1983 video game
Crackpots is an Atari 2600 game designed by Dan Kitchen and published by Activision in 1983. It was Kitchen's first game for Activision.
In "Crackpots", the player controls Potsy, a gardener. Potsy's Brooklyn building is being overrun by bugs trying to climb inside six windows. The player moves Potsy back and forth along the roof to drop pots on the bugs before they can get close enough to enter the windows.
Gameplay.
Each level consists of four waves of twelve bugs each; defeat all four waves and the player will move on to a more difficult and faster-paced level. Play then resumes until the building crumbles to the ground. If six or more bugs enter through the open windows, part of the building will be eaten away, and you will have to replay the level. The patterns vary for different colored bugs. Black bugs will move straight up the building, blue bugs wiggle from left to right, red bugs move diagonally, and green bugs zig-zag between windows.
Development.
"Crackpots" was developed by Dan Kitchen. Prior to joining Activision, he worked on developing handheld games such as "Wildfire" that was released in the United Kingdom by Palitoy. Along with his brother Garry Kitchen, Dan was eager to get involved with console game development and attended the Consumer Electronic Show in January 1982. The brothers were approached by both Atari and Activision and opted to work for the latter. Dan was among the five new coders who started at Activision's new East coast office to develop their own titles. Dan Kitchen learned how to code for the Atari 2600 through his brother Garry, who reversed engineering the console and created a board that could be plugged into an Apple II.
Following making text adventure games like "Crime Stopper", Dan began developing a game with flowerpots called "Flower Power", which grew into the idea for "Crackpots". Dan came up for the idea while having lunch with his brother Garry Kitchen and David Crane in Glen Rock, New Jersey. Dan saw a construction site across the street and witnessed a pack of plants fromm a scaffolding and thought "That would be fun to do..." It was his first game for the Atari 2600. It programmed on an Apple II connected to a PDP-11 development system. Dan initially wanted the insects to be described as arachnids, but the marketing team at Activision changed their names to sewer bugs. Dan said that a motto at Activision at the time was "no flickering", leading him to spend weeks on fixing even the slightest graphical errors in his games.
Release.
The video game was released during the video game crash of 1983. Dan recalled that the "Crackpots" "hit the shelves for $30 when games were selling for $2 so I don't think it had a chance." Dan planned to follow-up the game with a sequel to his brother's game "Keystone Kapers", with the game being in a Western-setting. In 2018, Dan found the only surviving copy of the unfinished game in a storage unit and planned to release it under the title "Gold Rush".
Reception.
A review in the November 1983 issue of "Videogaming and Computer Gaming Illustrated" stated, "I think Activision has finally reached the point of saturation with the "Kaboom!" theme of having to catch or toss objects," but still gave the game a letter grade of B.
In a retrospective look, the Video Game Critic gave a letter grade of C: "It's a shame "Crackpots" only has one skill level because once you get the hang of it, the game tends to run long. Still, sharp graphics and thoughtful gameplay make this one worth a look."
Legacy.
"Crackpots" was included in the compilation packages "Activision Classics" (1998) for the PlayStation and the "Activision Anthology" (2002) for the PlayStation 2.
Dan would list "Crackpots" as one of his favourite projects in an interview with "Retro Gamer" published in 2020, stating that playing it "brings me back to those early days, which were the best times of my career."
References.
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