Lost In Translation/Q*bert's Qubes

Q*bert's Qubes
Manufacturer	Mylstar
Released	1983
Control; Method	4-way Joystick
Main CPU	8088 (@ 5.000 MHz); M6502 (@ 894.886 kHz)
Sound CPU	Mono; DAC; Discrete
Video; Details	Raster (Vertical); 256 x 240 pixels; 61.00 Hz; 16 Palette colours
Screens	1
ROM Info	12 ROMs; 110,592 bytes (108.00 KiB)
MAME ID	qbertqub

This page is a stub for arcade games that are part of the Lost In Translation series using information based on MAME (version 0.113u2).
For an example of preferred content and layout please refer to Out Run or The Ninja Warriors.

About The Game

Q*bert's Qubes is an arcade video platform game where the object is to jump around diamond formation of 25 cubes and rotate them so that one or more rows of cubes match the shown target cube (a tic-tac-toe) while avoiding the meltniks, the rat and the purple guys. Jumping on anything green is safe, catching the turtle slows down enemies for a short time and catching the freeze ball freezes enemies for a short time.

Each level has four rounds and a bonus round and there are 11 levels...

Level 1 : get 1 tic-tac-toe, cubes only have 2 colours
Level 2 : get 1 tic-tac-toe, cubes only have 3 colours
Level 3 : get 1 tic-tac-toe, cubes have 6 colours from this point on
Level 4 : get 2 tic-tac-toes
Level 5 : get 3 tic-tac-toes
Level 6 : get 1 tic-tac-toe, matched target cubes can be rotated
Level 7 : get 2 tic-tac-toes, matched target cubes can be rotated
Level 8 : get 3 tic-tac-toes, matched target cubes can be rotated
Level 9 : get 4 tic-tac-toes
Level 10 : get 3 tic-tac-toes, matched target cubes can be rotated
Level 11 : get 3 tic-tac-toes

After this levels 9-11 repeat indefinitely.

Trivia

This game was the first to have used both Mylstar and Gottlieb (Gottlieb was renamed Mylstar not too soon after the game was released, Warren Davis also joked that Mylstar is Rat Slime spelled backwards) on two different versions of the marquee).

A Votrax SC-01 speech synthesis chip is used to generate the incoherent speech of Q*bert swearing, Shoobops (high pitch) and Wrong Way and Ugg (low pitch). The only true speech ever generated is 'Hello, I'm turned on' when the game is first powered up and 'Bye Bye' after entering your initials at the end of a game.

The Rubik's Cube craze of the time served as a source of inspiration for this game.

Jean Baudin holds the official records for this game in 'hard Difficulty' setting with 2,146,905 points on 09/27/2001.

Scoring

Action	Points
Land on cube	5
Match target cube	100
Catch freeze ball	100
Land on Shoobops	100
Land on turtle	100
Spin rat off cube	5-500

Series

Q*bert (1982)
Q*bert's Qubes (1983)
Q*bert 3 (1993, Nintendo Super Famicom)

Staff

Programmed By: Neil Burnstein
Graphics By: Jeff Lee
Audio By: David Thiel
Cabinet Graphics By: Terry Doerzaph

Cabinet and Artwork

Q*bert's Qubes arcade cabinet.
Curve Ball & Q*bert's Qubes flyer.

Ports

Consoles: Atari 2600; Colecovision

Computers: MSX (1986)

The contents of this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The sources used include MAME (version 0.113u2) and history.dat (revision 1.28 - 2008-10-18).
Please see http://www.arcade-history.com for credits.