Q*bert

What Q*bert is like to play

Q*bert puts you on top of a 28-cube pyramid with one job and four diagonal directions to do it in. Every hop recolors the cube you land on; recolor them all and the level is yours. Simple - Until the balls start bouncing down the pyramid and a snake hatches with your exact coordinates in mind. Your only trick is the pair of escape discs floating off the pyramid's edges: hop aboard and they ferry you to the top while the snake, mid-lunge, sails into the void. Each level cycles the color rules, so later pyramids demand two visits per cube or punish you for stepping back on finished ones. Our version keeps the diagonal hop honest on arrows, WASD, or a swipe, and rolls fresh enemy waves down the pyramid every time. Same cubes, same snake, a new bombardment - Hop carefully.

Q*bert at a glance

Where Q*bert came from

In 1982, arcade maker Gottlieb shipped Q*bert, built by programmer Warren Davis and artist Jeff Lee. Lee had drawn an M.C. Escher-inspired pyramid of cubes; Davis added a hopping orange character with a tube nose, bouncing enemies, and physics that made every level a tiny logistics puzzle. When players got caught, the character swore in a comic-strip speech bubble - @!#?@! - While a pinball knocker inside the cabinet thumped to sell the fall.

The little orange fuzzball became one of the most famous characters of the golden age, starring in the Saturday Supercade cartoon block in 1983 and covering lunchboxes across America. A sequel, Q*bert's Qubes, followed in 1983, and the character kept resurfacing decades later with cameos in Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and Pixels (2015) - Proof that hopping diagonally and swearing in symbols never goes out of style.

The formula survives beautifully in a browser: a pyramid, a hunter, and controls your brain must learn to rotate. Q*bert keeps that isometric challenge intact and rolls new enemy waves every attempt, so reading diagonals fast stays the only skill that helps.

Ways people play Q*bert

Arcade Q*bert rules

The 1982 original: Coily the snake, Ugg and Wrongway crawling the cube sides, and green balls that freeze time when caught.

Q*bert's Qubes

The 1983 sequel where cubes rotate as you hop across them, turning each move into a three-sided color puzzle.

Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert

A legendary unreleased 1983 follow-up built at Gottlieb - Recovered years later and beloved by collectors for doing exactly what its title promises.

Q*bert Rebooted

The 2014 revival that swapped cubes for hexagons, adding a sixth hop direction to a formula that already bent brains with four.

If you like Q*bert, try these next

Four games from the same shelf, each with its own pace. The one-line summaries are how their own pages describe them.