Klax — Arcade
1989 · Puzzle · Arcade
Overview
Klax (1989) is Atari's puzzle game: catch coloured tiles tumbling down a conveyor and stack them into matching rows, columns and diagonals.
Deep Dive
Tiles tumble down a conveyor toward a paddle at the bottom; the player catches them, holds up to five, and drops them into five bins to form rows, columns and diagonals of the same colour, called Klaxes. Drop too many tiles and the wave is lost. Each of the 100 waves sets a different goal, such as a number of diagonals or points. Designed by Mark Stephen Pierce with programming by Dave Akers, it is easy to learn and hard to master.
Developer Story
Klax was designed by Mark Stephen Pierce and Dave Akers at Atari Games in 1989. Coloured tiles fell down a ramp and had to be caught in a paddle, then arranged into matching columns or diagonals to clear them. The game had a sequence of 100 waves with different objectives — specific numbers of Klaxes to complete, or tiles to prevent from spilling. Klax was one of the most thoughtfully structured puzzle games of its era.
Did You Know?
- Klax's 100 waves each had distinct objectives — sometimes clear X tiles, sometimes make Y Klaxes, sometimes survive without spilling — creating sustained variety.
- Tiles could be thrown back up the ramp, but only five at a time — managing the discard pile was a secondary resource challenge.
- The game's advertising tagline "It is the nineties, and there is time for Klax" became one of gaming's more baffling marketing slogans.
- Klax was designed to be immediately learnable but deeply masterable — a 30-second tutorial was possible, but mastery took hours.
Sources & further reading
- Klax (video game) — Wikipedia
