Q*bert

Q*bert for Game Boy is a 1992 action-puzzle game developed by Realtime Associates and published by Jaleco. It brings the orange cube hopper to Nintendo's original handheld in a conversion that expands the arcade premise with a longer, differently structured campaign.

The aim of every round is to guide Q*bert diagonally across a stacked-cube playfield and turn every cube to the displayed target color. A level may require one landing per cube, multiple landings, or another color-changing rule shown in its opening demonstration. Clearing the field advances Q*bert to the next round.

This Game Boy edition contains 64 rounds arranged as 16 levels of four rounds, using 20 distinct playfield configurations rather than only the familiar pyramid. The view scrolls as Q*bert moves, so later, larger layouts ask the player to remember the available paths as well as the cubes still needing attention.

A fall beyond the edge costs a life, and hostile characters make each route more hazardous. Bad Balls and Coily Balls descend through the field; a Coily Ball becomes the pursuing Coily when it reaches the bottom. Ugg and Wrong-Way travel along the cube sides, while Lefty and Righty circle the playfield. Sam and Slick alter cubes they land on, making the color-matching task harder even though catching them earns points.

Spinning disks offer an escape route. Hopping onto one carries Q*bert to another position and clears the playfield of enemies and bonus items, but that disk is then gone; unused disks are worth bonus points at the end of a round. Apples, cherries, and a Freeze Ball provide further opportunities, with the Freeze Ball briefly stopping the other characters.

The options menu allows either diagonal controls, which use two directions on the Control Pad for each hop, or straight controls, which assign a single direction to each diagonal move. The latter can make quick changes of direction easier once its mapping is learned. Q*bert begins with five lives, with extra lives awarded at score thresholds.

Completing each group of four rounds ends a level and plays one installment of Q*bert – The Movie. Finishing all 16 levels makes the full movie available without interruption. After losing the last life, a player can resume from the start of the current level with three lives and a reset score, or begin a new game.