Museum of the Game ®

International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®

Swimmer

Description

Venture up stream gathering fruits while avoiding various water-bound pests and obstacles. Eat power pills to attack critters.

Swimmer was produced by Tehkan in 1982.

Tehkan released 15 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1981. Tehkan was based in Japan.

Other machines made by Tehkan during the time period Swimmer was produced include: Voyager, Main Flame, Guzzler, Senjyo, Space Tank, Bomb Jack, and Star Force

Specs

Name	Swimmer
Developer	Tehkan (Japan)
Year	1982
Type	Videogame
KLOV/MOG #	9988
Class	Wide Release
Genre	Platform
Monitor	Orientation: Horizontal Type: Raster: Standard Resolution Color: Color
Conversion Class	unique
Game Specific	Swimmer Pinout
Dipswitch Settings	Swimmer Dipswitch Settings (user contributed)
# Simultaneous Players	1
# Maximum Players	2
Game Play	Alternating
Control Panel Layout	Single Player
Controls	Joystick: 8-way Buttons: 1 - Dive
Sound	Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles	Upright/Standard Cocktail

Game Play

You begin the game with three lives and an extra life is awarded at 10,000 points. The game has four levels and on each one you must gather four kinds of fruit: strawberries, bananas, grapes and melons. Collecting four strawberries during each of the first three levels will yield a bonus of 1000 points. To get the maximum bonus on the fourth level, you must pick up four of the three other required fruits. Each required fruit is worth a different amount of points: strawberries, 100, 200, 300 and 400 points bananas, 200, 400, 600 and 800 points grapes, 300, 600, 900 and 1200 points and melons, 400, 800, 1200 and 1600 points. Other fruits that can be gathered for additional points include cherries, apricots, apples, plums, grapefruits, oranges, and pineapples. These have point values such as 50, 100, 150 and 200.

The first level has turtles, on the second there are crabs, on the third there are dragonflies and on the fourth there are fish. Use the joystick to move the swimmer around the river and press the button to make the character dive under floating logs that may block the path of the river. The swimmer can also dive to avoid pests too.

On all but the first level, there are power pills that float downward along the river. If the swimmer catches one he will gain temporarily invunerability and each enemy that he eliminates will be worth 200 points.

Before you can get to the end of each of the first three levels, you must swim past a giant crab. Afterwards, there will be a short intermission that will tell you whether you earned a bonus or not. If you have four strawberries, a treasure chest will open and it will say "Bonus! 1000 points". If not, the treasure chest will remain closed and it will say "No Bonus". When you reach the fourth level, it will be a non-moving screen with a set of six rocks standing in the water. These won't do you any harm, but you won't be able to dive under them. Five fish will approach you but only three will pursue you. The swimmer will need to continue to pick up power pills in order to kill the fish.

After the fourth level has been completed, there will be a special intermission where the character will swim towards an island where he will set foot upon the beach and stand truimphant. A message will say "Well Done! You Are Great!". This is followed by another intermission where you will receive a bonus score for all four levels completed. You will need all four of the other three required fruits in order to open all four bonus treasure chests. The first one is 1000 points, the second is 2000 points, the third is 3000 points and the fourth is 4000 points. After these intermissions, the levels begin again, but with an increased difficulty.

Swimmer KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 3.22 (4 votes)

Fun Factor: 3.14

Overall Like	3.25
Fun (Social)	1.25
Fun (Solo)	3.50
Collector Desire	3.75

Technical Rating: 3.29

Gameplay	4.00
Graphics	3.00
Originality	3.50
Sound/Music	2.00

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

Images

Miscellaneous

Licensed to Centuri for US manufacture and distribution.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Swimmer Census

There are 15,211 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,644 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,563 machines (6,981 unique titles).

Common - There are 39 known instances of this machine owned by Swimmer collectors who are active members. Of these, 27 of them are original dedicated machines. 12 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 3 active VAPS members with a Swimmer machines for sale.

Wanted - There are 5 active VAPS members currently looking for Swimmer.

This game ranks a 11 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 8 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Manuals

Schematics - Swimmer Manual — **Schematics**
(4 pages, 1.05 MB File)

Foto-Finder® (Books)

The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 140; Color photo Price guide: No
Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 140; Color photo

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

3D Model (External): Dedicated (5eab454403340b8fb832a6a1caceb543)

eBay Listings

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