skills.
The product contains animations assigned to key nouns, and verbs. By typing phrases such as "The Girl Jumps Over the Flower" will show the player an animation of a girl jumping over a flower. Through this method, players are able to create short "stories" of about 40 words long and have the computer animate them. These stories are also limited to having 4 "actors" (animated noun objects) in each.
Poor Topper, the lovable little turtle who tries to liven up his universe by painting his galactic tiles. But, the mysterious Dynomite and the Renegade Rabbits will stop him if they can. It's up to you. Can you help Topper, while keeping him from getting caught by the Regenade Rabbits? Can you save him from the mysterious Dynomite before his tile is demolished? Topper needs you!
Journey into the land of enhanced reality with TYPO II. This exciting educational game is by ROMOX, for your Texas Instruments 99/4A Home Computer. TYPO II is an educational and fun challenger for one player at a time.
In TYPO II you can learn and improve your typing skills while enjoying the high speed action of a real arcade game on your home computer. No more long hours at the keyboard for you, with nothing to do but type. In TYPO II you control the action! Arid while you play, you learn. TYPO II is a fun and challenging maze game where you, the player control the letter crunching jaws. As you eat your way through the realms of letters, you are chased and hounded at every bend by the Protectors of the Word. The Protectors, also known as boxing gloves, want but one thing: to knock you out! So beware, quick thinking and agile fingers will carry you through.
Ant Colony is a prototype game from Funware which was never released.
In the game you play the role of an exterminator who much navigate through the puzzled map and clear out ants as they emerge and spread out through the map. Be careful as there are also timed zones which appear to spawn additional ants.
Fun for the whole family!
Germ Patrol is a game from Texas Instruments where you must defend the external membrane of a cell from an onslaught of germs as they try and enter. You take the role of a sponge type material which will absorb the germs as they attempt to enter the cell membrane. Once they are caught a germ is counted a captured. If a germ passes through the membrane it is counted as escaped.
Who knew germ warfare was so much fun!
Lobster Bay is a prototype from Funware which was never released.
In Lobster Bay you take the role of a scuba diver in search of missing treasure. You start the game by dismounting from your ship to further dive to greater depths. Along your journey you will encounter Lobsters and Squid. Luckily you have ladders, pipes, ropes, and conveyor belts to help assist you to more treasure.
Watch your oxygen level and life count along the way because danger is at every twist and turn.
Treasures await below, ahoy!
Mouse Attack is a Pac-Man type game where you are the mouse and must navigate through the map to escape the 4 cats on the screen. The path of your character, the mouse, is displayed after each section is crossed. Once the entire map is traced out on the map, the level will end and a new map will start.
Mouse Attack!
Tread lightly! The transport lanes of intergalactic space have been seeded with mines from an alien vessel. Use your mine destroying blaster to blow up the mines before they annihilate you! You may survive the floating mines, but beware of the fireball, magnetic, and treacherous fireball-magnetic mines . . . 13 fields, each one more difficult, await you!
The goal in Narrow Escape is to successfully navigate a ship through the narrow, fast-moving passages of the warlord's fortress, destroy the defense forces and avoid space debris. The player's ship must also be maneuvered through small holes in a series of walls where fuel cells can be picked up to restore the ship's constantly decreasing fuel supply. If the player pilots their ship successfully, they will be faced with the warlord's own escape ship which must be hit several times to be destroyed, liberating the star system from the warlord's tyranny.
Each level becomes more difficult as everything will move faster, fuel will be consumed more quickly, the holes in the walls will become smaller, and more menacing defense forces will appear.
Each level of game play consists of two phases:
1. Passages: During the first phase of each level, the player must maneuver their ship through the narrow, moving passages with the joystick while shooting six of the warlord's defense forces with button 4. If any of the si
As far as Vectrex games go, the holy grail for many collectors and gamers is the unreleased flight simulator, Mail Plane. This quirky take on the tried and tested genre made use of the obscure light-pen accessory to control the airborne vehicle tasking you with delivering letters. Unfortunately nobody got to experience this unique offering back in the day following the games cancellation.
Having said that, the moment many of these deprived gamers had been waiting for finally arrived in November - a Mail Plane prototype cartridge surfaced on eBay in Pennsylvania, United States. Selling for a massive $877, one lucky bidder had finally secured the chance to experience this oddity once and for all, however, they had bigger plans for this title.
Understanding the demand for this long lost title, AtariAge user Vectrexer - the new owner of this Mail Plane prototype - decided to generously create a ROM image of the game cartridge and release it online for free to the masses.
As of today we can all finally experience Mai