Video Game Vintage Title: Crackpots

Crackpots

Crackpots is an Atari 2600 game designed by Dan Kitchen and published by Activision in 1983. Crackpots was bundled with the Activision Anthology release in 2002 for the PlayStation 2.

Crackpots Gameplay

In Crackpots, the player controls Potsy, a gardener. Potsy's Brooklyn building is being overrun by bugs trying to climb inside six different windows. The player moves Potsy back and forth along the roof to drop pots on the bugs before they get close enough to enter the windows.

The types of insects enter the walls in different patterns. Black bugs will move straight up the building, blue bugs wiggle from left to right, red bugs move diagonally, and green bugs zig-zag between windows.

Each level consists of four waves of twelve bugs each; defeat all four waves and the player will move on to a faster-paced level. Play then resumes until the building crumbles to the ground.

Whenever the player allows six bugs to enter the windows, one of the building's six layers will disappear and they'll begin the next wave closer to the ground.