Blog:Crush Roller/Make Trax (Arcade)

CRV 08:48, 19 December 2011 (CST) [permalink] [comments]

Crush Roller (released Stateside by Williams as Make Trax) is one of a number of maze games that were released in the wake of Pac-Man. But instead of gobbling up dots, you must try to paint the entire maze with your paintbrush.

And instead of ghosts, sinister goldfish will try to snuff you out. Run over them with the rollers situated in the maze for points and temporary relief.

That's not all - cats, birds, mice, tires, and invisible men will leave tracks in the paint. Catch them before they ruin all your hard work.

Despite what you might read on the Internet, Crush Roller was not originally by a South Korean company called Kural Samno. It was actually released in Japan by Kural Electric (or "Craul Denshi") and developed by ADK, then known as Alpha Denshi.

US copyright records back up Alpha's involvement. Former Alpha programmer Masashi Yamaguchi worked on this and other early Alpha games such as Champion Baseball and the Crush followup Korosuke Roller, in which you control a squid. He was interviewed in Terebi Game Kitan.

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Remake

If that's too old-fashioned for you, you might be more interested in the Neo Geo Pocket Color version from 1999. It features updated graphics and sound as well as time trial and versus modes. You can also collect the pesky critters that make tracks.

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Comments

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taizou said ...

I can't let this pass without mentioning the unofficial Taiwanese Famicom port, "Brush Roller": http://bootleggames.wikia.com/wiki/Brush_Roller with its infamous purple... thing (which may or may not be supposed to be Son Wukong of Journey to the West).

And it later, somehow, fell into the hands of NTDEC, who changed the graphics and sound and released it as "Bookyman" on the Caltron 6 in 1 multicart..

--taizou 18:55, 19 December 2011 (CST)

CRV said ...

Thank you. I decided against talking about the knockoffs.

But I should have talked about the video. With the right skills, you can just keep rolling over the goldfish for big points.

--CRV 06:57, 20 December 2011 (CST)

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