Turtles



Turtles is a 1981 arcade game published by Stern Electronics that is an alteration of an arcade game originally developed by Konami called 600. In both games, a Mama turtle must rescue six baby turtles from a maze and return them home while avoiding contact with enemies. However, like its title, 600 was a little more abstract. In 600, the turtle's enemies were a set of race cars. The race cars were transformed into Beetles for the audience outside of Japan.

There were a couple of other important changes. In 600, the mother had to collect all six babies in the stage before the exit appeared, and she would bring them all home at one time. In Turtles, the player must collect and return each baby individually in order to proceed through the game, making Turtles much longer more challenging to play. In 600, the mother turtle could release "bombs" that could stun the enemy race cars. These bombs depleted an energy meter which the baby turtles would partially refill. In Turtles, the player has a determined stock of bombs, that can only be increased by collecting the blinking bomb icon whenever it appears in the center of the maze. It is much easier to run out of bombs in Turtles and end up defenseless than it is in 600.

The game was also licensed to Sega, who renamed it Turpin and used Stern's concept of the game rather than Konami's, although it is unclear what the licensing arrangement between all three companies were. Turtles was not a huge success, and it bears the distinction of being ported to three of the most obscure consoles available; the Arcade 2001, the Magnavox Odyssey², and the Entex Adventure Vision which was a standalone console that used a rotating mirror and red LEDs (much like Nintendo's Virtual Boy). Only three other games were created for the system.

Story
Mama Turtle's babies have been kidnapped. They are scattered through eight floor of a tall building. Help Mama get in and rescue the babies from each floor while avoiding the dangerous enemies that lie waiting within.