The Classic Arcade and Console Era (1972-1989) - Domino Man
Set up dominos and knock them down. Sounds easy enough, right? This unique arcade game proves otherwise!
RELEASE DATE: 1983
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Marvin Glass and Associates / Bally Midway
BEST VERSIONS: Arcade
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Fairly playable
It’s surprising that in the vast history of video games, there are few games specifically about dominos, and even fewer that are about the rainy day activity of setting up dominos in a line and then knocking them over. But less you think that idea has gone untapped, it was actually was – by the makers of Tapper, even! – in the 1983 arcade game Domino, which stars the same mustachioed hero who, instead of slinging suds, now has the bright idea of setting up giant arcs of dominos in increasingly hostile public spaces.
The goal of the game is simple: set up dominos on spots throughout a single screen map and try to knock over as many as possible in succession to max out your score. If you can get all of the dominos placed without knocking them over (or having them get bumped by something else on the screen), you can let loose and let the whole line go or your can delay gratification to receive bonus points on the next level.
The enemies you face come in three basic varieties – hapless pedestrians who don’t mean you any harm and can be pushed out of the way before they knock dominos over, bullies who definitely mean you harm and can’t be pushed, and killer bees who not only want to harm you but will chase you relentlessly around the screen until you swat them. Letting an enemy knock over dominos means you’ll not only have to reset whatever was knocked over, but you’ll also lose one of your lives, so it’s a good idea to aggressively push away the pedestrians and remove dominos in the path of the bully. But if you can grab a domino from the collapsing line before it’s knocked over, you can save yourself from losing a life. This is one reason it’s a good idea to place dominos in a continuous line rather than haphazardly – you’re much more likely to stop a long line from completely falling than a smaller one.
Domino Man is a repetitive game, only featuring three stages – a city park, golf course and construction site – with only a little bit of variation between the enemies. The only real difference as the game progresses is the increasingly difficult path the dominos are required to follow, graduating from slight arcs to complex loops. And yet it’s engaging enough that it can justify an extended playthrough just to see how far you can get. The graphics are nicely drawn in that distinctive Marvin Glass and Associates style seen in Tapper and Timber and are quite impressive for a 1983 arcade game. Every three stages, you also get to see a little cartoon of the characters acting out a humorous scene, like the bully being embarrassed as his pants fall down, or the Domino Man disintegrating the bully with a raygun.
The sound is also standout for the era - a cheerful rendition of Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag plays in the background, and every time a killer bee comes by, a stinger from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee plays. The bully’s entrance is also marked by deep kettle-drum style tones as if the soundtrack is announcing his footsteps.
But perhaps the most famous aspect of this game is the cheesy poetry it throws at you to remark on your score (minus apostrophes, for some reason). Here are some examples:
Roses are red / and so is your face / if ___ dominos / is all you can place
Roses are red / and violets are blue / you got ___ up / my hats off to you
Roses are red / like the bullys complexion / your score of ____ / is certainly perfection
While the game doesn’t have a proper killscreen, you can make it glitch on the poem if you place over 3,624 dominos, resulting in it spouting out gibberish and random tiles in place of letters.
Unfortunately, the only way to play Domino Man today short of finding an original cabinet is to download a game ROM and play with an emulator. It was never included in any of the Midway Arcade Treasures compilations and is, at least as of yet, not available through any retro services like Antstream Arcade that frequently carry Bally Midway classics. Here’s to hoping we’ll see it re-released legally one day.
As Our Series Continues…
We’re winding down the 1970s and 80s arcade scene with some unusual titles that defy description, including Nintendo’s odd Sky Skipper, Sega’s beefy Super Locomotive, Imagic’s Intellivision adventure White Water and the very weird Snacks’n Jaxson, where you have to feed a hungry clown with a super long neck.
If you’ve never heard of any of those games, you’re in for a treat as we explore them one by one. And if those games are all old hat to you, don’t worry; they’re just the tip of the iceberg for what we’ll be discussing!
If you missed my series on the hundreds of 1980s PC games you probably never played, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 2. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!