Crazy Climber

The game has four buildings and they are each 200 stories high. The names of each building are Nichibutsu, Nichibutsu Leisure, Nichibutsu U.K. Ltd. and Nichibutsu U.S.A Corp., respectively.

The player uses two 8-way joysticks to control each of the climber's hands during the game play.

The object of the game is to climb all the way to the rooftop of each building and get carried off by a helicopter.

While climbing a building, there are various dangers that are encountered. On every building, there are windows which open and close simultaneously and if any of them close on either of the climber's hands he will lose his grip, so you must make sure that he has at least one of his hands securely holding onto an open window sill but if a window closes on both of his hands, he will fall. Besides those ubiquitous windows, there are also bald-headed bad guys who drop flowerpots this is all that is dropped from the first building, tin cans, sodapop bottles, baskets of fruit and buckets of water from random windows. On all but the third building, there is a pesky condor who flys by and drops eggs and droppings of an unpleasant substance. For the first and second buildings, it ejects two droppings at a time but on the fourth it ejects four. On all but the first building, there are steel girders and iron dumbells that tumble down the building. When climbing the second and fourth buildings, there is an electrical "Nichibutsu" sign with a live wire snaking out of it. On only the third and fourth buildings, there are falling "Crazy Climber" signs that come crashing down the building. During the first and third buildings, a King Kong character leaps from side to side of the building and slams his hands against the windows. Lastly, on only the second and third buildings, there is The Lucky Balloon that can lift the climber about ten stories and raise the player's bonus score if he catches it.

The climber must try to avoid or overcome each of those hazzards which he will encounter as he continues climbing in his attempt to reach the rooftop. If the climber succombs to one of those dangers, he will fall and another climber will appear at the same location of the building wherever the last one had fallen off at but that specific danger will no longer be there, so the next climber can continue the climbing onward up the building to face the next upcoming danger. Most of those hazzards are announced by certain recognizable musical themes.

When the climber is nearly to the rooftop of the fourth building, that building will be split into two seperate towers each with only two sections of windows to climb.

If the climber does not move for several seconds a voice will encouragingly say "Go for it!".

For the first three buildings, when the climber reaches the roof and gets carried off by the helicopter, he will proceed to the next building. After the climber makes it to the top of the fourth building, the helicopter transports him back to the base of the first building where he starts all over again.

As the climber scales a building, he is able to climb up and sideways but he cannot climb down.

The climber scores 100 points for every story that he climbs on the first building, 150 points for every story that he climbs on the second building, 200 points for every story that he climbs on the third building and 250 points for every story that he climbs on the fourth building.

A bonus score is awarded on each building everytime after the climber gets carried off by the helicopter. On the first building, the bonus score is 10,000 points. On the second building, 20,000 points. On the third building, 30,000 points. And lastly, on the fourth building, 40,000 points. However, each bonus score will decrease by every ten seconds that the climber will spend scaling each building as he attempts reach the top. So the climber must try to climb to the top as quickly but as carefully as possible to get as many bonus points as he can.

Each player is given three climbers at the beginning of each game and is awarded one extra climber at 30,000 points.

After the climber starts all over again on the first building after climbing all four buildings, the difficulty will increase.

Some of the musical themes used in the game are Baby Elephant Walk, The Pink Panther Theme and The Entertainer.

The game was released in several different cabinet styles. Taito licensed the game from Nichibutsu and released it in the US in a generic orange "Taito" cabinet with Americanized artwork. A cabaret version of the game was also created.

Nichibutsu's standard cabinet was shaped similar to the Taito cabinet, but it had a plain white exterior with the Crazy Climber logo from the marquee on the kickplate and diagonally on the sides. The marquee and monitor bezel art are very vibrant, using many custom flourescent colors. The control panel is black painted metal with artwork painted on in orange, white and red. The marquee had no backlighting.

Nichibutsu's deluxe cabinet was taller and had a very unusual control panel. The panel attached to the front of the cabinet seperately and was metal covered with a curved piece of plexiglass. Full color artwork of the climber scaling the outside of a building is silkscreened onto the curved plexi. The instruction sheet was moved from its position on the standard cabinet's monitor bezel to a window on the control panel. The deluxe cabinet also used several Nintendo parts, including the same type monitor Sanyo 20EZ and the same style of coin mechs used by games like Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, et. al.

This game is commonly attributed to Nichibutsu as the manufacturer. The high score screen and the name plate on the buildings both say that but the title screen very clearly states the game is copyright Nihon Bussan Co. Ltd.

Only the U.S. version has the realistic-sounding voice samples.