This past weekend was an arcade & pinball event that I somehow overlooked but at the very least talking about it now means pics and video. Many places around the world are holding annual arcade/pinball events so it can be a little hard to track all of them but this one in Ft. Lauderdale, FL called APE has been taking place every year since 2004 so I’m not sure how I missed it. Either way it looks like it was a lot of fun to attend, here is a video showing off some of the classic goodness one could experience there:
At 2:17 in the video above you will catch sight of a classic game called Screw Loose. If that doesn’t sound familiar don’t be too surprised as it is a prototype game from 1983 that never made it into full production. Only 3 cabinets were produced as reports go and this was Tim Skelly’s last game for Mylstar (Gottlieb). A new cabinet for the game was built by collectors and brought to the expo for attendees to get some hands-on time with but as you notice from the quick walk-by the cameraman here, perhaps they should have included a sign to indicate just what that was. At least it was placed next to another rarity by Mr. Skelly from his Cinematronics days, the 1-on-1 knight fighting game Warrior.
Details about how this new cabinet came into being can be found here at the KLOV Forums. The cabinet was designed to fit into the likely style that Gottlieb would have used had the game reached the full production phase. It also had new artwork done for it by artist Frank Brunner who created the artwork for many arcade games including various titles that Skelly had created.
As for how the game plays? Think of it as a unique, cartoony spin on Robotron. It would have given Gottlieb another character to use aside from Q*Bert but it was a time in the industry where many games got the axe. The game was unknown until its discovery in 2000, where it was subsquently put onto MAME but I’m certain that it’s more enjoyable to play on a dedicated cabinet. Here’s a video of the game via MAME below.
This game was actually announced back in 1983 or 1984. There was a write up of the gameplay and a couple of screenshots in the magazine Electronic Games (now EGM). My friends and I couldn’t wait to play it and looked for it constantly at the arcades. I’m pretty sure Electronic Games ran a follow up article in a later issue mentioning the game was canceled since I recall my friends and I took the news pretty hard.