Food Fight

About Food Fight

Food Fight (1983) is General Computer Corporation's arcade game for Atari in which Charley Chuck dodges four chefs and a hail of pies, peas and watermelon to eat an ice cream cone before it melts.

Food Fight in Depth

Charley Chuck must reach and eat an ice cream cone on the far side of an open playfield before it melts completely, steering with an analogue joystick and throwing with a single button. In his way are four chefs, Oscar, Angelo, Jacques and Zorba, told apart by their hats, big and round, small and rectangular, tall and slender, and flat and limp. They climb out of holes in the floor, which also bring them back if they meet with an accident, and chase Charley. Piles of pies, peas, tomatoes and bananas lie around the screen, and both Charley and the chefs grab food from them to throw; most foods run out, but watermelon never does. A chef hit by food, from Charley or another chef, is knocked off screen. Charley loses a life if he touches a chef, is hit by thrown food, falls into an open hole or lets the cone melt.

Points come from hitting chefs and luring them into holes, and eating the cone ends the level with a bonus for every unused piece of food except watermelon. The cone's value rises until level 50, and food held when Charley eats it carries over to the next level. After a level with a close call, the game sometimes plays an instant replay of the whole level to music.

Making Food Fight

General Computer Corporation, which designed the Atari 7800's custom chips and produced Ms. Pac-Man, came to work with Atari after a dispute: it had made a kit to speed up Missile Command machines and claimed the copyright for the modified game, so Atari sued it for $15 million. They settled out of court, with Atari contracting GCC to make games including Food Fight and Quantum. Jonathan Hurd said everyone at GCC contributed. Food Fight was released for the Atari 7800 in 1986 and the same year on cartridge for the Atari 8-bit computers in the style of the XEGS, while a 2600 port was cancelled. In the 7800 version, if Charley is rarely hit during the replay, the game shows "ALMOST MADE IT" and restores the lost life. Clones called Foodwar and Mudpies appeared for the TRS-80 Color Computer in 1983, the arcade version came to Microsoft's Game Room, and a third-person shooter reimagining reached the Atari VCS in early access in December 2023.