Lost In Translation/Turtles

About The Game
Turtles is an overhead-view, maze-based arcade video game.

A standard maze game (one of dozens released in the wake of "Pac-Man"), with a few twists. The game begins by showing your turtle entering a building (a very early 'cut scene'), you are then presented with the first maze.

Each maze has several boxes (with question marks on them), scattered around. You most open these boxes one at a time by walking on to them. Each box contains either an enemy bug (who will pursue you), or a 'KidTurtle'. The 'KidTurtles' are what you are looking for here. When you find one it will climb onto your back, and take it back to the turtle house which will be located in one of the corners.

After you rescue a few turtles the game becomes more difficult because of the amount of baddies that you will have released, but luckily a star will appear in the centre of the screen to help you out. Grab this star to gain land mines. You can drop these in the path of a baddie, and cause him to freeze temporarily (you can safely walk over frozen baddies). A new game screen starts after you rescue all the 'KidTurtles'. After 8 levels you get to watch a small ending sequence, and then the game starts over with increased difficulty.

Trivia
Released in November 1981.

Konami originally wrote this game (which they mysteriously titled "600"), but it was licensed to Stern for US and European distribution (12/1981), and only a limited number of games were made bearing the "600" name. Konami also licensed this title to Sega as well, which they released under the name "Turpin".

Turtles came in an upright cabinet. This game used the standard 'Stern' cabinet that most Stern titles used, side-art was often just a painted 'Stern' logo on these. The marquee, monitor bezel, and control panel overlay all feature delightful cartoon turtle graphics in a very distinct style. The control panel has a single ball-top 4-Way joystick mounted in the centre, with bomb buttons way off to each side.

Entex Industries released a board game based on this video game (same name) in 1982 : It's each player's goal to rescue as many cute little turtlettes as possible and bring'em safely back to the home pond. But watch out for the evil beetles 'cause they're out to getcha!

Ports

 * Consoles :
 * Entex AdventureVision (1982)
 * Emerson Arcadia 2001
 * G7000 Videopac


 * Others :
 * VFD handheld game (1982) released by Entex