Tapper

1984 computer games Atari gamesCommodore 64 gamesApple gamesAmstrad gamesZX Spectrum games

arcade games

Arcade game that can be model to show how arcade should look like - very simple, easy to learn, fun to play.

Originally published for arcades, Tapper was devised as a promotional piece for Budweiser, later re-branded for Mountain Dew and ported to every possible platform it became a pinnacle of arcade games. You are a beer tapper (or a barman) in charge of four lanes in a bar or at the back of the football stadium (on different levels). All you have to do is provide your customers with their beer mugs and pick up empty glasses when they are finished. That is it.

So where is the fun in that, you may ask. Yes, I need to use that form of rhetorical device, asking questions no one will ask, because there is not much to say about Tapper - it is an extremely simple game. The fun of the gameplay was in its simplicity - there are 4 lanes, your customers will move along them as long as they have no beer in their hand. When any of them reach the end of the lane, you lose. How to stop them closing in? Send them a beer mug down the lane. If you send more mugs than there are customers waiting along that lane, you lose. After they customers will finish their beer, they will send back down the lane the empty glass, you have to pick them up before they will break. And that is it.

Well, not exactly, "it", because after few levels you will get a minigame that usually involves guessing which can of beer was not shaken by the devil. I know hot it sounds, but that is exactly what the minigame is all about. And, again, it is so simple that it is fun to play and a nice break from the main gameplay.

What else can be said about Tapper? Not much. It is that simple game and it was the simplicity that made it so much fun.

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Tapper screenshots

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