Tapper

You’ve got thirty thirsty patrons staring you down and all you have to do is serve them their beers. Sounds simple, right? Well, it was… if you could keep your patrons happy and a cold brew in their hand. The only problem was, they drank their beers fast. There was no sipping and chatting the night away with their neighbor. There was no pacing one’s self. These people may as well have had beer bongs and chugging contests! Five seconds after you slid that mug of frothy goodness down the bar to them, they were sending back their empty glass and demanding another! And these weren’t your average customers. If they didn’t get their beer quickly enough, they started waving their arms in the air, hounding you for more. It was not a pretty site.

Thank goodness it was only a game.

Tapper came into our lives in 1983 and it was love at first…beer? Well, technically. The first version of the game was completely branded by Budweiser. Which, really? It’s aimed towards kids so not really the best route. No worries though. The root beer version showed up a year later and parents around the world breathed a sigh of relief, secure in the fact that they wouldn’t have to blame a video game on their child’s future alcoholism.

The point of the game involved you, the bartender, keeping all your customers happy with a (root) beer in hand at all times. You would fill the glass, slide it down the ridiculously long bar, and move to your next customer at the next bar. If the customer was still finishing their previous beer or otherwise distracted, they wouldn’t be able to catch the glass you slid to them and the glass would break. A broken glass equaled a lost life so, you needed to keep all your glasses in tact. Doesn’t sound so hard, does it? Well, let’s factor in the fact that when a customer is finished with their drink they have to slide it back to you and you have to catch it, all the while filling up glasses for other customers and collecting your tips from the ends of the bars before they expired. (Phew! That’s a workout just thinking about it.)

There were four different bars you could work in. One was a saloon with cowboys, one was a sporting event with thirsty fans, one was some sort of punk rock bar with mo-hawked rockers and the best one? Well, that was the space bar with the aliens. Just admit it. You always dreamed of serving intergalactic drinks to some aliens.

The game was weird, (what in the 80s wasn’t?) it wasn’t really appropriate, (once again, something we saw in the 80s quite a bit.) and holy cow, it was addicting! So, you guessed it, we ♥ it.

We ♥ Tapper.

~ by weheart80s on June 14, 2010.