Tumbleseed and the obscure mechanical arcade machine that inspired it
Tucked away in a corner at Logan Arcade in Chicago is a slightly beat-up, fairly unassuming arcade cabinet with a strange name: Ice Cold Beer. First released in 1983 by Japanese firm Taito — a company best known for unleashing Space Invaders on the world — Ice Cold Beer is a seemingly simple mechanical game. To win, you have to balance a rolling ball on a platform and try to climb as high as possible without falling into one of the many holes on the board. It’s a devilishly hard game, presumably designed to suck quarters from the inebriated at pubs.
It never went on to become a huge hit, but for game designer Greg Wohlwend, Ice Cold Beer proved inspirational. So much so that he, along with a small team, set about taking the core mechanic…
