is a fixed shooter

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

released by Konami in Japan in 1982. It was manufactured in North America by

Stern Electronics Stern is the name of two different but related arcade gaming companies. Stern Electronics, Inc. manufactured arcade video games and pinball machines from 1977 until 1985, and was best known for '' Berzerk''. Stern Pinball, Inc., founded in 1999 ...

. The player controls "Mama", a pig whose babies have been kidnapped by a group of wolves.

Gameplay

The player controls Mama Pig, whose babies have been kidnapped by a pack of wolves and who must rescue them using a bow and arrow and slabs of meat. Controls consist of a two-position up/down joystick, which moves an elevator in which Mama Pig rides; and a button, which fires arrows and throws meat. Each level consists of two rounds. In the first, wolves descend slowly from a high ledge using balloons, which the player must shoot in order to drop them to the ground. Any wolves who reach the ground safely will climb up a set of ladders behind the elevator and try to eat Mama Pig if she moves in front of them. During the second round, the wolves start on the ground and inflate balloons in order to ascend to a cliff on which a boulder is resting so they can push it toward the edge. Airborne wolves throw rocks in both rounds, trying to hit Mama Pig. In addition, the balloon carrying the last "boss" wolf of the second round must be shot several times in order to defeat him; if he reaches the cliff, the player must defeat additional enemies before facing the boss again. A slab of meat occasionally appears at the top of the elevator's range of motion. Picking it up allows the player to throw it, distracting any wolves on/near its trajectory and causing them to let go of their balloons and crash to the ground for bonus points. Stray balloons and dropped fruits can also be shot for extra points. After every second round, a bonus screen is played. The first such screen requires the player to defeat a group of wolves using only meat, while the second awards points for shooting fruits thrown by the wolves. These two screens alternate after each level. The player loses one life if Mama Pig is hit by a rock, eaten by a wolf on the ladders (first round only), or crushed by the boulder if too many wolves reach the cliff and push it over the edge (second round only). When all lives are lost, the game ends. When the game starts, " The Other Day I Met a Bear" can be heard during the opening scene (in which the wolves kidnap Mama's babies). The first stage theme bears a very slight resemblance to the main theme music from '' Frogger'', another Konami arcade game. The song is a part of the Desecration Rag (An Operatic Nightmare) by Felix Arndt, the portion that mimics the beginning of

Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...

's Humoresque Opus 101 Number 7. After the second stage is cleared a second time, a part of " Oh! Susanna" can be heard.

Ports

Datasoft released ''Pooyan'' programmed by Scott Spanburg for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

in 1983. It was also ported to the Atari 2600, TRS-80 Color Computer,

Sord M5 The Sord M5 is a home computer launched by Sord Computer Corporation in 1982. Primarily the Sord M5 competed in the Japanese home computer market. It was also sold as the CGL M5 in the United Kingdom by Computer Games Limited and was reasonably p ...

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

, TRS-80, Tomy Tutor, PV-1000, and Famicom.

Legacy

''Pooyan'' is included on a compilation, Konami Arcade Classics, released on the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

and in arcades with the title ''Konami 80's AC Special''. An emulated version of the game was released in 2006 for

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

as part of the '' Oretachi Geasen Zoku Sono''-series. The Famicom port was released for the Virtual Console in

. Hamster Corporation released the Japanese arcade version of ''Pooyan'' on

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

and PS4 as part of its

Arcade Archives is a series of emulated arcade games from the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch, published by Hamster Corporation. A sub-series called is focused on rereleasing Neo Geo ...

series. The game was released on June 13, 2019 for the Switch in all regions, and for the PS4 in North America and Japan. It was released on July 29, 2019 for the PS4 in all other regions. Both the Switch and PS4 versions have on-screen language support for the English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish languages. There is a series of extra ops in '' Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker'' known as the "Pooyan Missions", which involves shooting Fulton surface-to-air recovery balloons carrying abducted soldiers off into the air. Sound effects and music from the arcade game are used throughout the mission.

Clones

A largely identical bootleg was sold under the name ''Pootan''.

In other media

* ''Pooyan'' was one of the video games adapted to

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

, titled ''Famicom Rocky'' published by Coro Coro Comics from 1985 to 1987. * Mama Pig from ''Pooyan'' made a cameo appearance in the panel manga ''Konami 4Koma Manga Wai Wai World'', part of the ''Famicom Runners High''.

Highest score

David Hanzman of Rochester, NY, USA, scored a world record 1,609,250 points on the arcade version of Pooyan on December 16, 1983.
Archived copy
at WebCite (July 14, 2007).

References

External links

*
''Pooyan''
at the Arcade History database * {{IAg, atari_2600_pooyan_1983_konami_rc_100-x_02, platform=Atari 2600 1982 video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Stern video games Arcade video games Fixed shooters MSX games Konami games Datasoft games Atari 2600 games Commodore 64 games Konami arcade games Virtual Console games Atari 8-bit family games Hamster Corporation games TRS-80 Color Computer games Virtual Console games for Wii U Nintendo Entertainment System games Video games about pigs Video games about children Video games about families Video games about wolves Kidnapping in fiction Video games featuring female protagonists Video games developed in Japan