Tugboat is a relatively early colour arcade game, created by Enter-Tech and first distributed as part of the Moppet Video range in 1982. It is a very simple game that was designed for children – housed in a miniature arcade cabinet – in which you control a tugboat moving down a river and must avoid floating logs (and collisions with the banks), and can collect floating buoys by moving left and right.

The game only has left and right controls, although there is one button, but all that seems to do is toot the ship’s horn!

There are eight phases in total and the rate at which the tugboat moves down the river increases with every phase. After phase four the river channel narrows, making the game harder. Phase eight is apparently impossible to complete, but I can’t say that I made it that far…

The graphics and sound are very basic and the vertical scrolling is jerky. When the game begins there’s a short intro sequence showing you (the captain I presume) boarding the boat while a rendition of the tune “Popeye the Sailor Man” plays.

What I don’t understand is that the tugboat is more responsive in some phases than it is in others. On the second phase the boat was really slow moving left and right, but on the first and third phases it was much faster. I was wondering if there was a reason for that, but I couldn’t figure out why…

While Tugboat is a game that is aimed at young children, the sluggish controls make it more difficult to play than necessary, and the concept hasn’t been fully realised. Even for kids, this is ridiculously simple and a bit of an insult to their intelligence…

On the plus side: at least it’s not as bad as Leprechaun, which was also released as part of the same range.

More: Tugboat on arcade-history.com
More: Tugboat on YouTube