{"id":46374,"date":"2026-02-20T00:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T05:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=46374"},"modified":"2026-02-15T21:39:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T02:39:49","slug":"retro-videogame-mystery-minis-qbert-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2026\/02\/retro-videogame-mystery-minis-qbert-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Retro Videogame Mystery Minis - Q*bert reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Funko<\/p>\n

The reason computers run on binary code is because they run on electricity: either a switch is on or it's off, no in-between. It's either A or B, 1 or 0, left or right. It was this simplicity that led programmer Warren Davis, working for pinball machine manufacturer Gottlieb, to create Q*Bert<\/i>. He envisioned a ball bouncing down steps on a pyramid; every time it landed, it would only have the option to go one of two directions from there, making programming it pretty easy; with each \"decision\" the ball needing to make only requiring one bit, its entire path could be determined by just one byte, making for a simple, low-memory simulation of randomness and gravity. But the challenge then was to make it a game<\/b> and not just a programming exercise.<\/p>\n

The characters and other graphics were created by Jeff Lee, with Q*bert himself actually pre-dating the rest of the game. See, although Gottlieb was a pinball company, they recognized the growing appeal of videogames, and so were looking to get in on the new trend; Lee had designed several characters with the thought that they might be used in one of these theoretical future games, so Davis had plenty to pick from. He chose the orange one with the big nose, thinking it \"looked kind of helpless.\" The original idea for the character was that he'd shoot projectiles out of his nose (possibly in game to be called \"Snots and Boogers\"), something Davis resisted; it was VP of Engineering Ron Waxman who finally suggested the \"change the color of the blocks\" game mechanic.<\/p>\n

Q*bert is, iconically, a large sphere with feet, so that's what this Mystery Mini<\/i> delivers. He's a little more than 2⅝\" tall, witha pair of three-toed feet on the end of spindly legs sticking out from his underside. The knees are bent slightly, which makes sense for a character who jumps everywhere. His tubular nose sticks out and curves down slightly, and there are sculpted eyebrow ridges over his painted eyes. The eyes are black with white highlight dots in them, and the interior of his nose is painted dark to suggest shadow.<\/p>\n

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\"Funko<\/p>\n

With the name \"Snots and Boogers\" being rejected, Gottlieb needed something to call their new game. They wanted to call it \"@!#?@!,\" after the grawlixes shown in the speech bubbles in the game and on the side of the cabinet - in fact, the earliest machines shipped to arcades actually had that name up on the marquee! But you can't pronounce @!#?@!<\/i>, so an internal competition was held to come up with a name for the game and character. A strong contender was \"Hubert,\" modified to \"Cubert\" because the game involved jumping on cubes, but then it was changed to Q-bert so no one would mistakenly say it as \"cub-bert,\" and finally the hyphen was changed to an asterisk, giving us Q*bert as we know him today.<\/p>\n

After Q*bert enters the map, a purple ball appears at the top of the pyramid and bounces its way dowm. When it reaches the bottom, it turns into Coily, \"the snake with the perilous pounce,\" and begins hunting Q*bert. The only way to deal with him is to lure him off the side of the pyramid by jumping onto one of the floating discs that will carry you to the top whle he falls to his doom. That series of actions allowed Gottlieb to create a bit of immersive action with the game: they were, primarily, a companythat mae pinball machines, so they knew a lot about physical activations inside games; technician Rick Tighe suggested they put a knocker inside the cabinet that would fire off when a character died, creating the illusion that they'd fallen off the screen and landed with a thump somewhere down inside.<\/p>\n

The game's character sprites were limited to a 16x16 pixel grid, but Coily was special and so got the luxury of two of those grids stacked atop one another - you know, so they could show him stretching out as he sprung upward. This Mini<\/i> shows him in his most compact state, though since he's molded as an actual coiled shape and not as a solid cylinder that merely has a coil shape sculpted on it, you can stretch him out a bit if you want to. His body is pure purple, with white fangs, a red tongue, and yellow eyes. The eyes have a highlight spot in them. but since it's a white dot against yellow, you're never going to see it.<\/p>\n

The Retro Videogame Mystery Minis<\/i> are larger than you'd expect, and come in packaging designed to represent the old arcade cabinets - you can tell which game a Mini will be from, but not which figure is inside the box. If you wanted Q*bert and Coily, all you had to do was grab both Q*bert<\/i> boxes from one case (good thing all the figures were available in a 1:12 ratio).<\/p>\n

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<i>And now, some more OAFEry:<\/i><\/H5>