Welcome to Arcade Flyer Saturday! Each week we'll take a different arcade flyer from days gone by and look into the rich history of the games and the images used to advertise them.

GOTCHA!
Gotcha! was the third arcade game produced by the Atari company. It debuted in 1973 and was the first of the "labyrinth/maze" genre that would eventually achieve great popularity with games like Pac-Man. The gameplay was less than exciting: The "Pursuer" (a square) chased the "Pursued" (a plus sign) through a constantly changing maze. The chase was accompanied by an annoying beeping sound that got louder and faster as the chaser got closer to the chased. Once the chased player was caught, points would be scored and the whole thing would start over again. Very dull indeed, although the game's flyer described it as having "plenty of psychological twists and turns and free flowing adrenaline" ... uh, yeah.

Probably the most notable thing about this game was it's control system: two large pink rubber mounds that looked very much like breasts. Not surprisingly, it became widely known as "the boob game."

A ruckus was raised over the cheeky controls and a "less suggestive" control system using two joysticks was implemented. I'm not too sure that a joystick is any LESS suggestive than a pair of round pink globes, but then again, it was the seventies.

This has got to be one of my favorites of all the flyer images I have run across. It's so evocative of it's time period with the pink, orange and red color scheme, stylized font and ubiquitous star pattern. I'm a little disturbed about the weird superimposing of the happy couple with the game machine. I suppose it was meant to imply that the fun was coming right out of the game in the form of two carefree people who are just like you. I can't help thinking that the image would have been improved and more appropriate to the game if the guy had just moved his hands up about 8 inches. Flynn De Marco

[Big thanks goes out to Greg for all his help with this series]

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