Back in the days of yore, the Icrontic forum had a built-in arcade. In this arcade was Chopper Challenge.
At first, it was a fun diversion. The mechanic was so simple that anyone could enjoy it, and friendly competition heated up. The scoreboards climbed higher and higher. First place was traded gleefully between several people.
Then, the skies grew dark. The scores climbed ever upward. They became absurd. Casual players stopped. They couldn’t handle the rivalries and smacktalking as the play became fierce. In the end, there were two people left—and they became…
Nemeses.
This is a true story: resident Icrontic mad scientist and hardware hacker, Doctor J, ended up building a custom controller just for Chopper Challenge.
He took an old 8-bit Atari controller called the Mindscape PowerPlayer, a one-hand joystick with a single trigger. He wired it to a PS2 mouse, and used it as a simpler way to “Click to go up”. I tried this device myself, and even though it seems silly, the mechanic of “pull trigger” instead of “push mouse button” to go up is more intuitive and just feels better. My scores improved with his ugly contraption.
Even more importantly, Doctor J was able to defeat the wily Cyclonite.
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