Would Like to Recall Name of Specific Arcade Game Early '90s

November 4, 2014 8:22 AM

It was an upright arcade game, but played like a board game. You and some (allegedly) hyper intelligent extraterrestrial take turns placing tokens (colonies, energy nodes, whatever) on a series of boards that change from round to round. Tokens next to the token you place get 'flipped' to your color. There was console art depicting spacey aliens with pseudopods.

Sounds kind of lame but I found it very addictive. I blew several hours and rolls of quarters playing this at the University of Maryland student center's arcade back in the early 90's, and never found another copy of it. Any help is very much appreciated!

posted by newdaddy to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

Best answer: Was it Ataxx? I too spent more time on this game when I should have been studying.
posted by jbickers at 8:36 AM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've never played it one before, but could it be Ataxx? Here's the Wikipedia entry, it looks like it's also gone under a bunch of other names.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:37 AM on November 4, 2014

Also, if you go here and do a blank search on the "Puzzle games" category, a picture of the cabinet shows up on the first page, if that'll help.
posted by jbickers at 8:44 AM on November 4, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks to both knickers and Strange Interlude! You made short work of what I thought was a very obscure question. Case closed.
posted by newdaddy at 8:53 AM on November 4, 2014