''Nibbler'' is an arcade

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maze game A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...

released in 1982 by

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

-based developer

Rock-Ola The Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation is an American developer and manufacturer of juke boxes and related machinery. It was founded in 1927 by Coin-Op pioneer David Cullen Rockola to manufacture slot machines, scales, and pinball machines. The ...

. The player navigates a snake through an enclosed maze, consuming objects, and the length of the snake increases with each object consumed. The game was the first to include nine scoring digits, allowing players to surpass one billion points. The arcade game was distributed in Japan by

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. It b ...

in 1983. Home versions were published in 1983 by

Datasoft Datasoft, Inc. (also written as DataSoft and Data Soft) was a software developer and publisher for home computers founded in 1980 by Pat Ketchum and based out of Chatsworth, California. Datasoft primarily published video games, including home port ...

for the

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and the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

Gameplay

''Nibbler'' was a maze-and-munch game, among many others which followed ''

Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...

'', but the game features no enemies, and a life is lost only when the snake bites itself.

Competitive play

Nibbler World Record Attempt at MagFest 2009

''Nibbler'' is the first video game to feature a nine-digit scoring system allowing players to score one billion points. The first to achieve this feat was a seventeen-year-old named Tim McVey, who scored 1,000,042,270 points on January 17, 1984, while playing continuously for 44 hours over two days at

Walter Day Walter Aldro Day (born May 14, 1949) is an American businessman and the founder of Twin Galaxies, an organization that tracks world records for video games and conducts a program of electronic-gaming promotions. Biography Day was born in Oakl ...

Twin Galaxies Twin Galaxies is an organization and social media platform for people involved in the culture and activity of playing video games. It facilitates their interaction as well as their competition and recognizes their achievements. Twin Galaxie ...

arcade in

Ottumwa, Iowa Ottumwa ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 25,529 at the time of the 2020 U.S. Census. Located in the state's southeastern section, the city is split into northern and southern halves b ...

. A local news crew arrived to film him on location as he closed in on the record. McVey stated in a 2016 interview that he quit playing of his own accord due to exhaustion after setting the mark. For his achievement, McVey, an Ottumwa native, had the day of January 28, 1984 declared in his honor. He additionally received his own ''Nibbler'' machine as a prize, which he later gave to a rival arcade in exchange for two hundred dollars in game tokens. In September 1984, Italian player Enrico Zanetti topped McVey with a 1,001,073,840 score, but it was not officially recognized by Twin Galaxies, who ultimately stopped verifying record scores for the game altogether; however, this score was grandfathered in retroactively as a historical record due to a new ruling that permitted significant and well-documented media coverage, although the former record was only officialized after McVey took back the record from Rick Carter. In September 2008, Dwayne Richard of

Grande Prairie Grande Prairie is a city in northwest Alberta, Canada within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country. It is located at the intersection of Highway 43 (part of the CANAMEX Corridor) and Highway 40 (the Bighorn Highway), a ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, gained media attention when he fell short in his attempt to become the first player since McVey to officially surpass one billion points. McVey's mark consequently stood for nearly three decades before it was surpassed twice, including once by Richard in 2009, but McVey was still recognized by ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' as the official record holder because others' scores were never submitted for verification. Rick Carter of

Glen Burnie, Maryland Glen Burnie is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Baltimore. The population of Glen Burnie was 67,639 at the 2010 census. History In 1812, Elias Glenn, a d ...

officially claimed the new world record with a score of 1,002,222,360 on July 31, 2011. McVey regained the mark on December 25, 2011, with a score of 1,041,767,060.

Reception

In the United States, it was among the thirteen highest-grossing arcade games of 1983.

Legacy

''Buzzworm'' is a ''Nibbler'' clone for the

TRS-80 Color Computer The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Co ...

published by Novasoft in 1984. The documentary '' Man vs. Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler'', about the difficulties of achieving a one-billion point score on ''Nibbler'', was released in 2016. During the credits Elijah Hayter is shown with a score of 1,042,774,470 in June 2012, and Rick Carter is shown with 1,231,372,670 points after 53 hours and 8 minutes in November 2012. As of January 2020 neither of these scores have been credited as official by Twin Galaxies.

References

External links