One of the most popular arcade games from the industry's golden era didn't need fancy graphics or fighting moves to become a coin magnet. Q*bert featured a simple task that had to be completed while avoiding certain dangers. As play progressed, the levels became more difficult keeping gamers entertained for hours, if not days. Or months.

Q*bert was the star of Gottlieb's hit game and what a star he was.  Round, orange and fuzzy, with two spindly legs and a long honker of a nose, Q*bert was an unlikely looking hero. Every level featured a 3-D pyramid made of multi-colored cubes that changed color when Q*bert landed on them.

The first level was easy enough, requiring a single hop to change the cubes' color to the correct one. Once Q*bert had taken care of all the cubes, the player advanced to the next level.

Added headaches for Q*bert (that's just a fun name to say, isn't it?) included red Whammy balls that dropped on to the pyramid from the top of the screen and bounced around the cubes unpredictably. The balls could knock Q*bert off the pyramid which equaled death in the orange guy's universe.

Coily the snake looked and acted like a Whammy ball except that he was purple and turned into a snake when it reached the bottom row of cubes. Coily would then chase Q*bert around relentlessly and our hero's only defense was to jump on to discs hovering beside the pyramid, thus luring Coily over the edge. Ugg and Wrong Way were two more ball types which obeyed a different rule of gravity and bounced on the sides of the pyramid cubes.

Other obstacles like Slick and Sam would bounce on the cubes and change them to the wrong color but they were also worth points if collected by Q*bert. They were a real nuisance in higher levels where cubes needed to be touched twice to change color or changed back to the wrong color if hopped on too many times.

The popularity of the game brought Q*bert over to the Saturday morning cartoon zone and spawned a merchandising maelstrom. He's orange, he's fuzzy--what's not to like?