Ludography
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Plaque Attack cover

1983 · Action · Arcade

Plaque Attack

Atari exclusive

Plaque Attack is a 1983 video game for the Atari 2600 that was made by Activision. Loosely based on Space Invaders, the player must prevent food from destroying teeth in a person's mouth. Steve Cartwright, who designed the game, said that game was meant to help people develop good dental habits.

Released
22 February 1983
Platforms
Atari 2600
Genres
ActionArcadeEducationalShooter
Developers
—
Publishers
—
Modes
Multiplayer
Perspective
Side view
Themes
ActionEducational
Country
United States
Age ratings
ESRB E
Languages
English

About

Plaque Attack is a 1983 video game for the Atari 2600 that was made by Activision. The player must shoot food to protect teeth inside a person's mouth. Steve Cartwright, who designed the game, said that game was meant to help people develop good dental habits.

Keywords

  • shoot 'em up
  • anthropomorphism
  • never-ending

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player controls a tube of toothpaste, defending teeth against various types of food, such as hamburgers and french fries. The objective is to fire toothpaste at food intent on destroying the teeth. If the food touches a tooth, it begins breaking down the tooth. If the player is fast enough to shoot the piece of food as soon as it starts breaking down the tooth the player will be able to save the tooth.

If not, the tooth will decay and disappears from the screen. The food comes in waves, and the movements become more complicated. Destroying the food scores points, as does the number of teeth and the amount of toothpaste left at the end of each wave.

Reception

Videogaming Illustrated described the game as "cute and busy, but nothing more" and gave it B-B+ for gameplay. Video Games magazine described it, in their review, as "another slide and shoot".

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Atari 260022 February 1983North America · Brazil 31 December 1983

Editions and related releases

Included in
A Collection of Activision Classic Games for the Atari 2600Hot Action PakActivision AnthologyActivision Hits RemixedActivision's Atari 2600 Action Pack 2Activision Anthology: Remix EditionAtari Flashback 8 Gold: Activision EditionActivision Collection 2

Games like this

Collections2 collections

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.