My Video Game Library: Q*Bert?!

    When scheduling posts for my latest series, I tried to plan it so that any of the side-quest posts on Mondays would coordinate with the following regular on Wednesdays somehow.  For instance, when I had the side-quest post about gaming magazines, the following regular post was about a game I picked up due to reading about it in a magazine.  Last week, I talked about guides, and the next post was about the game I needed guides that most for. My next side-quest with tie very closely with the next few games.  However, since I want the side-quest posts to precede regular post immediately, and since I don't to have regular posts on Mondays, I am left with a quandary.  I either have to cover games I didn't want to or come up with some other tangential topics to cover.  These posts were supposed to occur nearer the end of the series, but because some of the side-quest posts had to be split up into two parts, I am forced to put one of these 'filler' posts up today.

    Technically, my first ever 'video' game was Q*Bert. The board game. One Christmas, some relative got me this. Probably a second cousin or great aunt or something.  The game board was a tray in the bottom of the box.  On it was the pyramid from the first level of Q*Bert.  Each block of the pyramid had a hole in it to place a peg before the start. One player was Q*Bert, hopping from block-to-block grabbing the pegs.  The other player controlled the bad guys trying to stop Q*Bert, moving in their own ways. (The actual rules may have included more players controlling the bad guys, but since I only had my mom to play against, this is the only way we could play.) The goal for Q*Bert was to get all the pegs, and staying away from the enemies. He even had the flying saucers on the sides for a one-time escape. The other player won by preventing Q*Bert from getting the pegs. I can't remember anything beyond this.

    I lost almost all of my board games in the 1986 flood, save Trivial Pursuit which I had taken with me. I got many of them back. For obvious reasons, Q*Bert was not one of the games still available. (I would end up losing them almost all again in the 2003 flood, save for most of a small portable chess set.  As of yet, I still haven't gotten any of them back.)