Q*bert is a classic arcade game developed by Gottlieb and released in 1982, designed by Warren Davis and Jeff Lee, and it quickly became one of the most recognizable and beloved games of the golden age of arcade gaming. The premise is deceptively simple but the execution demands quick thinking, sharp reflexes, and a solid understanding of increasingly complex patterns. You play as Q*bert, a small orange creature with a long snout, who hops around an isometric pyramid made up of colored cubes arranged in a triangular grid that descends toward the bottom of the screen. The goal on each stage is to change every cube on the pyramid to a specific target color by landing on it, and once all the cubes have been converted, you advance to the next stage. Standing between you and that goal are a rotating cast of enemies that bounce, roll, and slither their way across the pyramid, and any contact with most of them is immediately fatal, sending Qbert tumbling off the edge of the pyramid in a shower of frustration while he lets out his iconic, untranslatable exclamation rendered in the game as a string of symbols like @!#?@! which became something of a cultural shorthand for cartoon swearing. The pyramid itself is seven rows tall with the single cube at the top and expanding rows beneath it, and Qbert can only move diagonally in four directions, which means navigation requires players to think ahead and plan routes rather than simply charging toward uncovered tiles.
The enemies that appear include Coily, a purple snake that begins as an egg bouncing down the pyramid before hatching and relentlessly chasing Q*bert around the board, making him the most dangerous and persistent threat in the game. Red balls and purple balls also roll down from the top, with purple balls being harmless and even useful since they can knock Coily off the pyramid when they collide with him, while the red balls are simply lethal obstacles to be avoided. Other enemies include Ugg and Wrong-Way, two creatures that move along the sides of the cubes rather than the tops, making their movement patterns disorienting and tricky to predict, and Slick and Sam, mischievous green creatures who reverse the color of cubes Qbert has already converted, undoing your hard work and forcing you to cover ground you thought was finished. Scattered around the edges of the pyramid are floating discs that Qbert can leap onto as a last resort or a strategic tool, which will carry him safely back to the top of the pyramid and, crucially, lure Coily to his doom if the snake is in pursuit and foolishly follows Qbert off the edge.
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The game increases in difficulty across multiple rounds and levels, with later stages requiring players to hop on cubes multiple times to cycle through colors before they reach the target shade, adding a layer of complexity that turns the act of clearing the board into a genuine mental puzzle layered on top of the physical challenge of surviving long enough to do it. The graphics for their time were striking thanks to the isometric perspective, which was relatively novel in arcades and gave the game a three-dimensional appearance that stood out on the floor. The sound design is equally memorable, with bouncy electronic music, Qbert’s squeaky hops, and that garbled exclamation that lodged itself permanently in the memory of anyone who played it. Qbert was ported to almost every home system of the era and has been remade and referenced countless times in popular culture since, cementing its status as a true icon of early video game history.
