Paperboy is probably one of the most straightforward games you’ve probably ever played/ heard about. It’s literally a game that requires you/ the player to deliver papers to the individuals who stay in the suburbs – I mean, if that’s not straightforward I really don’t know what is. Not to mention that in the game players also have your own newspaper name that is attached to what you’re delivering – it’s called the Daily Sun.
Video of Paperboy Gameplay
History
The history behind the actual development of Paperboy appears to be very straightforward (of course you have what came after the game was made and the information on the ports but, the actual history behind the game is simple). Paperboy came with a standard upright edition that had not-so-normal controls – they were basically made to resemble the handlebars on a bicycle and each of the sides of the handlebars was equipped with a button that players would use to throw the paperboy’s papers. To brake or speed up/accelerate players had the option of pushing the handlebars forward or pulling them back.
Paperboy was created using the Atari System 2 framework and uses the following technology:
- CPU: 10 MHz Digital Equipment Corporation T-11
- Both the sound and coin inputs use MOS Technology 6502
- There are 2 POKEYs for digital sound
- A single Yamaha YM2151 used for music
- Texas Instruments TMS5220 used for speech
It was written in BlISS coding language
Gameplay
During the gameplay, you/the player gets control of a bicycle that you can use to deliver newspapers in a suburban area. You have 3 objectives in the game:
- Deliver the weekly newspapers to those individuals who subscribe to the service.
- Vandalize the houses of those individuals who don’t subscribe to the service
- Avoid obstacles that appear along the street
You get 3 options for gaming difficulty, which are:
- Easy Street
- Middle Road
- Hard Way
If you crash your bicycle during game-play you lose a life and you have to make sure you avoid doing so for all 7 days (Monday through Sunday) that the game lasts for. You start the game by getting a look at the street and in so doing see who subscribes and who doesn’t.
It’s very, very straightforward.
You can play Paperboy here
Fun Facts about Paperboy
- There was a homeport release that allowed players to essentially play as a papergirl instead of as a paperboy
- An Xbox remake of Paperboy was made recently
- Paperboy 2, the sequel was released in 1991
All of this information was sourced from Wikipedia.com
Conclusion
There we have it, an article that gives you a little bit more than you probably need to know about the popular arcade game, Paperboy, For more information feel free to check out the resources below and of course, feel free to leave a comment below if you find any other information on the topic. Thanks for reading.
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_System_2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_POKEY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YM2151’