Game

Hi there! I’m Jack Rabbit! I love carrots, and I’m very hungry! Wuh.

These are the words said by Jack Rabbit, the titual character of 1984 arcade game Jack Rabbit, by Zaccaria. Zaccaria was an Italian pinball and arcade company, and they invented a voice synthesis technique, which they used in two arcade games. This one, and Money Money. Basically, Jack Rabbit talks between levels.

This game is kind of a meme in some circles, because he’s SUPPOSED to say “Will you help me?” after his “I’m very hungry” line. However, the speed of the synthesis was off in MAME when it was first put in mame, so he talked a bit slower and was cut off, so he just went “wuh”. Wuh.

Game

Jack Rabbit is kind of like a maze game mixed with some Qbert? You hop in an isometric space, with three different maps. Once you collect all of the carrots, you move to the next stage. You can hop one square, OR hold the button to do a twice as large hop so you can hop over pits and stuff. The first stage is a farm, the second is an auto scrolling desert that gets VERY fast in later loops, and the third is an island chain you have to jump between.

Jack Rabbit isn’t a complex game, but it’s just the right level of simple to fun. In my opinion, this is a fantastic little game that’s great to try and grind out high score to for 30 minutes every now and then. Plus it’s got a fun little story! Wuh.