Amidar

Lore & Background

Amidar was developed by Konami and released in arcades in 1982, distributed in North America by Stern. The game and its name have their roots in the Japanese lot drawing game Amidakuji. The bonus level is a simplified version inspired by Amidakuji (not a nearly exact replication), and the enemies move according to Amidakuji rules, referred to in the attract mode as 'Amidar movement'.

The player moves around a fixed rectilinear lattice, changing the color of the lines while avoiding enemies. Coloring all the lines around a rectangle fills it in. When all rectangles are filled, the player moves to the next level. There are two types of alternating levels: one with a paint roller and one with a gorilla. On even-numbered levels, the player controls an ape (labeled 'Copier') and collects coconuts while avoiding headhunters. On odd-numbered levels, the player controls a paint roller (labeled 'Rustler') and paints spots while avoiding pigs.

Reader's Guide

Amidar holds significance as the first grid capture sub-genre maze game, influencing numerous clones and spin-offs. Its legacy includes ports to the Atari 2600 by Parker Brothers in 1982 and the Casio PV-1000 in 1983, as well as a handheld version by Gakken in 1982. The game was highly cloned in arcades and for home systems, with titles such as Time Runner, Kid Grid, Jeepers Creepers, Spiderdroid, Omidar, and Rollo and the Brush Bros. The arcade game Pepper II and Triple Punch also drew on its grid-based mechanics.

Competition records exist for two ROM sets: a harder version by Stern and an easier set by Konami. Scott Karasek scored a world record 3,208,870 points on the Stern set on June 22, 1982, while Todd Lamb reached 19,225,030 points on the Konami set on October 1, 1983. The game's deterministic enemy movement, known as 'Amidar movement,' and its alternating level types with distinct mechanics (paint roller vs. gorilla) contributed to its lasting influence on maze game design.

Did You Know?

• Amidar was the first game in the grid capture sub-genre of maze games.
• The bonus level is a nearly exact replication of the Japanese lot drawing game Amidakuji.
• The 'Jump' button causes all enemies to jump, not the player.
• The Tracer enemy follows the player's exact path but does not mimic pauses.

Dual-Mode Grid Mastery

Amidar's core loop alternates between two distinct challenges on a fixed rectilinear lattice. On odd-numbered stages, the player pilots an ape (sometimes labeled 'Copier') through a field of coconuts while dodging headhunters tagged as 'Police' and 'Thief.' On even-numbered stages, the avatar becomes a paint roller (labeled 'Rustler') tasked with coloring every line on the board while evading pigs called 'Cattle' and 'Thief.' A rectangle fills in once all its surrounding edges are cleared, and completing every rectangle advances the player to the next level. A clever twist involves the single 'Jump' button: pressing it does not leap the player but instead sends every enemy airborne, letting the avatar slip beneath them. Three uses are granted per life. Clearing all four board corners triggers a brief invincibility window where touching enemies destroys them, and the fallen foes reappear after a short delay. The paint-roller mode adds a spatial constraint—the roller's supply depletes with distance from already-filled areas, forcing the player to build completed squares outward from the starting point rather than working freely across the grid.

The Amidakuji Inheritance and Deterministic AI

Konami drew the game's very name and its deepest mechanical logic from Amidakuji, a traditional Japanese lot-drawing game in which vertical lines are connected by horizontal bars to determine a winner. The bonus stage in Amidar is essentially a playable recreation of that paper-and-pencil exercise, and the enemy pathfinding is explicitly labeled 'Amidar movement' in the attract mode. In practice, every standard enemy follows a rigid vertical trajectory from top to bottom of the screen and back. While traveling in one vertical direction, the enemy takes every horizontal turn it encounters. Upon reaching the grid's edge, it slides along the boundary and re-enters at the first available vertical passage. The result is fully predictable yet leaves no permanent safe haven on the board. A single white 'Tracer' enemy adds a second layer. It patrols the perimeter counter-clockwise for a set number of laps before locking onto the player's exact trail. Crucially, it does not replicate any pauses the player makes, so lingering or backtracking guarantees an eventual collision. Later stages compress the Tracer's delay until it chases from the very first frame.

Spawning a Sub-Genre

Amidar's 1982 arcade debut established what would become the grid-capture sub-genre of maze games, and its influence radiated far beyond Konami's original cabinet. Stern handled North American distribution, Parker Brothers shipped an Atari 2600 port that same year, Casio brought the experience to the PV-1000 in 1983, and Gakken produced a flip-top handheld featuring a vacuum-fluorescent display and a magnifying Fresnel lens. The clone wave was immediate and wide-reaching. Time Runner appeared for the TRS-80, Atari 8-bit, and Commodore 64 platforms. Kid Grid and Jeepers Creepers hit the Atari 8-bit scene in 1982. Windmill Software's Rollo and the Brush Bros. arrived in 1984 as a self-booting IBM PC disk, casting the player as a painter dodging the 'Brush Brothers.' Froggo reskinned the 2600 code as Spiderdroid in 1987, and Profiteam/M&T released Omidar for the C64 that same year. Arcade designers pushed the concept further: Pepper II spread its grid across four screens, while Triple Punch introduced a horizontally scrolling board wider than the display. Each iteration confirmed that Amidar's core loop—paint or collect, fill the grid, survive—had become a template.

Two ROMs, Two Records

Amidar shipped in two distinct arcade ROM configurations: a harder build distributed by Stern and a more forgiving set produced by Konami. This split created parallel competitive tracks, and both produced landmark scores in the upper Midwest. On June 22, 1982, Scott Karasek of Racine, Wisconsin, posted 3,208,870 points on the Stern ROM, a figure Twin Galaxies recognized as a world record. Roughly fifteen months later, on October 1, 1983, Todd Lamb in Kenosha, Wisconsin—just across the lake from Racine—pushed the Konami ROM to 19,225,030 points, a number that dwarfs the Stern-set record and underscores how dramatically the two builds differ in difficulty. The existence of two ROM sets also meant that extra-life thresholds varied by machine configuration, so a player's score-to-survival ratio depended on which cabinet they sat in front of. For high-score chasers in 1982 and 1983, choosing the right location was as much a strategic decision as mastering the Tracer's pursuit pattern or threading the paint roller's limited range.