Whac-A-Mole

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Original redemption version Whac-A-Mole

Whac-A-Mole ( Engl. Whack "slap" and mole "mole") is an arcade - or a computer game and toy, in the moles which emerge from holes have to be beaten by a hammer or key back into the holes . The game was invented by Aaron Fechter in 1976. Bob's Space Racers has applied for a patent for the game. There are numerous mechanical or electronic implementations of the game, as well as implementations for home computers .

matchfield

In the original version there are three holes at the top and two at the bottom for two players. Black rubber hammers are used.

The electronic version Mole Attack (1982) has 3 × 3 holes (nine large keys)

Goal of the game

The player must hit as many moles as possible or be faster than his opponent. This creates a competition for the ability to react. Later, several moles come out at the same time.

Mole Attack
Mole Attack Arcade cabinet.jpg
Studio Yachiyo Electronics
Publisher Yachiyo Electronics
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1982
genre Skill game
Game mode up to 2 players in turns
control 9 buttons (3 × 3)
casing Mini
Arcade system Main CPU : 6502 (@ 4 MHz)
Sound CPU: -
Sound chips: AY-3-8910 (@ 2 MHz)
monitor Raster resolution 320 × 200 (4: 3 horizontal) Color palette: 8

variants

Arcade

  • Whac-A-Mole, 1976, game device with real holes, rubber mallet ( redemption game )
  • Mole Hunter ( Data East , 1980) (electronic)
  • Mole Attack (Yachiyo Electronics, 1982)
  • Holey Moley (Tai, 1982)
  • Monkey Mole Panic ( Taito , 1992)

Ports

mostly as a mole attack

  • VC-20 (German title: Hau den Lukas)
  • C-64
  • Game Boy Advance (2005)
  • Nintendo DS
  • Windows / Flash
  • Macintosh (Smack-a-Skunk by Ingemar Ragnemalm for Mac Classic with any replaceable pictures)
  • Mobile games
  • as Wak-A-Rat in the computer game Sam & Max
  • numerous newer variants. Heads of politicians are particularly popular instead of moles. There are also letters for learning the ABC.

toy

There is also a small plastic version for children.

Colloquial use

The term “Whac-a-mole” (or “Whack-a-mole”) is colloquially used in English to denote a repetitive and futile task: every time an opponent is “beaten”, he only dives up again somewhere else. In a military context, the term is used to refer to supposedly inferior opposing forces that keep reappearing. In a programming / debugging context, it refers to the fact that fixing a bug has a certain chance of generating one or more new bugs that must be fixed again itself. In the context of the World Wide Web , it refers to the process of warding off recurring spammers , vandals or pests. It was also used for fake news .

Web links