Ice Cold Beer

Ice Cold Beer is the name of a mechanical arcade game originally released by Taito in 1983. The game is in a similar cabinet to an arcade video game, but where the screen would normally be there is a vertical wooden playfield dotted with holes. Two joysticks on the control panel control the height of the two ends of a metal bar that moves up and down the playfield, with a ball bearing rolling back and forth on the bar. The playfield is an amber color, and the holes in the playfield are suggestive of bubbles rising in a mug of beer.

The object of the game is to use the two joysticks to tip the bar back and forth and maneuver the ball up to a specific lit hole on the playfield, while avoiding unlit holes. When the player deposits the ball in the lit hole, the ball and the bar return to the bottom of the playfield, and the next target hole is lit. The game begins with the bottom-most hole lit, and subsequent lit holes become more and more difficult to reach while avoiding unlit holes.

Taito also released a "family friendly" version of the game in 1984 entitled Zeke's Peak, where the artwork of bubbles rising in a mug of beer was replaced by a mountain-climbing theme.

In 2003, ICE released a remake of the game with new artwork and a ticket dispenser. The new version also has LEDs above the target hole that start off orange and then flash green for the hole you are going for, once you get the ball in the hole it changes to red.

References

• Flyer for the original Ice Cold Beer
• Flyer for Zeke's Peak
• Flyer for the ICE remake of Ice Cold Beer