Cutie Q

Cutie Q
Arcade flyer
Developer(s) Namco
Publisher(s) Namco
Designer(s) Tōru Iwatani
Platform(s) Arcade
Release
  • JP: November 1979
Genre(s) Pinball,
Breakout clone
Mode(s) Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet Upright, cabaret, and cocktail
Arcade system Namco Warp & Warp
CPU 1x Intel 8080 @ 2.048 MHz
Sound 1x custom WSG @ 2.048 MHz
Display Vertical orientation, Raster, 224 x 272 resolution

Cutie Q (キューティーＱ, Kyūtī Kyū) is an arcade game that was designed by Toru Iwatani and released by Namco in 1979. It is the second sequel to Gee Bee, which was released in the previous year. It was one of the first games to display its year on its start screen, and award an extra life (instead of a replay or extra credit) on getting a preset point value. It also introduced cute non-player characters, including one with a name, "Walk-Man", paving the way for the named cute player character and ghosts in Pac-Man.[1]

Gameplay

Gameplay of Cutie Q

Like its predecessors, Cutie Q plays like a mix of pinball and Breakout-style games. The playfield has features derived from pinball games, such as a spinner in the middle, various rollovers, an entry lane for the ball (though without a plunger), and drains in the bottom corners. However, as in Breakout, the ball is unaffected by gravity, and continuously bounces. The player controls a pair of paddles which slide horizontally across the screen, and there are rows of blocks to break at the top of it.

A similar game called Pinball Spectacular was released by Commodore for their VIC-20 and Commodore 64 home computers. The VIC-20 version features a board layout which is almost identical to that for Cutie Q (it even includes the ghost rollover), while the C64 version is slightly altered, including some aspects of the board for Bomb Bee (most notably, the two 10/100-point bumpers in the top-left and top-right corners of the screen), and replaces the ghost rollover with the Commodore logo.

This game was featured in the Japanese release of Namco Museum Volume 2 for the PlayStation. For the American version of Namco Museum Volume 2, Super Pac-Man was featured in place of Cutie Q, but an analysis of the disc's files reveals that Cutie Q's files are still present, including the executable file. However, attempts to run the executable file directly fail, so the game is rendered unplayable in the American version of Namco Museum Volume 2, due to not having a menu icon to run it during gameplay. In 2007, the game was also added to Namco Museum Remix for the Wii console.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Kohler, Chris (2016). Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. pp. 51-2.
  2. ↑ Namco Museum
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