Wheelin’ Wallie is a side-scrolling Pac-Man-like game where the aim is to eat dots along a course that scrolls from left to right, while trying to avoid the many hazards being thrown at you.

You play as “Wallie“, a disembodied head floating on a wheel than rolls on the ground. Collision with any object loses you a life, as does falling down a hole in the ground. You can trundle left and right as the screen automatically scrolls, and you can also move Wallie‘s head up and down, and that’s about it. Moving objects sometimes fly across the screen and must be avoided at all costs.

The music, by Graham Hansford, is simple and jolly and suits the game well enough. By the second level it might start to get on your nerves, though…

The first thing I noticed was that collision detection on the dots is not very good and that it’s very easy to miss a bunch of them unless you’re perfectly aligned. Eating dots is not your priority however: survival to the next level is…

Wheelin’ Wallie is an interesting nugget from the recesses of time. It’s a weird idea that kinda works as a game, although in reality there isn’t a great deal to it. Wheelin’ Wallie is not a bad game, but it’s not a great one either. It’s way too difficult to be properly enjoyable.

A sequel, called Trollie Wallie, and a second sequel, called Wallie goes to Rhymeland, were published by Interceptor Software in 1984. Andrew Challis wrote them both, with his sister providing graphics for all three Wallie games. Siblings working together to make a series of games is pretty heart-warming…

More: Wheelin’ Wallie on CSDb
More: Wheelin’ Wallie on Moby Games