Food Fight (video game)

Food Fight
Developer(s)	General Computer Corporation
Publisher(s)	Atari, Inc.
Platform(s)	Arcade
Release date(s)	March 1983
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet	Upright and cocktail
Arcade system	Atari 68000
CPU	Motorola 68000
Display	Raster, standard resolution, horizontal

Food Fight (also styled as Charley Chuck's Food Fight)^[1] is an arcade game released by Atari, Inc. in March 1983.^[2] The player guides Charley Chuck, who is trying to eat an ice cream cone before it melts, while avoiding four chefs bent on stopping him. The game sold 1,951 video game arcade cabinets.^[2]

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot

In Food Fight, the player controls a young boy named Charley Chuck. The object of the game is to eat an ice cream cone located on the opposite side of an open playfield. The ice cream is slowly melting, and must be consumed before it melts completely. Standing between Charley and the ice cream are four chefs named Angelo, Jacques, Oscar, and Zorba.^[3]

The chefs appear from holes in the floor of the level and will chase after Charley. The chefs are identified by the shape of their toques: Angelo's is short and rectangular; Jacques' is curved; Oscar's is big and round; and Zorba's is tall and slender.^[1]

Scattered throughout the level are piles of food, such as pies, peas, tomatoes, and bananas. Both the player and the chefs can grab food from the piles to throw at each other. The supplies of most foods are limited, but watermelon, which appears either on special levels exclusively or with other foods in later levels, is unlimited in supply.^[1] If the chefs are hit by food thrown either by the player or by other chefs, they are taken down for a few seconds.^[1] If the player is hit, a life is lost. The player also loses a life if a chef touches Charley, if Charley falls through an open hole, or if the ice cream melts before it is eaten.^[1]

Points are scored for each chef hit by food thrown by the player (up to 1,000 points each), luring a chef over an open hole and for each remaining pile of food on the level.^[3] The ice cream is worth 500 points multiplied by the level number, up to a maximum of 25,000 points from level 50 onwards to the last regular level, level 125.^[3] If the player has at least one close call with flying food and a chef, the game will present the player with an instant replay of that level.^[4]

Development

Food Fight was developed by General Computer Corporation (GCC), the same company that produced Midway's Ms. Pac-Man. Like Ms. Pac-Man, GCC's connection to Atari was born out of accusations of copyright infringement. The company had produced a kit that would speed up Atari's Missile Command arcade machines, but with General Computer claiming the copyright for the modified game.^[3] Fearing for its intellectual property rights, Atari sued GCC for USD$15 million.^[5] The case was settled out of court, with Atari contracting GCC to produce video games for them, including Food Fight and Quantum.^[5]

In an interview Jonathan Hurd said everyone at GCC contributed to the development. The initials of the people who were most heavily involved in creating Food Fight are in the high score table.^[6]

Ports

Food Fight was ported to the Atari 7800 gaming console in 1987,^[7] and to the Atari XEGS in 1988. A port for the Atari 2600 console was initially planned, but later canceled.^[8]

More recently, the Atari 7800 version was included in the Atari Flashback gaming unit. In November 2010, Microsoft announced plans to re-release the arcade version of Food Fight for its Game Room service for the Xbox 360 console.

World records

The world record high score for Food Fight using the game's default settings is 103,103,100 points, set by Ken Okumura in January 1984.^[9] Under tournament settings, the world record is 1,234,100 points, set by Jon Dworkin in June 2001.^[10]

References

External links

• Food Fight at the Killer List of Videogames
• Food Fight at the Arcade History database
• Jonathan Hurd interview
• Food Fight at MobyGames
• The Atari 7800 version of Food Fight can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive