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Battling Tops is a children's game invented by Eddy Goldfarb [1] and first manufactured by Ideal in 1968. In the game, players launch spinning tops into an arena with the aim to have the final standing spinning top. The game has similarities to gasing pangkah , a traditional Malay sport. [2]
Two to four players launch spinning tops into an arena. The object of the game is to have the last standing spinning top. The game takes place on a circular concave arena with four spinning top launch positions. Players wind a string (attached to a pull tab) around their tops, place them in the launch positions, then pull the tab vigorously to release the top. The concave surface forces the tops together to battle. The outcome is somewhat indeterminate, but there is a slight element of skill. Pegs in holes on the rim of the arena mark victories. The first to win ten battles wins the game.
There were six different colored tops to choose from—Hurricane Hank, Twirling Tim, Dizzy Dan, Smarty Smitty, Super Sam, and Tricky Nicky—although only four could battle at one time. The tops were composed of octagonal discs slipped over a ridged shaft that had a notch to engage the string. The game came with a sheet of colored stickers to place on the discs. Ostensibly the stickers were to match the color of the disc and the shaft, but it was possible to mix and match shafts, discs, and stickers (with the proviso that the stickers only stuck once). In the new version of the game, Smarty Smitty has been replaced by Cyclone Steve. In the 1968 version there was an 8 top version that included Fighting Frank and Rocky Rocko but only four colors, therefore you had four sets of two. The six player sets had red, yellow, green, light blue, white, and orange.
In 1977 it was renamed Battling Spaceships in response to Star Wars fever. After Ideal was sold in 1982, Marx took over the game. By the late 1980s, the game was out of production. In 2003, Mattel rereleased Battling Tops. [3]
Puzzle Bobble, internationally known as Bust-A-Move, is a 1994 tile-matching puzzle arcade game developed and published by Taito. It is based on the 1986 arcade game Bubble Bobble, featuring characters and themes from that game. Its characteristically cute Japanese animation and music, along with its play mechanics and level designs, made it successful as an arcade title and spawned several sequels and ports to home gaming systems.
Dr. Mario is a 1990 puzzle video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, and Game Boy. It was produced by Gunpei Yokoi and designed by Takahiro Harada. The soundtrack was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka.
Tetris Attack, also known as Panel de Pon in Japan, is a puzzle video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A Game Boy version was released a year later. In the game, the player must arrange matching colored blocks in vertical or horizontal rows to clear them. The blocks steadily rise towards the top of the playfield, with new blocks being added at the bottom. Several gameplay modes are present, including a time attack and multiplayer mode.
Uno, stylized as UNO, is a proprietary American shedding-type card game originally developed in 1971 by Merle Robbins in Reading, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, that housed International Games Inc., a gaming company acquired by Mattel on January 23, 1992.
Connect Four is a game in which the players choose a color and then take turns dropping colored tokens into a six-row, seven-column vertically suspended grid. The pieces fall straight down, occupying the lowest available space within the column. The objective of the game is to be the first to form a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line of four of one's own tokens. It is therefore a type of m,n,k-game with restricted piece placement. Connect Four is a solved game. The first player can always win by playing the right moves.
A spinning top, or simply a top, is a toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, designed to be spun on its vertical axis, balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect.
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots is a two-player action toy and game designed by Marvin Glass and Associates and was first manufactured by the Marx toy company in 1964. It features two dueling robot boxers, Red Rocker and Blue Bomber, mechanically manipulated by the players, and the game is won when one player knocks the opposing robot's head up and off the shoulders. The 2000s version of the game by Mattel features physically smaller robots.
KerPlunk is a children's game invented by Eddy Goldfarb with Rene Soriano and first marketed by the Ideal Toy Company in 1967. The game consists of a transparent plastic tube, plastic rods called straws and several dozen marbles. The base contains four separate numbered trays; the straws are passed through holes in the middle of the tube to form a lattice. The marbles are then placed in the top of the tube and held in place by the lattice. The onomatopoeic name of the game derives from the sound of the marbles tumbling to the base of the tube during play.
Astrosmash is a fixed shooter video game for the Intellivision console, designed by John Sohl, and released by Mattel Electronics in 1981. The player uses a laser cannon to destroy falling meteors, bombs, and other targets.
Tron: Deadly Discs is a video game for the Intellivision console published by Mattel in 1982. The initial game design was done by Don Daglow, with further design and programming by Steven Sents. It is the first of three Intellivision games based on the Disney motion picture Tron. Mattel released an Atari 2600 version under its M Network label. It was also ported to the Mattel Aquarius.
The Wizzzer or Wiz-z-zer is a gyrostat toy introduced by Mattel Toymakers in 1969, and introduced the spinning top to modern children. The "twist" (innovation) was the use of a super-spinning, high-tech bearing, that allowed the top to spin at very high speed and remain standing for a long period of time. This top did not rely on a string to attain high speed so it was easier to master than tops of old. Wizzers are not sold as scientific instruments, but may be used to demonstrate the conservation of angular momentum and gyroscope stability.
Beyblade is a line of spinning-top toys originally developed by Takara, first released in Japan in July 1999, along with a related manga series. Following Takara's merger with Tomy in 2006, Beyblades are now developed by Takara Tomy. Various toy companies around the world have licensed Beyblade toys for their own regions, such as Hasbro in most Western countries, Sonokong in South Korea, and Takara Tomy for most Eastern countries.
Pambaram, also called the Lattu (Urdu: لٹو),, Latim, Bhawra, Buguri, or Bongaram, is a traditional throwing top used mainly in India and Bangladesh.
The Xbox 360 controller is the primary game controller for Microsoft's Xbox 360 home video game console that was introduced at E3 2005. The Xbox 360 controller comes in both wired and wireless versions. The Xbox controller is not compatible with the Xbox 360. The wired and wireless versions are also compatible with Microsoft PC operating systems, such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11.
Spinjas is a ratcheted spinning top game created by Tomy and distributed in North America by Parker Brothers in the late 1980s. The game set was sold as a Battle Stadium plastic arena with two Power Winder launchers and two Spinja characters enclosed within the arena, which doubles as a storage case. More characters, launchers, and an oversized playing arena were also made available separately. The objective of the game, similar to Beyblades, is to load your chosen character into the ratcheting launcher and each player would launch their top into the arena at the same time. The tops would ricochet off each other until only one remained spinning or within the arena and that player was declared the winner. Unlike Beyblades, the tops are not customizable and are not associated with any other licensed properties.
Spin Fighters were die-cast metal top toys that were manufactured by Bandai in China from 1993 to 1997. The tops were loaded into launchers, which were then tightly wound by fingertip, and subsequently released into the Spin Fighters Battle Arena or onto a flat surface. The tops battled until the last top spinning was the winner. Spin Fighters tops were about 1 inch across, came in black and gold colors, and bore a prismatic sticker with a character from a TV show or video game. Usually, the black tops represented the "bad guys" and the gold tops represented the "good guys". Spin Fighters were sold two to a package, one gold and one black. Power Launchers and Battle Arenas were available separately or bundled. The tops can be disassembled and worn on jackets, shirts and hats, through any small button hole. Production of Spin Fighters ceased around 1997.
Spin Master Corp. is a Canadian multinational toy and entertainment company. Spin Master employs over 1,600 people globally with offices in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.
Battle Strikers was a line of magnetically controlled customizable spinning tops. The toyline was released in 2009 by MagNext Toys and Megabloks from Mega Brands.
Gasing pangkah is a competitive Malay game of spinning tops in which two or more players compete to strike each other's top out of a circle or to make it fall over and stop spinning.
Eddy Goldfarb is an American toy inventor. The creator of over 800 toys, he is best known for inventing Yakity Yak Talking Teeth, Battling Tops, KerPlunk, Stompers, and Vac-U-Form. He is the subject of the award-winning short film Eddy's World.