Make Trax
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| Make Trax | |
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| Developer(s) | Williams |
| Publisher(s) | Williams |
| Release date(s) | 1981 |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Nintendo Famicom, Pelican VG Pocket |
| Arcade cabinet | Upright and cocktail |
| Arcade display | Raster, standard resolution, vertical orientation |
Make Trax is an arcade game introduced by Williams in 1981. It is a maze-themed game which is similar to Pac-Man. It was released in Europe, Japan and other Asian countries in the same year as Crush Roller and was licenced to Williams for US release by the South Korean company Kural Samno.
The action takes place in an aquarium, where the player controls a paintbrush and must paint the entire layout in order to advance to the next stage. Two fish resembling goldfish — one yellow in color, the other light blue — pursue the paintbrush around the board, and if either of the fish succeeds in making contact with the paintbrush, the brush is "spoiled" (the equivalent of getting caught in Pac-Man): The brush disappears from the screen momentarily, then, over the course of the next few seconds, the shape of what appears to be a cowboy hat with an arrow shot through it gradually forms in its place, while the chorus of the classic ragtime tune The Twelfth Street Rag is played by the machine.
As in Pac-Man, the player is provided with an opportunity to periodically turn the tables on his adversaries, though — and this takes the form of two "rollers" which can be found on two "bridges" or overpasses, one vertical in its orientation on the board, the other horizontal. To utilize a roller, the player positions the paintbrush on the forward end of the roller, waits for either or both of the fish to approach, then pushes the paintbrush along the roller, attacking the fish; the attacked fish then disappears for a moment, after which it shows up in either of two fish tanks located near the top of the screen; a few seconds later it returns to the layout and resumes its pursuit of the paintbrush. Killing fish in this manner scores bonus points: On the first board, the first fish killed scores 50 points, with each subsequent kill on the same board doubling the value, up to 6,400 points; the next kill after the 6,400-point kill scores 9,000, after which the fish never venture within range of the rollers for the remainder of that board. The value of the first killed fish doubles in every board thereafter.
In addition to the paintbrush and fish, another character is also present: It appears either as an animal or human figure, and a few minutes after a given board has started, it emerges from one of several spots found at various locations on the screen, and proceeds to travel around the board, leaving tracks that must be painted over in order for the board to be completed (and it is this character's action that accounts for the game's title). The player can limit the damage by running over the figure, which not only stops further tracks from being left but also awards the player a score, which progressively increases as more boards are cleared. What form this character takes varies with different boards, or levels; a cat appears on the first level, while the most advanced levels feature an invisible man who leaves human footprints.
The player starts with three paintbrushes, and can earn a fourth by amassing 10,000 points, which in a typical game would occur sometime during the second board. When all brushes are spoiled, the game is over.
Some time after the release of the original game, a "speedup chip" allowing the paintbrush (but not the fish) to move faster was added. The variant of the game containing this chip was accorded the name Make Trax Turbo.
A Neo Geo Pocket Color update of the game was released worldwide by SNK under its Japanese name Crush Roller. Additionally, it was ported to the Nintendo Famicom system by Hwang Shinwei as Brush Roller, although this port was not licensed by either Nintendo or the creators of the game. This game was cloned as a port for the Pelican VG Pocket under the name "Paint".
[edit] Trivia
The background music for Make Trax was also used for the game Magic Jewelry.
