Another example of an early arcade concept updated years later with more modern gameplay enhancements, Arkanoid updated the concept of Atari's 1976 Breakout with powerups, enemies and colorful graphics, which turned a relatively dated gameplay mechanic into something exciting and new upon its release a decade later. Tied to a storyline in which the player's paddle is a spaceship fighting its way home, the game's key innovation is the ability to grab falling capsules that cause the Vaus ship to grow wider, gain laser weapons, capture the ball and more. The levels also feature a wide variety of creative block designs, aliens to destroy, blocks that require multiple hits and more. The simple but addictive update to the formula made Arkanoid an enduring hit in 80s arcade and beyond.

In addition to its better-known hits like Defender and Sinistar, Williams released a number of rather oddball games during its 80s run as one of America's dominant arcade manufacturers. Bubbles was one of those games, a curious experience that puts players in control of a sentient soap bubble whose job is to clean up his resident sink of ants, crumbs and grease while avoiding sponges, scrub brushes and razor blades (truly a gritty slice-of-life concept). Your bubble grows over time, gaining a somewhat creepy face as well as the ability to fight back against your cleaning rivals, and you can also steal a broom from a tiny cleaning lady to swat roaches and other enemies. In addition to its status as an arcade curiosity, Bubbles was also one of only a few games that got Williams' Duramold plastic cabinet treatment.

Buster Bros, also known as Pang and Pomping World in various countries because every game has to be called something, challenges two harpoon-wielding heroes to pop a large succession of bouncing bubbles that apparently threaten the world. Amidst backdrops of world landmarks, the two fire harpoons straight upward, which will pop the bubbles if either the tip or rope come into contact with them, causing larger bubbles to break into smaller ones, Asteroids-style. A variety of power-ups as well as platforms and marauding wildlife further complicate your mission, which becomes increasingly frenetic as your globe-trotting continues.

One of quirky Japanese company Nichibutsu's best-known games, Crazy Climber sends an urban adventurer climbing up a series of skyscrapers, dodging open windows, dropped objects, birds and other dangers on his way to the top. The control scheme consists of two joysticks that move the climber's hands independently, requiring you to coordinate your movements to climb and move horizontally to avoid obstacles. In addition to its novel control scheme, Crazy Climber was unusual for its sampled voices (saying "Go for it!" and "Oh nooo!"), and its simple concept and challenging gameplay led to a sequel and numerous computer game clones.

Developed by Namco and released by Atari, Dig Dug is a "strategic digging game" that has players digging their own mazes underground while eliminating Pookas and fire-breathing Fygars with a pump and falling rocks. The enemies initially appear in dug-out sections of the screen and normally follow in the paths you have dug, but they can also move directly toward you through the dirt. Dig Dug has a fair amount of strategic depth despite its relative open-ended gameplay, and its cute characters and charming soundtrack made it an arcade mainstay in the early 80s and have made it popular ever since. The overlay includes a larger screen version so you can really get your face in the dirt.

Bally Midway's second Tron game went deep on the movie's sports-like combat sequences, combining the jai alai-like ring arena game with the disc combat seen elsewhere in the movie. The game was an ambitious experiment, projecting the gameplay onto a mirrored backdrop that added a sense of depth, and creating one of the first and most immersive 3D game environments in early 80s arcades. Discs of Tron's controls are one of the well-known challenges of MAME emulation, as the original game used a two-button flight stick (making it not ideal for the recently resurrected GRS Tron flight stick) and a push-pull spinner, but MAME is at least capable of emulating the projected backdrop effect in a satisfying way.

Developed by Konami and published by Sega and Gremlin, Frogger sends a series of frogs on a perilous journey through both human-made obstacles (a highway full of speeding traffic) and natural ones (a stream filled with turtles, alligators and logs). The game was supposedly initially rejected by Gremlin's male marketing executives as being a "women and kids' game," but was championed by a female exec who noted that that was the same skepticism that preceded another 80s hit, a little game called Pac-Man. Frogger would become a hugely popular hit, with adaptations on every platform as well as a cartoon, an episode of Seinfeld and a fruit fly gene family. This overlay features the artwork of both the Sega/Gremlin version and the European Zaccaria version of the cabinet.

A movie tie-in for the movie of the same name, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom features novel multi-stage gameplay and complex graphics for its time, and included speech generation and stereo sound. Armed with a whip and a cool hat, you are tasked with a variety of very Indy tasks – freeing kidnapped children from Thuggee guards, recovering stolen relics and defeating cult leader Mola Ram. The game features three distinct stages and is relatively difficult in places, not least because you can't actually kill anyone (you only have a whip, after all). Check out the rest of the Atari System 1 games on the theme pack page.

Released during a period in which even middle-of-the-road rock bands wanted to get on the arcade bandwagon, Journey launches the titular band into space to retrieve their "electro supercharged instruments" from "wild alien groupoids" (yep). The game riffs on the minigame formula of Tron to send the five band members, complete with digitized black-and-white heads, through multi-stage levels to grab their instruments (which turn into weapons) and make it back to their scarab spaceship. Completing all five games takes you to a final concert (which featured a cassette-powered loop of "Separate Ways") in which roadie Herbie must defend the stage from the aforementioned groupoids, lest you be forced to do it all over again. Weird stuff, but worth a try. Make sure you grab the audio sample Zip file and place it in your MAME samples folder.

If you asked 80s arcade fans what they would consider cool and exciting, "ostrich jousting" probably wouldn't have been at the top of the list – but that didn't stop Williams from hatching a hit with Joust in 1982. Oddball game ideas were Williams' trademark, and Joust was no different – it pits two bird-riding knights against similar opponents in aerial combat, with floating platforms providing an additional level of strategy and complexity. A pterrifying pterodactyl also stalks complacent jousters who stand still too long, which was itself the subject of a minor controversy when gamers discovered an exploit to endlessly kill the pterodactyl, requiring a fix from Williams. Joust was an 80s hit that remains popular, due to its combination of simple, elegant gameplay and consistent challenge.

Joust 2 flapped into arcades in 1986, attempting to build on the success of its predecessor. Subtitled "Survival of the Fittest," It was kind of an odd duck – er, ostrich – in the Williams lineup, as it came during the arcade slump of the 80s and was designed as a conversion kit for vertical cabinets, hence the switch from the original horizontal format. It kept the basic formula but added more sophisticated graphics and sound, new enemies, the ability to transform into a slow-but-strong pegasus and a range of new level designs (many supposedly M. C. Escher-inspired). The game's aesthetic also evolved into a sort of fantasy/sci-fi hybrid, with metallic platforms and a giant robot "boss" (really more of a humanoid building defeated by pushing four buttons). Joust 2 becomes frantic and chaotic in its later levels, but fortunately you can keep on hitting that coin button.

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Lunar Lander has the distinction of being Atari's first vector graphics arcade game, a simulation based on lunar landing games that had become popular in the nascent computer gaming scene. The concept is simple: pilot a ship (similar visually to the US lunar module) to the moon's surface, managing attitude, velocity and fuel to land on designated areas. Both the game's simple but precise graphics and its spaceship-like control scheme give it the feel of a hardcore physics simulation, and it's tougher than it might look. The look and concept paved the way for numerous Atari vector games to come, most notably the similarly-themed Gravitar.

It's easy to forget the cultural impact of the cold war, with nuclear annihilation being an actual fear rather than a just quaint notion, and Missile Command captures the threat of and response to a nuclear attack in a way that resonated particularly well when it was released in 1980. Though its game mechanics are simple, the combination of fast targeting of your defenses and delayed reaction of the missile destruction give the game a sense of tension that added to its addictiveness. Though considered one of Atari's greatest 80s classics, Missile Command never received a true arcade sequel, with Liberator being its closest cousin.

Paperboy sends players on a daily paper route to deliver papers to customers, while vandalizing non-customers' houses (by tossing papers through windows), avoiding cars and obstacles and trying to get through an entire week of deliveries. Like several Atari games of the mid-80s, the game used a novel controller, in this case a set of realistic metal handlebars that control direction, speed and paper throwing – the controller makes it difficult to accurately emulate, but a joystick or yoke-style controller will suffice. Paperboy's distinctive look, soundtrack and play style make it an enduring favorite from Atari's arcade heyday.

Developed by husband and wife team Randy and Sandy Pfeiffer, Taito's Qix was actually an American release, a challenging and unusual puzzle action game that's difficult to master. Players must take over the playfield by drawing boxes to capture it one piece at a time, while avoiding the menacing fractal-like Qix entity that floats around the remaining area and keeping ahead of its Sparx helpers. The strategy balances risk and reward, with the ability to earn more points for captured areas based on how fast you draw your lines (contact with the Qix or Sparx, or a fuse that lights when you stop moving, all spell death). The original game had an abstract quality that was either attractive or intimidating, depending on your point of view – later descendants such as Super Qix and Volfied added more options and personality, but perhaps lost something in the translation.

It may have mutated into a questionable Dwayne Johnson movie, but Rampage started as an '80s arcade hit, centered around three erstwhile scientists who tear their way across the country after transforming into giant monsters. Players choose a character and then must destroy all the buildings on a level to advance, eating people and other food for health and avoiding attacking helicopters and soldiers. Like the arcade version, the MAME version ties the character to the controls, so you may need to edit the controls in the Tab menu to get the character you want. Rampage's pixelated cityscapes, tiny denizens, expressive creatures and addictive gameplay make it a classic worth playing today. It also spawned a sequel, Rampage World Tour, over a decade later.

Over a decade after their original Rampage wreaked havoc all over the world, designers Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman brought their mutated scientist-monsters back to arcades. Rampage World Tour still features George, Lizzie and Ralph, along with updated graphics, new gameplay elements and new locales to reduce to rubble as they work together to destroy Scum Labs, their creators. The game was more a dose of nostalgia than an innovative new title, as its graphics and concept were far from groundbreaking, but it updates the formula nicely for those days when you just want to smash something.

The closest we ever got to hanging out in bars in middle school, Tapper featured Budweiser taps and drink holders, and was designed to be placed in bars before it was re-released as the far less cool Root Beer Tapper (the dancing girls don't quite make sense in a root beer parlor). You control a bartender who must serve an onslaught of thirsty customers without dropping beer mugs or making the customers angry, with a shell game-like interstitial minigame between levels. The distinctive character designs and charming music make Tapper even more refreshing than a sip of Dad's beer on a summer afternoon (ew, gross).

Timber takes the working-man ethos of Tapper into the woods, where two burly, enflanneled woodsmen compete to chop down the most trees within a time limit. In addition to trying to crush your opponent with falling trees, you must avoid beehive-throwing bears and catch newly homeless birds for bonus points. Timber was designed by Steve Meyer, who also designed Tapper, and like that game it features a minigame every couple of levels, this time a log-rolling challenge that is a fair bit tougher than the beer-shaking game of its predecessor. Try not to think too hard about why bears are weaponizing beehives or about the ecological toll of your actions, and you'll find Timber is a fun, sweat-free way to show up your friends.

Still a beloved classic from the early '80s, Tron adapted the concepts and overall vibe of the Disney movie to create a memorable set of minigames. The music and sound effects still evoke an '80s arcade almost as much as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Tron also featured a distinctive cabinet design, with a deep interior that made you feel like you were being sucked into the game world, and a black light-enhanced glowing flight stick. Our version of the cabinet is somewhat stylized, taking some liberties with the actual design in order to represent the feel while optimizing playability. To play it on MAME, you'll need a one-button flight stick or joystick as well as a spinner (thanks to a resurgence in interest, you can now get a decent reproduction of the flight stick, and there are several spinners available).

Arguably the love child of Qix and Arkanoid, Volfied takes the core gameplay concept of the former and adds a storyline, visual style and power-ups reminiscent of the latter. Travelling back to his home planet of Volfied, the pilot of the spaceship Monotros discovers the planet has been overrun with an alien presence, which he must push back by literally carving it out of the surface. Much like in Qix, the player must venture from the safe edges of the screen to reclaim sections of the playfield, while a menacing alien and its minions roam around and cause trouble. Enclosing power-ups on various parts of the surface grant you special abilities, such as equipping lasers, stopping time and speeding up your ship. Each level features a different alien type, minions, power-ups and level design, adding new life to an early 80s game concept. This overlay features new bezel art in the spirit of the original cabinet.