Chapter 65: A Better Neighborhood

Soon, it gets so dark that you can only see fireflies, and you aren’t sure you want to eat those. “You win!” calls Cassie out of the darkness. “You must have been really hungry!” As your eyes adjust to the dark, you see Cassie resting on the lilypad next to you. She yawns. “Thanks again for your help today. Think you can help me again tomorrow?”

You tense up, concerned about how you are ever going to turn back to your normal self. “Cassie, I’m not even supposed to be here… I mean, I’m not even…” you break off, not sure how she will take this.

“Not even what?” she asks, puzzled.

“I’m… not even… a frog.”

“What? Then… what are you?”

“I’m human. But I had a bad run in with a ghost and, I guess, a witch, and they turned me into a frog.”

“Well, that was lucky!” says Cassie.

“No, you don’t understand… I have a lot of important things I need to do, and… well, I don’t know if I can do them as a frog.”

“What kind of important things?”

“Queen Stella has sent me on a quest to recover her lost treasures.”

She laughs. “We don’t have a…” she pauses, and turns serious. “But we do, don’t we! Queen Stella in her rainbow castle! Conqueror of Tyrannus! How did I forget about that?”

“That’s just the thing,” you say, “the treasures are what give everyone their memory. I’ve brought back a few… but, well, there’s still a lot more.”

“Wow,” she says, and you can see her wide eyes in the dark. “Tell you what. If you can help me with more little frogs in the morning, after that we can go talk to the wise old frog. He’ll know what to do. Right now, we should get some sleep.”

Is that a good plan, you wonder? Maybe it is? You yawn. Either way, you are exhausted, and with a full stomach and the lull of the chirping crickets, you drift off to sleep on your cozy lilypad.

“Wake up, sleepyhead!” you hear Cassie shout as she cannonballs into the water. You see the sun is overhead, and water from her splash rains down on you. You blink, and she calls, “Come on, Super Frog! We’ve got to head to the nice neighborhood!”

You jump in and swim after her. After a while she hops up on shore, and starts up a path into the woods. You hop after her. “What’s so nice about the neighborhood we’re going to?” you ask. “Is it far from a highway, I hope?”

“No,” she says, “near a highway just like before.”

“So… no turtles, then?”

“Oh, it has lots of turtles.”

“Well, then, what? No alligators? Snakes? Otters? What?”

“No, all those things are still there. It’s just… nicer. You’ll see.”

You shake your head. But as you hop up over the rise, to see a group of eager young frogs, you see that, wow, she’s right. Everything here is just… nicer.

Place your Supercharger into your Atari 2600, and press play on the Official Frogger cassette. Use game select 1, and set the difficulty switches to a. Play until you get 20,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 64: An In-Flight Snack

“Left! Left! Now wait… and forward!” the last little frog hops into the last empty home bay.

“That was amazing!” shouts Cassie, and leaps for joy. “I’m so glad you were here to help! The elders will be glad to know that so many frogs got to their home bays safely.”

You don’t say anything, because your frog throat is sore from all the shouting. You turn and look at the distant skyscrapers… they seem so far away, and it’s going to be dark soon.

“So… are you… going to fly away now?” asks Cassie.

What is she…? Oh… right, she thinks you’re some kind of superfrog. Your stomach makes a noise – when was the last time you ate?

“Actually, I’m pretty hungry,” you say, as you start thinking about little sandwiches. A frog could eat french fries, right?

“Oh! Me too!” says Cassie. “Come on, follow me!” and she excitedly hops off into the weeds. You’re tired, but you don’t want to lose her, and besides, you have to keep up your superfrog persona. So, you chase her through the weeds into a marsh, and through some woods to a small pond. “This is the place!” she shouts. “Isn’t it great?”

You look around trying to figure out where the food could be. She leaps off of a lilypad, shoots out her tongue, and snags a big, juicy fly. “Yum!” she shouts. “Come on,” she calls, “they’re delicious!”

At first you are revulsed, but weirdly, the idea of eating those huge flies seems very appealing. You realize you better find a way to turn back from a frog soon, or maybe you’ll stay this way! But… right now, you are pretty hungry…

“Are you just going to sit there?” calls Cassie, leaping high, and swallowing another fly. “Come on, super frog! I bet I can eat more than you! Two points per fly, starting now!”

Two points? You wonder why. But, you gotta eat something!

Place your Frogs and Flies cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty switches to a. Play until you win. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 63: Plunk Your Magic Twanger, Froggy

You are hanging, hundreds of feet in the air, from a green pole attached to the doctor’s orange helicopter, and you have been dealing with snakes, balloons, bats, flying faces, and even bats disguised as flying faces, all while shinnying up and down every pole in the entire pole district, and you don’t see any kind of hole in the sky anywhere. You are about to give up, when suddenly you see something… or rather… something sees you! You see a dark spot in the sky, maybe thirty feet away, from which a creepy eye peers out at you. You leap to a blue floating pole, which takes you closer to it. The eye seems alarmed that you are approaching it, and the hole starts to glide away. In desperation, you leap toward it, and grab it. It’s like sticking your hands, well, your flippers, into an open porthole – it has edges you can grab. You are now eye to eye with the eye, and you see that it is more than an eye. Now that you are close, you can see the frightening face of a creepy witch on the other side of the hole. “Let go!” she shrieks, and immediately, the hole rockets off into the sky, up into the clouds. The wind tears away your pole climbing suit, exposing all your frogness to the world. You are terrified, and it is all you can do to hang on, but you don’t let go! The hole zig-zags, whirls, shakes, flips around, and vibrates, but you are hanging on for dear life, and you don’t let go. Finally, it comes to rest in a high cloud. The witch sticks her face close to the opening of the hole. “What are you, anyway?” she says, her hideous green face peering down at your strange frog body. “A giant frog?” She looks you in the eye. “Giant frog, are you a human under some kind of curse?” You aren’t sure how much longer you can hang on, and you nod vigorously. “I can’t stand it when amateurs perform curses. Do you want me to fix it?” she asks, smiling with some of the most revolting and rotten yellow and brown teeth you have ever seen. You can feel yourself slipping, and you look down at the ground thousands of feet below, and again, you nod vigorously. She cackles, points her finger, and ZAP! She hits you with a bolt of energy, and suddenly the hole grows much larger. No… wait, it doesn’t! You are shrinking! You are now the size of a normal frog, and with your smaller flippers, it is harder to hold onto the edge of the hole. She eyes you critically and nods, saying “Now… that’s what I call some professional cursing! Begone, frog!” And she jabs her broom through the hole, knocking you out into empty space, and you plummet downwards as her cackle recedes into the distance. You are sure that you are doomed to die as a splattered frog as the ground races up to meet you, but you see that a river next to a highway is beneath you, and as it approaches, you brace yourself for a dive into it.

SPLASH! Fortunately, the terminal velocity of a normal sized frog is lower than that of a human, and even though you go rocketing to the bottom of the dark blue river, you are still alive. You gather your wits in the cool mud at the bottom of the river, thinking that maybe this will be a good place to rest, when suddenly you see two more creepy eyes in the darkness coming toward you. No witch this time – instead, it’s an alligator! You push off the bottom of the river with your strong frog legs, and swim up dodging logs and snapping turtles. You climb onto a floating log, and try to get your bearings. You see the tall skyscrapers in the city on the other side of the highway. If you can get back to the Mad Doctor, maybe he can still help? Or at least Melvin will be able to help you. But now that you are a normal sized frog, it seems really far away. Can you even get there? Suddenly, you realize that the log you are on is headed for a waterfall! You jump from it onto the back of a turtle, but the turtle starts to dive! So you jump from log to turtle, to crocodile to turtle to log, and finally to a calm sandy bank by the highway. But before you can take a breath, you see a huge green snake slithering right at you, so you leap out into the road. But there are cars and trucks everywhere! You jump out of the way of a huge white truck, some pink racecars, and some purple… bulldozers? Who makes purple bulldozers? After more orange racecars (going the other way – what kind of race is this?) you finally make it across to the sidewalk. To your surprise, a whole crowd of frogs is there, and they all start croaking in approbation. The largest of them, a red frog who stands out against the smaller green frogs, hops forward, and says, “That was amazing! Who are you?”

A younger frog speaks up. “Yeah! We saw something streaking through the sky, and I said ‘Look, it’s a bird!’ and Fred said ‘It’s a plane!’ and Cassie said ‘No, it’s a frog!’ and Cassie was right! And then that amazing hopping you did! It was incredible!”

“Settle down, little one,” says the red frog. She looks at you seriously. “Like he said, I’m Cassie. You sure did impress the little ones! Did you really come out of the sky?”

You suddenly realize that they are speaking in frog language, and you can understand it… and, even speak it? “Yes… that’s right,” you say experimentally, surprised to hear your frog voice.

“Well,” says Cassie, “I don’t know who you are, but you seem like some kind of super frog!” All the younger green frogs croak in agreement.

“Look,” you say, looking up at the skyscrapers, and wondering where Melvin is “I can’t really stay… I need to get back to the city, and find my friend…”

Cassie nods. “Yes, I appreciate that. But I was wondering if you can help me with a little problem I have. It’s my job to guide these little ones, across the river to set up homes of their own. But,” she shakes her head, and starts to whisper, “this road wasn’t here last time! I’m nervous about getting them there safely! Someone with a keen eye and good sense needs to guide these little ones past all these cars and help them from getting gobbled up by the snapping turtles in the river. It’s supposed to be my job, but… I’m scared. You jumped across that road so easily… do you think you could help?”

You look at the happy eyes of the little frogs, and then at the pleading eyes of Cassie. You aren’t sure how you are going to get back to the Mad Doctor anyway… now that you are a normal sized frog, he might not even recognize you. You sigh, and say, “Sure, how can I help?”

“Great!” says Cassie, “they have to do it themselves, but if you shout to them when to jump, they’ll do it!”

You look down at the little frogs, and they look up at you excitedly. “Okay,” you say. “Who’s first?” And every flipper goes up at once.

Put the Frogger cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty switches to a, and use game select 1. Play until you score 5,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 62: Let’s Take a Pole

By now, you have climbed four buildings, dealing with egg-laying birds, falling girders (where were they falling from??), a sign with a short circuit, and of course the relentless pelting of the Mad Doctor. You are exhausted, hanging by your flipper from his helicopter, when Melvin flies up to you. He shouts over the noise of the helicopter, “I’ve looked everywhere above the clouds, I don’t see that hole anywhere… and I should know where it was, you and Charlie fired me into it! I think the Doctor is right, it must have moved.”

The Doctor’s terrifying red face leans down out of the helicopter, which makes you wonder who is flying it. He shouts at you with a megaphone. “The hole doesn’t seem to be around any of these skyscrapers! I think it must be in the Pole District!”

You are wondering if he means some kind of Polish neighborhood, when you see the helicopter is making a terrifying dive toward a strange part of town with many poles sticking out of the ground, and some just floating in the air! You are sure you are going to be killed, but the helicopter stops its sudden plummet just a few feet above the ground. You let go and plop down into the dust. Immediately, an evil looking rainbow snake starts slithering toward you, fangs glistening. You scramble away from it in terror. “Watch out for that snake,” says the doctor, “it’ll kill you, and then you’ll never find the hole. Fortunately, you’re a good jumper!” He’s right about that – you leap over the snake, as it lashes out to strike. The doctor throws down a purple and blue jumpsuit. “Put this on! It will help you with pole climbing. I have to go get my orange helicopter – this blue one has no pole attachment. I’ll be back soon! When you see me return, climb up to see if you can find that skyhole anywhere! And… watch out for the bats, and… whatever those face things are. Be right back!”

As the helicopter disappears into the distance, you don’t really want to put on the jumpsuit, but that snake is coming back for you, flanked by some bats, and you are worried you might not be able to jump over all of them. You quickly put it on, which isn’t easy with frog flippers, and leap onto a pole, finding that with the sticky suit, you can easily climb up and down it.

“Wow! Nice work!” says Melvin. “You seem to have this pole thing under control, though if you ask me, this whole thing is a stuntman’s nightmare. Anyway, you look for the hole here, and I’ll go check out the higher parts of the sky.” He zips off, and you see the Doctor returning in his orange helicopter, with a long green pole hanging down from it. You can’t help thinking this is not the best way to look for a hole in the sky, but bats are coming your way, and there’s no time to think about it!

Place the Stuntman cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty settings to b, and use game select 1. Play until you clear nine screens, or get 10,000 points, whichever comes first. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 61: Oh Noooo!

After a terrible game of race and chase through the dark of the Graves mansion with bats, spiders, and the most evil ghost you’ve ever seen (and you’ve seen a lot of ghosts in the last 24 hours), you stumble out the door carrying the urn like a football into the night. “Noo nee noo noo, noo nee noo noo,” sings Melvin. “That place was like the twilight zone. I’m so glad we got out of there!”

But the door crashes open behind you, and the furious ghost of Mister Graves is upon you. He screams with rage, and becomes enormous. “GIVE ME THE URN!” he bellows. “NO ONE WILL DENY ME IMMORTALITY!” His enormous vibrating form looms up, as big as the four-story mansion, and then dives down at you in a burst of ethereal energy. By some strange instinct, you pull the lid off of the urn, and a massive vortex emanates from it, twisting the giant ghost into a great whirlpool before you. He swirls around and around shouting, “NOOOO! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! MY IMMORTALITY!” As he spins faster, the vortex starts to suck him into the urn. “IN THE NAME OF GRAVES,” he shouts, “I CURSE YOU, PLAYER!” His voice is distorted as the vortex gets smaller and faster, sucking him in. But you can just make out his final words as the vortex disappears into the mouth of the vessel. “MAY THE POWER OF THE URN… TURN YOU… INTO A FROG!” And with that, suddenly he is gone, and all is silent.

You and Melvin look at each other, still on guard. But everything is indeed calm, as you sit in the mud, where you had fallen, cradling the now silent urn in one hand, and holding the lid in the other.

“I guess he’s gone,” says Melvin.

“I guess… so,” you say, breathing hard, your exhalations forming great clouds of vapor in the cold, wet night. But you are nervous. “What about the curse?” you ask. “I don’t want to be a frog!”

Melvin looks you over. “Well, you don’t look like a frog to me. You look like a player who just got another treasure.” He smiles, not that he has a mouth.

You smile too. “Hey yeah!” You look down at the urn. “We sure worked hard for this!” and you place the lid back on top of the urn. But as you do, there is a horrible flash of spectral electricity that shocks your hands, and you feel the urn somehow sucked into your body, and feel your skin, muscles, bones, and organs all distorting and changing horribly. When the flash of light is over, you realize the urn is gone, as you look at your empty hands. Except… they aren’t human hands. They are webby and green.

“Holy Konami!” shouts Melvin. “You’re a frog!”

You look down, and see that he’s right. You are an enormous, human-sized frog… your shirt is gone, but somehow you are still wearing a pair of orange pants. You try to stand up, but realize you are much more comfortable crouching like frogs do. You try to speak, but all that comes out is a great “RIBBIT!” You look around, but the urn is nowhere to be seen.

“I can’t believe it,” says Melvin. “That urn got sucked into you, and turned you into a frog!”

“Ribbit!” you say.

“Okay, stay calm…” says Melvin. “We’ll just…” the rain stopped a while ago, and the sun has just started to come up, casting a red and orange haze over the city. “We’ll just head down into the city, and… find you a doctor. I’m sure a doctor will have a way to… turn you back… and, uh, get the urn, and… yeah. Come on, follow me!”

Incredibly self-conscious about hopping around the city, you follow Melvin to a doctor’s office, who refers you to a specialist, who refers you to a veterinarian. The vet just shakes her head. “Have you considered going to a mad doctor? When dealing with cases involving magic, sometimes it’s the only alternative.” She gives a recommendation, and you hop to his office, which is in one of the four huge skyscrapers in the center of the city. The front door of the building has an imposing sign:

WARNING: BIOHAZARD: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

However, there is a glass side door with a small sign reading “Julius Jekyll, MD, DDS.” Behind it is a dusty staircase leading down into a dark basement. You awkwardly hop down the stairs, and find all kinds of bizarre equipment in an enormous laboratory that seems to be dark and abandoned.

“Hello?” calls Melvin into the eerie space.

“Ribbit?” you say, forgetting that you still can’t say human words.

“Why hello!” chirps a voice right behind you, so shrill and loud, that you both jump, and now that you are a human-sized frog, you really jump, high enough that you hit your head on the ceiling. Rubbing your throbbing head with your froggy hand, you turn to see a terrifying sight: a bald man in a lab coat. That doesn’t sound scary, but this man has bright red skin, huge wide eyes, and a disturbingly large mouth. “I’m the doctor, can I help you?” he says, grinning and staring.

“Uh,” says Melvin. “We were told you were a, uh, mad doctor. Is that right? It says M.D. on the door.”

He stares with his bulbous, terrifying eyes. “What else could M.D. stand for?”

Melvin shifts uncomfortably in the air. “We… just weren’t sure – all four of these skyscrapers look alike. We didn’t know which was yours.”

“THEY ARE ALL MINE!” he shouts. “ALL FULL OF MY SECRET SURPRISE!”

“Your… secret surprise? What... is it?” asks Melvin, uncertainly.

“Oh, you know. Nuclear reactors, virus factories. Typical Mad Doctor stuff,” he says nonchalantly.

You and Melvin look at each other, both pretty sure you should leave.

“My friend here has been turned into a frog,” says Melvin reluctantly, “or… most of the way into a frog, anyway.”

The Doctor smiles unnervingly. “This was a human person, you say?” asks the doctor, taking out three different stethoscopes to listen to your… heart? “How did this happen?” he asks, placing stethoscopes on various parts of your frog body, and listening intently.

“It was a curse from a ghost that got sucked into a magic urn, and then, uh, the urn got sucked into the frog. Well, I mean, got sucked into the Player, who turned into a frog… or, mostly into a frog.”

The doctor nods thoughtfully, grinning the whole time. You notice that he never seems to blink. He continues to stare at you. “Does this have anything to do with the recent ghost infestation?”

Melvin is surprised. “Yeah, actually, you see…”

The doctor waves him away. “No explanation is necessary,” he says with finality. “You see, the ghost was sucked into the urn, the urn was sucked into your friend. Hundreds of ghosts were sucked into a hole in the sky. There is only one answer: you must find that hole!”

Melvin scratches his head, not that he has one. “Yeah, uh, see, the problem with that is, I think we closed it up.”

“Nonsense!” shouts the doctor. “You know the poem perfectly well: Only they who opens closes / Even if it cuts off noses. You didn’t open the sky hole, did you?”

“Uh, no…” says Melvin.

“Then you might have shrunken it, but you did not close it! So! We must find it! It won’t be easy…” at this, his eyes turn into disturbingly narrow slits, and he looks around shiftily. “Because sky holes are always on the move!” His eyes go wide again, and his grin continues to be disturbing. “Are you ready for my prescription?”

You and Melvin look at each other with trepidation. “Uh, sure?” says Melvin.

He takes out a pad, and starts writing. “You, little flying square, should fly around, and look above the clouds.” He tears off a sheet, and hands it to Melvin, who has no way to grasp it, and so it flutters to the cluttered floor of the lab. “Now, you, giant frog,” he says, while furiously scribbling on his pad, “Good thing you have those sticky flippers! You should climb the outside of this building, and keep an eye out for sky holes while you do.”

You look at Melvin and say “Ribbit.”

Melvin looks at the Doctor, “Why climb the outside? Why not just take the elevator or the stairs?”

“THE CONTENTS OF THE SKYSCRAPERS ARE SECRET!” he shouts. “You must climb the outside. But don’t worry! I will help by constantly opening and closing the windows, and by dropping flowerpots, buckets, and other helpful items on you while you climb. If you get to the top, and don’t see the sky hole, I’ll pick you up in my blue helicopter, and take you to another building.” By now, he has scribbled out several pages from his prescription pad, which have all fluttered to the floor. He then opens his great mouth disturbingly wide, tosses in the pad and pencil, and chews them up. “Delicious!” he shouts, turning to run up the stairs. “Come on! Come on! We don’t have a moment to lose!”

You and Melvin nervously follow him up the stairs. “This… doesn’t make a lot of sense,” says Melvin. “But… I guess a lot of things in the Atariverse don’t?” You are up on the sidewalk now, looking up at the ridiculously tall building. “Sure you want to do this?” asks Melvin.

“Ribbit,” is all you can think to say.

Place the Crazy Climber cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty switches to b, and use game select “Building 1, single player.” Play until you have climbed all four buildings. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 60: A Grave Situation

You are speeding to yet another ghost sighting. “Charlie, we’ve been catching ghosts all day, and I’m not sure it’s helping. I mean, just look at the PK meter.” The meter has been accelerating all day and is dangerously close to 9999, its maximum.

Charlie looks up at the truly massive gathering of ghosts up in the sky. “You’re right. What we need to do is go after that,” he says, pointing up at the swirling vortex of ghosts.

“But how can we stop it?" you say. "We don’t have enough ghost traps for that!”

Melvin pops out of the proton pack. “Look, I’ve seen this movie. I know what to do. We just need to get underneath the vortex, and hope nothing stops us.”

“What could stop us?” asks Charlie.

Immediately, an image of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from the Ghostbusters movie pops into your mind. And just as quickly, it appears on the street before you, easily thirty stories tall.

“Where did that come from?” screams Charlie, slamming on the brakes.

You immediately realize your mistake, and put your head in your hands… in the movie, the Marshmallow Man appears because Ray thought of it… and now it has appeared in front of you because you thought of it. You desperately try not to think of it, but it is too late. It towers high over you. So you try, desperately, to change it in your mind. You imagine it not thirty stories tall, but, tiny, very tiny. Immediately, it starts to shrink. Your eyes widen with excitement – your plan is going to work! You can easily deal with a tiny Marshmallow Man! It shrinks down and down, twenty stories, ten stories, five stories, two stories… but… then it stops. You keep thinking tiny thoughts, but… somehow, it isn’t working. And the Marshmallow Man is angry… he doesn’t seem to like shrinking, and starts leaping around furiously. You both get out of the car, wanting to run away from this marshmallowy monster, but realize that it is standing between you and the vortex. The vortex in the sky is starting to glow and pulse, like some gateway is opening. It looks very dire.

“Charlie!” you shout. “We have to get directly under the vortex! Run underneath the Marshmallow Man when he jumps! We can do this!” The sticky white demon leaps right at you, and you run underneath him, and keep running until you are right under the vortex. “Charlie, come on!” He seems paralyzed with fear, staring up twelve feet of angry white goo, and you realize the inspiration he needs. The Marshmallow Man leaps at him. “Come on, Charlie! It’s a tie game, and you’re on third! Run for home!” Charlie suddenly snaps out of it, and dashes under the leaping Marshmallow Man, bolts toward you, and slides to safety as if the manhole cover on the street under the vortex was home plate. “Safe!” you shout. “Now get up!” A giant hole has opened in the sky, and you see something giant and horrible sticking its head through, waiting for the hole to get just a little larger. Worse, the Marshmallow Man has turned and is leaping right at you. With no time to spare, you and Charlie charge your proton packs, and you shout, “Now, Charlie, now! CROSS THE STREAMS!”

For a split second, you hear Melvin shout, “No, don’t!” but it’s too late – you both fire your proton packs up at the vortex in a great green X, and there is a tremendous explosion of energy: the Marshmallow man is splattered across five city blocks, and a green pillar of proton power rushes up at purple vortex, hitting Zuul (or whatever was peering through at you) in the face, and sucking all the evil ghosts right through hole into some distant dimension. The vortex sucks in the green proton energy like a kid sucking in a piece of spaghetti, and just as the last of the proton energy disappears, the portal winks out of existence.

You and Charlie are both stuck to the street with sticky melted marshmallow, but you hear a great cheer go up all around the city. You both stagger to your feet, hug each other, and it is only when you pat each other on the back, do you realize that the marshmallow goo has stuck you together. With great effort, you pull apart, each falling down on your respective behinds when the sticky marshmallow suddenly snaps apart. You are both laughing out loud, when you suddenly realize something. “Hey,” you say, concerned, “Where’s Melvin?” You have a terrible thought. “Did he get sucked into the other dimension?”

Charlie stares up into the sky where the vortex used to be. “I… hope not?”

You get really anxious. “Charlie, he TOLD us not to cross the streams… but… I didn’t listen, I figured he’d be fine! There… wasn’t time to think it through!” You shout, “Melvin!” and you listen. “Melvin, where are you?” you shout again. But there is too much cheering in the city for you to make out any reply. “Oh, Charlie,” you say, still looking around, “I think he’s… gone.” You think about all the adventures you and Melvin had together. Sure, he was kind of nuts, but… you realize, what Melvin said was was right... what’s a player without a missile?

“Well,” says Charlie quietly, gesturing up at the hill between you and Spirit Bay. “I guess we better get you back to that haunted house so you can get that urn. You know, for the Queen.” And hearing those words, which are just what Melvin would have said, you find tears running down your cheeks.

“Aw kid,” says Charlie, putting a hand on your shoulder, “don’t take it so hard. Things are tough in the Atariverse.” He reaches into his pocket, and hands you something shiny. “At least you’ll always have this to remember him by.” In your hands is the missile whistle, the one you got from the fisherman, the one you had to hock to buy a car early in your adventures. “Wh- where did you get this,” you ask, astonished.

“Huh?” says Charlie. “Oh… it was part of the deal with Vic Hickle. I figured it would help the Queen, so I got it back from him when I got the Ghostmobile over there. What’s it do, anyway?”

A faint glimmer of hope rises up inside you. You look high up in the air where the vortex used to be, fill your lungs with the deepest breath you’ve ever taken, put the whistle between your lips, and blow with all your might. Charlie puts his fingers in his ears at the tremendous TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET of a pure 2600 Hertz tone that echoes off buildings for blocks and blocks. When the echo dies away, the city has gone silent, wondering what that was. After several moments of silence, your hope dies away too. Why would you think that a whistle could be heard in another dimension? The city noises start up again, like nothing happened. 

“Come on, kid,” says Charlie, trying to pry open the Ghostmobile, which is covered in marshmallow. “It’s gonna get dark soon, and I have to return this car to Vic.” Sadly, you trudge over to the car, but you aren’t thinking about urns or haunted houses. You are thinking about going home. What’s the point of this, you think, if I have to do it alone? What’s the point of this at all? Who cares about some forgotten videogames no one plays anymore? You drop your proton pack on the ground, and sit down next to it. “Kid, you coming?” asks Charlie.

“No, actually, I’m not.” You hug your knees.

“Are you sure?” he says, uncertainly.

“Just go!” you shout angrily, burying your face in your knees.

He starts to say something, but then looks up. You look up too, and see a glowing white square hurtling down at you from high, high in the sky. Suddenly he is upon you, orbiting around you both in a million figure eights. “YOU IDIOTS!" he shouts, before dropping to the ground, panting. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO CROSS THE STREAMS!”

“Melvin!” you shout. “You’re… alive!”

“Yes, I’m alive! And back in this dimension, no thanks to you!” You are too excited to point out that you were the one who blew the whistle. You give him a hug, as much as you can give a hug to a floating two-dimensional square.

“Melvin, I was so worried! I’m so glad you’re back!” Melvin knocks the side of his head, not that he has a head, and green energy shakes out. “Ugh,” he says. “I’m going to be shedding protons for weeks.”

Charlie taps his foot. “Are you two done yet? We have an urn to collect!”

“Yes we do!” shouts Melvin. “For the Queen!” and zips off toward the spooky house on the hill.

“Melvin!” you shout, laughing, “Wait up!”

It’s been a long day of chasing ghosts, and you and Charlie arrive on the hill in your sticky Ghostmobile just as the sun is setting. The Graves Mansion is spooky enough in the daytime, but now, again, you are going to have to enter it during the night, and you slow your pace as you start to cross the craggy overgrowth that surrounds the house. You are looking at the house just as the sun disappears over the horizon, and in that single moment, a gathering of ghostly figures winks into existence. Two dozen ghost children, and one taller adult, all standing solemnly between you and the house, watching you, waiting for you to approach.

“For the love of Cincinnati,” says Charlie, eyes wide. “Do we have to fight them? We’re out of ghost traps.”

One of them steps forward. Charlie cowers. It’s Sneak! “Sneak!” you shout. 

“Player!” Sneak says. “You got rid of all the evil ghosts! We all watched!” The children nod excitedly.

You look over the large gathering of ghost children. “Is… this your kindergarten class?”

“Yes!” says Sneak. “We’ve been hiding in the house for so long, so we didn’t get caught by Mr. Graves, or the bad ghosts. But they are gone now! You got rid of them!”

The tall ghost figure speaks. She is a young woman who looks familiar. You suddenly realize that when Peek gave you the weird vision of the murderer in the house, she was the babysitter that was you. Or… you were her? Or something? “Thank you, Player," she says solemnly. "I’ve worked so hard to keep my students safe. Now that we are free, I can take them where they need to go.” Her eyes turn skyward.

“Miss Strode, we can’t go yet!” says Sneak, with some concern. “Peek isn’t here!”

“I know that,” she says. “Don’t worry, we won’t leave until every single one of you is safe and sound. Do you know where Peek is?”

“Yes!” says Sneak. “Peek is back in our old house!” You think back to that strange house where you played Hide and Seek with a ghost child, and it seems like ages ago.

Miss Strode says, “Can you go get Peek?”

“Yes!” says Sneak excitedly. “Be right back!” And suddenly Sneak blinks out of sight.

The ghostly Miss Strode looks at you with some seriousness. “It does seem all the evil ghosts have left the house,” she pauses, turning to look at the mansion. “Except one. Zachary Graves is still in there. With no other ghosts to stop him, he is likely trying to reassemble that urn.”

“Can… that work?” you ask, eerily realizing that talking to ghosts has become a normal thing for you.

“I don’t know,” she says, staring back at you and Charlie. “But do you really want to find out? What I do know is that if you go in there, he is going to try to stop you.” Gloom has settled over the house, and it looks terrifyingly spooky as you look up at it. “I should also mention that it is full of bats and spiders.”

“Ugh!” you think, tenderly rubbing the bat and spider bites from Frankenstein’s castle, which have only just started to properly heal.

“But there is also a magic scepter in there. If you can find it, it will protect you. There are also many locked doors.”

Just then, Melvin flies up. He looks at you and Charlie. “Are you guys coming? I’ve been waiting at the front door for an hour!” He suddenly notices Miss Strode and all the children. “Yikes!” he says. “More ghosts!”

“Calm down, Melvin – it’s the kindergarten class, remember? Miss Strode was just explaining what things are like inside the house. She says there are a lot of locked doors. Is the master key still in the lock?”

“No, it’s gone,” says Melvin.

“I think that Graves took it when you unlocked the house,” says Miss Strode. “I noticed it was gone when we came out.”

Suddenly, Sneak reappears, crying, and runs to Miss Strode, hugging her skirt. “What’s wrong, Sneak?” she asks, consolingly. “Miss Strode!” cries Sneak, “I looked EVERYWHERE! Peek wasn’t in the house. I think Mister Graves might have caught Peek!” Sneak dissolves into sobs.

You look nervously at the house. “Do you think Peek is in there?” you ask Miss Strode. She starts to answer when suddenly you hear a familiar voice behind you.

“Here I am!”

You turn around to see a smiling Peek. “Peek!” scolds Miss Strode. “Where were you?”

“I was hiding,” Peek says proudly. All the children laugh. “PEEK!” shouts Sneak, who runs over, hugs Peek, and the two of them hold hands, laugh, and spin around, best friends united after decades apart. All the children cheer. Miss Strode smiles and shakes her head. “Well,” she says, looking at you. “With your help, I finally have my entire class back together. And now I must take them where they belong.” She looks up at the house. “You’ve done so much, I don’t imagine old Mister Graves will give you much trouble.” She turns to the class. “Now, children, please thank the Player, and the Player’s friends, who have helped us so much.”

“THAAAANK YOOOOU!” call out the class of ghostly children, all in unison.

“Very good,” says Miss Strode. “Now, line up, it’s time for us to go.” 

Sneak and Peek, still holding hands, wave to you. “Goodbye, Player! We had fun playing with you! Good luck with Mister Graves!” You wave back, and in a wink, they all disappear. 

You, Charlie, and Melvin are left standing alone. “You got this, okay, kid?” Charlie asks. “I gotta get this ghostmobile back to Vic, or I’ll lose my deposit.” 

The house looks terrifying, and clouds have rolled in, flashing lightning high in the sky, but with Melvin back, you feel like you can do anything. “What’choo think, Melvin, we got this?”

“Oh yeah!” shouts Melvin. “Graves doesn’t know what he’s in for!”

Charlie laughs. “Ha, yeah. I’m sure you guys can take care of some spooky old ghost. After all, what’s the worst that can happen?” Just then lightning flashes and an ominous thunderclap sounds, and it starts to rain. “Well, I better get going,” says Charlie. “At least the rain might get some of this marshmallow off the car.” He hands you a small box. “We’re all out of ghost traps, but it looks dark in there. Take these matches.”

“We don’t need those – we’ve got Melvin’s glow,” you say, patting Melvin on the back, not that he has a back.

“No, you better take them,” says Melvin. “I took a peek inside. This place isn’t any ordinary haunted house. It’s not just dark, it’s SUPERNATURALLY dark. Flames will light it, but nothing electrical can.” 

You ponder whether Melvin is really, as he puts it, “electrical,” but you take the box of matches. The rain starts to pick up, and Charlie ducks into the car. “Good luck, kids,” he says, “bring home that urn,” and then all three of you say “FOR THE QUEEN!” and you and Melvin laugh while Charlie drives off, waving.

You look up at the four story mansion, steeling yourself to enter, and the front door slowly creeeaaakkkss open, inviting you to enter. You aren’t sure, but you could swear that the house was… smiling, and its open door feels like a mouth ready to devour you. “L-let’s go in,” says Melvin with a mixture of bravery and terror.

You take a step inside, and feel the cold darkness envelop you. It is, indeed, pitch black. You can’t see Melvin at all. “Melvin, are you here?”

“I’m here,” says Melvin nervously. “But all I can see is your eyes!” You hear a strange rushing sound, like some kind of rising wind. “Something’s coming!” says Melvin. “You better light one of those matches!” You strike a match that makes a tiny orange pool of light. Something is coming toward you out of the darkness, and you realize if you are to find and reassemble the urn, you better get moving.

Place the Haunted House cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 7, and set difficulty switches to b. Play until you reassemble the urn and escape the house. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 59: I Ain’t ‘Fraida No Ghost

You wake from a terrible nightmare where you killed thirteen people with a chainsaw, only to run out of gas and have one of the survivors attack you and kick you over and over.

Your eyes snap open as you feel a cold presence leave your body, and you see a green ghost rocket into the sky. Dazed, you sit up. You are still at the door of the Graves Mansion. Your clothes feel weird. You touch them and realize that you are covered in some kind of disgusting goo.

Melvin is here. “Hey, Player, are you okay? I think one of those ghosts knocked you out.”

“Yeah,” you say, looking at the green dot flying off to the city, “it gave me one crazy nightmare.” You stand up, and shake some of the goo off of our hands. “What is this stuff?”

“I think,” says Melvin, “you got slimed.”

Just then, you hear a car horn with a familiar musical theme. A weird gray ambulance with pink trim pulls up in front of the mansion. On the side is the Ghostbusters logo. The window rolls down, and there is Charlie Hustle. “Here you guys are,” he calls. “Jeez, this is the fourth haunted house I’ve been to trying to find you guys!”

“Charlie, what are you doing here?” asks Melvin.

“Haven’t you heard? Someone has unleashed hundreds of ghosts on the city! I figured if anyone could stop them, it would be you! So, I cashed in a favor with Vic Hickle, and he gave me this sweet ride.” The ambulance backfires loudly.

Melvin looks at it skeptically. “What do we need this for?”

“The ghosts are everywhere! Come on, get in! We need to go buy some gear!”

“But… we don’t have any money,” you say.

Charlie laughs, “It’s okay, I had $5,000 squirrelled away. That ought to be enough for some ghost traps. Get in!” He looks you up and down, “But first, clean yourself up, you’re a mess!” he throws you a towel.

You wipe off and get in, and the Ambulance backfires again as it races away from the Graves Mansion. “Wait!” you shout. “I left the key in the door!”

“You’ll have to worry about it later! Those ghosts seem to be moving toward one building, and they keep saying ‘Zoo.’ You think they want to go to the zoo?”

Your eighties memories are a little hazy, but one word rises up. “It’s not ‘Zoo,’” you say, “it’s ‘Zuul.’”

“What the heck is a Zuul?” asks Charlie, screeching around a corner, and slamming on the brakes in front of a weird little shop. “Actually, tell me later! We’re here!” You get out, and see various ghosts flying down the city streets, all heading north. Charlie lives up to his name, hustling you into the shop. “Come on,” he says, “we’ve gotta decide what ghost gear to buy.” The shop has all kids of weird things: Ghost traps, ghost bait, ghost vacuums, PK meters, proton packs, and even image intensifiers, whatever those are. You and Melvin stare blankly at all of it. “What should we get?”

“How would I know?” asks Charlie, climbing into a ghostbusting suit. He shoves a roll of bills into your hand. “But come on, start shopping!”

“Whoa!” says Melvin. “Proton packs! I’ve always wanted to be the beam in one of these!”

“Yeah, but which one are you going to be in?” you ask him. “Mine or Charlie’s?”

“I can be in both,” Melvin says proudly, but then looks concerned. “That is, as long as you don’t cross the streams!”

Charlie looks out the window, for in the distance hundreds of ghosts ominously circling a tall tower. “Let’s hurry… these ghosts are up to something… and we gotta stop ‘em!”

Place the Ghostbusters cartridge into your Atari 2600. Do your shopping, and when you are ready to head out, flip the left difficulty switch. Play until you collect $10,000 and defeat the marshmallow man by crossing the streams of your proton packs. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 58: Nightmare, Texas Style

Dracula is terrifying, but seeing the crosses startles him, and as he backs away in fear, you cleverly guide him into one of his own ghost prisons, slam the door, and throw the electric switch.

“We did it!” shouts Melvin. “Take that, Dracula!” he shouts at the ghost prison, doing his pixel victory dance. From the electrified cell, you can hear Dracula howling and cursing.

“Come on, Melvin, we have to find the key!” you look around the terrifying basement tomb. In the center is Dracula’s coffin, which you open with nervous hands. Inside, upon the velvet lining, is a large leaden key, with an evil looking skull on the end.

“That must be it!” cries Melvin. “The master key to the Graves Mansion!” You grab it, and are about to head back up the stairs, when you realize you hear another sound: a child’s voice. “Hello?” it says, “Is there anyone there?”

You realize there are two electric ghost trap cells in the basement, and that someone else is in the other one.

“Hello? Hello?” the voice continues. “Please, if you are out there, please let me out!”

You and Melvin look at each other nervously. Here you are in the dark basement of Dracula’s castle, and someone, or something is asking for your help.

Cautiously, you approach the other cell. The electricity buzzes all around it. “Who’s in there?” asks Melvin.

“My name is Sneak,” the voice says, sobbing. “I came here to get the key to help my friend, but got stuck.” You and Melvin look at each other with alarm. 

“Throw the switch, let Sneak out!” says Melvin.

You throw the switch, and open the door. A ghostly child is inside, who looks at you through tearstained eyes in disbelief. “Is it really safe to come out?” Sneak asks.

“Yeah, kid, come on!” shouts Melvin. “We gotta get out of here, before Dracula figures a way out – he sounds pretty mad over there!”

Sneak follows you as you hurry up the stairs, and run out of the house. You find yourself back in the graveyard. The rainbow ghost is there, and does a flying flip with joy. “Is that the master key?” it shouts. “And… SNEAK! Is that you?” The ghost flies up to Sneak, and grabs Sneak’s hands. “I never thought I’d see you again! Peek is going to be so happy to see you!” The ghost scoops Sneak up in an excited ghostly embrace, and carries Sneak high up in the air, and then both of them float back down, laughing. “Wow!” he says to you, “You two really did it! Wait…” says the ghost, suddenly turning serious. “Where’s Dracula?”

“We trapped him in a ghost trap!” says Melvin. “Do you think it will hold him?”

The rainbow ghost laughs. “Doctor Frankenstein’s traps will hold ANYTHING undead. That’s why I’ve stayed away from here so long! Oh, he’s trapped alright!” He looks up with pride at the house. “Oh, I can’t tell you what this means to me! Having my home taken away was so terrible! And now I have it back! I’m going to fly back to Frankenstein’s to get Igor to help me fix up the house the way it used to be. He’s going to be so excited!” He starts laughing. “I can’t believe you actually caught Dracula! This is an incredible day! Goodbye, goodbye!” calls the ghost, as he flies off over the mountains.

Sneak looks up at you, and asks with a quiet voice, “Now that we have the key, can we rescue my friends?”

“Your friends are in the Graves Mansion?” you ask.

“Yes,” says Sneak seriously. “The bad man who killed us all captured our ghosts, and trapped everyone in his house.”

“Why did he do that?” you ask.

Sneak looks at the ground. “He was a greedy man, he wanted to live forever, like Dracula, so he asked Dracula how to do it. Dracula told him he would bite him and he would become a vampire, and live forever. But Mister Graves didn’t want to be a vampire. He wanted to be a regular man, and live forever that way. Dracula said there was another way, but he would only tell it if Mister Graves would help him get rid of the rainbow ghost that haunted his house. So, Mister Graves persuaded Doctor Frankenstein to build the ghost traps for Dracula.”

“This is complicated,” says Melvin.

You ignore him. “Then what happened, Sneak?”

“The rainbow ghost left his house, and was very sad. But Dracula was happy, and told Mister Graves that he needed Queen Stella’s Magic Urn, and a thousand ghosts.” Sneak suddenly looks confused. “It’s funny, for a long time, I forgot about Queen Stella. But a couple days ago, sitting in my cell, I suddenly remembered.”

You and Melvin look at each other. “Then what, Sneak?”

“Well…” says Sneak, “Mister Graves stole the Urn from Queen Stella, but he didn’t have a thousand ghosts, so…” Sneak starts to cry. “He started killing everyone. That’s why he killed us, and trapped us in his house.” Sneak cries a little more, and then gets serious again. “But we weren’t enough ghosts, so he got an idea: he would burn down the jail and the insane asylum to get all the ghosts he’d need to live forever.”

You stare at Sneak in wide-eyed horror. “And he did that?”

“Yes,” says Sneak.

“And you were trapped in there with those terrible ghosts?” asks Melvin.

“Yes,” says Sneak, starting to cry again, but then he laughs. “It was scary at first, but we were good hiders. We had a special room the others couldn’t find. We felt safe there, me, my friends, and our teacher.”

“Were you trapped by electric walls, like in Dracula’s castle?” asks Melvin.

“No,” says Sneak. “We were trapped by magic. The Graves Mansion is very special.” He points at the master key. “When you turn that key, it makes all the walls of the mansion magically sealed, so that nothing can get in or out, even ghosts. For generations, the Graves family used it to keep away ghosts, who like to live in the attics of big houses. They also say it protected the house during the great earthquake of 1890. But Mister Graves realized he could use it to keep ghosts in, not just keep them out. Once he had his thousand ghosts, he wanted to make sure no ghosts took the key, so he gave the key to Dracula, and asked him to lock the house so no one could get in or out. Dracula locked it up tight, and took the master key back to his castle.”

“Why did he want to be locked in a house with a thousand ghosts?” asks Melvin, confused.

“Then he could say the magic words, and the urn would suck all of us in, and make Mister Graves live forever.”

“Is that what happened?” you ask.

“It was going to. But I snuck out. I found a crack in the magic in our little room, and slipped through it. Then Mister Graves didn’t have enough ghosts.”

“Why didn’t your friends come with you?” asks Melvin.

“The crack was too small. They couldn’t do it. But I could talk to them through it. They told me that Mister Graves was furious when it didn’t work, and he started shouting at all the bad ghosts. They got angry, and smashed the urn, and killed him.”

“Oh, the irony!” shouts Melvin, delighted. “We have 999 happy haunts here, but there’s room for a thousand!” He laughs, “Now he has a thousand ghosts, but he’s one of them!”

“Wait…” you say, confused. “So… if he’s a ghost, won’t he… live forever?”

Sneak looks at you solemnly. “Ghosts aren’t supposed to stay here. They only stay when something keeps them here. Peek and I are still here because we want to rescue our friends. When our friends are saved, we can go to where we are supposed to. My friends told me that Mister Graves roams the house trying to find the urn pieces and put it back together. But the bad ghosts keep hiding the pieces from him. He thinks if he can find the pieces, the urn will bring him back to life, and he can live forever.”

“Is that true?” asks Melvin.

Sneak shrugs. “I don’t know. But the reason I was trapped at Dracula’s house for all those years is because I was trying to get the key to set my friends free.” Sneak looks at the key longingly. “They’ve been trapped in that house so long. Can we go there now, and set them free?”

You and Melvin look at each other. “I… guess so,” you say. “How do we get there?”

Sneak says, “Hold my hands, and close your eyes.” You take Sneak’s tiny, cold, ghostly hand in yours, and close your eyes. Just as you are wondering how Melvin is holding Sneak’s hand, you open your eyes, and realize you are somewhere else. You hear the ocean, and look up to see a creepy New England mansion looming over you, on a cliff overlooking a bay. “We’re here,” says Sneak. “Please,” he implores you, “open the door. My friends have been waiting for so long.” The moonlight glints off the evil eyes of the skull on the heavy lead key as you slide it into the keyhole, and start to turn it.

“Wait a minute!” shouts Melvin, as you hear a click in the lock. “Won’t all the evil ghosts get out, too?” But it is too late. The door flies open and an ice cold firehose of monstrous evil ghosts blast through your body and mind. Horrible thoughts, feelings, and visions take you over as you slump lifelessly to the ground. You suddenly find yourself somewhere else. Somewhere hot. And while it is hot outside, you are cold inside. Cold with a terrible rage. You look down to see a chainsaw in your hands, and feeling yourself taken over by an evil presence that cackles wickedly, you survey a landscape of brambles, fences, and discarded wheelchairs, and know what you are going to do.

Place the Texas Chainsaw Massacre cartridge into your Atari 2600. Play until you get 13,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 57: Fangs for the Memories

The pinball game is intense, and not just because the flipper buttons keep shocking your fingers! You realize that you are racing against time, because if Doctor Frankenstein catches you in here, who knows what he and his monster will do to you. At 10,000 points and 20,000 points, silver crosses popped out of the machine. You get nervous, though, because as your score gets higher, more and more blue sparks come out of the power cable, not to mention the flipper buttons! Just as you manage 30,000 points and a third cross pops out, a massive lightning bolt shoots from the backglass, and sends you hurtling across the room, crashing into a pile of pots, pans, and old electrodes. The room is black now, except of the glow of Melvin, and a flashing “TILT – TILT – TILT” on the machine, which gradually fades to black.

Melvin flies over, concerned. “Are you okay?”

You pull a pot off your head, and shake off some other lab paraphernalia with a lot of noisy clanging. “Yes… I think so.” You reach into your pocket. “But we’ve only got three of the five crosses! Will that be enough to defeat Dracula?” In the distance, you hear screams, groans, and… a smashing noise.

Suddenly the door flies open – it’s Igor. “You’ve got to get out of here! You shorted out the whole castle! The master is furious, and the monster has escaped!”

You and Melvin zip out the door, only to see the Monster smashing his way down the corridor toward you. The fury in his eyes is terrifying. Seeing no alternative, you run back into the room, and slam the door, trying to pile up the pots, pans, and other lab equipment in front of it. “Igor, what do we do?” you shout.

“Well,” says Igor, “I don’t see any other alternative.” He pulls out his flute, and puts it to his lips.

“NOW he’s going to play music?” says Melvin, incredulous.

“Of course!” you say. “That will calm the monster, right?”

Igor pauses. “Oh no. In fact, it makes him quite furious.” He starts to play. Immediately, you hear the monster scream in anger and the door and wall smash in. But, just as Igor plays his final note, a trap door in the floor clicks open under the pinball machine. Igor jumps in, and you and Melvin follow. You land on the floor below in a familiar hallway, and Igor plays the same song backwards, and you see the trap door click shut and disappear. You can hear the monster stomping around a floor above you, sounding frustrated, and then you hear what sounds like a pinball machine being smashed to bits. Fortunately, the floors of the castle are very thick, and it sounds like it is quite far away.

“I knew these musical locks would come in handy,” says Igor, tucking his flute back into his robe. “How many crosses did you get?”

“Just three – do you think that’s enough?”

Igor makes a circle in the dust on the floor with his foot. “Well… maybe… assuming you can trap Dracula in less than twelve seconds. But we have to get you out of here. The monster has seen you, and once he gets mad at someone, he’s relentless.”

“Is Dracula’s castle near here?” you ask.

Igor laughs. “Oh, no. It’s… very far away. Far, far off in the mountains. On foot it will take you months to get there.”

“Well, how will we get there, then?”

Just then, Melvin happens to look behind you, and shouts, “Look out!” You turn just in time to see that weird hallway ghost charge at you. You dive out of the way, and lose your white cap in the process. The ghost starts to come at you again, but then pauses, and says, “Hey Igor, who are these two?”

Igor cocks his head. “I’m not really sure. But they helped me build a wall to contain the monster. They need crosses because they want to defeat Dracula.”

The ghost looks at you with its hollow eyes. “Is THAT what you were doing? With that white hat, I thought you were the painter. Sorry I bit you so many times.”

“Yeah,” says Melvin. “What was up with all that biting?”

“Sorry,” says the ghost, shrugging. “I just… like the walls the way they are. Ever since Doc Frankenstein moved in, he won’t stop redecorating. He won’t even leave the acid pool alone. And I can’t even find the spiders half the time.”

You look over the spider bites all over your arms and legs. “I haven’t had that problem.” You hear more roaring and stomping upstairs, and dust and pebbles start falling from the ceiling.

Igor looks up at it. “I think he might actually break through.”

The ghost looks over your bites sympathetically. “Wow, we really did you up a treat. I wish there was some way I could make it up to you.”

Igor says, “Maybe you can. They want to go to Dracula’s castle.”

“Why do you want to do that?” says the ghost. “Dracula will kill you. He kills everybody. He killed me.”

“We have to help a friend of ours named Peek.”

The ghost’s weird eyeholes get real big. “PEEK? Oh, now I have to help you. His friend Sneak tried to kill Dracula once, and I think got trapped in there. Do you have any crosses?”

“Yeah, three.”

“Hmm…” says the ghost. “That might be enough… if you’re fast.”

The pounding upstairs is getting louder, and the ceiling is definitely starting to crack. You get the feeling that the monster is jumping up and down on the trap door. Melvin shouts, “Igor, this whole place is going to collapse!”

Igor looks up, then looks down, then looks up again. As rubble rains down from the ceiling with each pounding jump from the monster, Igor pulls out his flute and plays. The ceiling trap door opens, and so does the one in the floor. You see the monster, in his furious green glory, plummet past you into the now open trap door in the floor, and you hear a loud thud below. You, Melvin, Igor, and the ghost all gather around the trap door in the floor to peer down into the hole. You see the monster lying unconscious on the little island in the basement acid pool. As you watch, the island glides off into the darkness.

“He’s lucky he didn’t land in the acid,” says Melvin.

“Yeah, but he’s going to get a lot of spider bites,” says the ghost.

From above, the angry face of Doctor Frankenstein glares down. “Igor! Where is my monster!”

“He’s in the basement, master. I think he’s… resting.”

“Well, stop jibber jabbering with that painter, and help me get the electricity back on.”

“Duty calls,” says Igor. “Ghost, can you take them to Dracula’s castle?”

“It will be my pleasure! They probably won’t survive… but… imagine if they do!”

“Igor,” asks Melvin, “will you be okay, with the monster, and the doctor, and everything?”

“Oh sure,” says Igor. “Just an ordinary evening around here.” He surveys all the cracks in the walls and ceiling. “You can see why we redecorate so often.” He peers out the window. “If you are going to defeat Dracula, you better get going. It’s well after midnight.”

“Yes,” says the ghost, “we had better go.” It seizes you around the waist, and to your horror, leaps out the window. You are quite high up, and find yourself hurtling towards the sharp rocks on the mountainside below, and you scream. At the last possible second, the ghost pulls up, and you narrowly avoid certain death, suddenly sailing up into the sky. As you look back at the castle, you see Igor in the window, waving goodbye, and Melvin darting out after you, trying to catch up.

When you catch your breath, you gasp, “Did you have to scare me like that?”

“Sorry,” says the ghost. “You’re heavier than you look.”

Melvin catches up. “Nice night for flying!”

“Yes,” says the ghost, looking up at the flashing gray clouds in the night sky. “Unless we get hit by lightning. But at least the rain has stopped.”

As you sail over the mountain forest below, you try to decide whether what is colder: The high altitude mountain air, or the chilling arms of a ghost around you. You’d rather not think about any of it, so you change the subject. “So… how do you know Peek?”

“Yeah,” says Melvin. “And how do you know so much about Dracula’s Castle?”

The ghost sighs, his cold breath literally sending chills down your spine. “It wasn’t always his castle. It used to be my home.”

“When was that?” asks Melvin. The moon breaks out from behind a cloud, and you see it reflect off of a mountain lake below. In the distance, a wolf howls.

The ghost sighs again. “I… I don’t remember, exactly. Being a ghost does things to your memory, I think. It could have been a thousand years ago, I’m not sure. I was once alive, I know, living a happy life. Then Dracula appeared in my bedroom one night and the next morning I was dead and my castle was his. I became a ghost, haunting my own home, swearing revenge on Dracula. For centuries, I plagued him, causing him all manner of difficulties, and no matter what he tried, he could not get rid of me.” The ghost pauses, to fly up and over some clouds. “And so it went, for centuries. Until the dark day he met Doctor Frankenstein.”

“Why would Doctor Frankenstein visit Dracula?” asks Melvin.

“Dracula heard about the famous scientist, and invited him to Ghost Manor.”

“Ghost Manor?” you ask.

“Yes,” the ghost says quietly. “It’s what I call my home. I… can’t remember my living name, and I’ve been a ghost so much longer than I was alive.” He continues. “He explained to Doctor Frankenstein that his house was haunted, and that he desired to make it ghostproof. The doctor believed that by running electricity through metal walls, he could repel ghosts, even trap ghosts.”

“Did that work?” you ask.

The ghost inhales and sighs its deepest sigh yet, and you feel ice crystals forming on the back of your neck. “Yes, it worked. I was furious. My life was taken from me, and then my own home. Not only could I not live there, but Frankenstein built special ghost trap rooms to try to imprison me. But I was too clever for that, and so I followed Doctor Frankenstein home, to haunt him instead. If I couldn’t haunt the fiend who stole my home, I would haunt the one who cast me out from it.” He looks down. “Ah, here we are. There’s Ghost Manor, just ahead.”

You see a large castle made of reddish brown stone, surrounded by a great cemetery. The ghost flies down, and lands among the tombstones near the castle, but not too near. You are very glad to have your feet on the ground again, and hug yourself, and rub your arms, trying to warm up from the bone-chilling flight, but in a chilly cemetery in the mountains, after midnight, you aren’t having much luck.

“Do you still have the crosses?” asks the ghost.

You reach into your pocket. “Yes… I…” oh no! You feel around in all your pockets. “I only have one!”

The rainbow ghost frowns. “I was afraid of that. The crosses are enchanted. They have returned to the coffins they were taken from. You see, after Frankenstein built all his electric walls, Dracula refused to pay him, and so Doctor Frankenstein pried the silver crosses from the coffins as payment. But some of them were enchanted, and now that they are near the castle, they have returned to the coffins.”

“Well, how can we defeat Dracula with just one cross?” you ask, your voice in a rising panic.

“You probably can’t. You’ll need to find the other two crosses when you get inside. Remember, you can’t kill Dracula, you just need the crosses to keep him from killing you before you steal his key.”

“Oh right,” you say, rubbing your forehead. “We’re here to get the key so we can free Peek’s friends from the bad man’s house… the Graves Mansion. I almost forgot!”

You look at the castle, and feel overwhelmed by a sense of pure evil emanating from within.

“So… we just… walk in there?” asks Melvin, nervously.

The ghost laughs. “Oh, no. Dracula has all kinds of guardians. Bats, scorpions, flying skulls, an evil knight (boy, is that a long story), and a giant mummy with an axe. You’ll have to defeat them all to get in.”

You and Melvin look at each other. “How are we supposed to do that?” you both exclaim simultaneously.

The ghost laughs. “Ha, yeah, I know. That’s part of why no one can defeat Dracula.” He looks around. “I know a way to do it, though. Those enchanted creatures can all be defeated by ectoplasmic spears.”

“Ecto-what?” asks Melvin.

“It’s a ghost thing,” says the ghost. “See, when a ghost floats over a grave, for a brief moment, an ectoplasmic spear materializes from the ether. Watch.” He floats in front of one of the gravestones, and indeed, for a brief moment, you see what looks like a delicate crystal rod appear over the grave, and just as quickly, it seems to evaporate. “If you’re quick, you can grab it. Get ready.” He floats over another grave, and again a crystal rod appears. Quick as you can, you snatch it out of the air, and the ghost is right! In the moonlight, you see every color of the rainbow dancing inside the spear, no thicker than a twig, but about two feet long, and tapered to an incredibly sharp point.

“Wow!” says Melvin. “Ghost weapons from beyond the grave! This is pretty cool!”

You look at the castle again. “Ghost, will you come with us?”

He shakes his ghostly head. “No way. Dracula is waiting for me, there’s nothing he would love more than trapping me. I’ve heard he might have other ghosts trapped in there, all because he’s trying to catch me.”

“Hmm,” you say. “Anything else we should know?”

“I think that’s most of it,” says the ghost. “There should be lamps in the front entryway. If you make it past the mummy, grab one, it’ll be dark inside. Oh! And don’t be tempted by the golden walls.”

“Golden walls?” asks Melvin, confused.

“Yes. Gold is the best conductor of electricity, so Doctor Frankenstein melted down the gold from my vaults to build the electric walls that keep me out. One side of the walls is deadly, by the other side is safe. I’ve heard that several foolish burglars have tried to steal the gold from his walls, only to end up ghosts themselves when the power reverses.”

“Got it,” you say. “Spear the creatures, get the lamp, find the crosses, repel Dracula, find the key, and get out.”

“That’s pretty much it,” says the ghost, looking with concern at the setting moon. “You better get in there, though. The sun will be up soon.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to do this in the daytime?” asks Melvin.

“It’s quite impossible,” says the ghost. “Ghost Manor only appears after midnight when the moon is full. The actual castle was destroyed long ago. Make sure to get out again before the sun comes up, or you may never be able to leave.”

“Oh, come on!” says Melvin, clearly at the end of his rope. “Ghosts, disappearing castles, Dracula, Igor, Frankenstein, and the Mummy. Where is the Wolfman, I ask you? WHERE IS THE WOLFMAN?”

“Are you done?” asks the ghost.

“Yeah,” says Melvin sheepishly, “I’m done.”

“Then follow me. You’re going to need a lot of spears to get into Ghost Manor!” and he darts off across the cemetery, a row of crystal spears popping up in his wake.

Put the Ghost Manor cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set both difficulty switches to b. Set the Color/BW switch to “Color” to play as a girl, and “BW” to play as a boy. Play until Dracula is captured, and you rescue the friend from the castle. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 56: Let the Midnight Special...

Soaking wet, freezing, covered in spider bites, bat bites, ghost bites (?), and acid burns, you dive through yet another swarm of bats and put the sixth iron rock on top of the stack outside the lab. It turns brown like the others, and electricity starts to pulse through your stack of iron-bearing rocks. “Nooooo!” You hear Doctor Frankenstein call from inside the lab. Suddenly, Igor drops from ceiling, playing a triumphant tune on a flute, and dancing a little jig around the electrically charged stack of rocks. A tiny eye-level panel snaps open in the locked lab door, and the glaring slits of Doctor Frankenstein’s eyes peer out at you and Igor. “Igor!” he shouts. “What are you doing out there with that painter?”

“We’re choosing colors, master.”

“Well, do it more quietly! Something has sapped the electricity from my experiment, and the storm is almost over!” He snaps the peephole shut.

“Nicely done,” whispers Igor.

“Where did you come from, just now?” asks Melvin, a little irritated, and noticing that Igor is not covered with venomous bites.

“Oh… I took a shortcut. I would have told you about it, but… it’s kind of hard to explain. Anyway, great job!” He starts playing his flute again. The muffled voice of Doctor Frankenstein comes from inside the lab. “Igor, enough with that flute!”

“Sorry, Master,” he calls back. He puts the flute back into his robe. “Now…” he says. “You were looking for the silver crosses, is that right?”

“Yes,” you say, excited and glad that Igor remembered the deal. Melvin nods vigorously.

“Yes…” says Igor, sniffing at the air. “It’s almost midnight, I can tell. Come with me, the crosses are in the game room.”

“The game room?”

Igor starts down the hallway. “Oh…” he says. “I almost forgot. We’ll need to charge up the game room.” On the wall near the stack of brown rocks is a large knife switch. He gestures at it. “Can you do the honors?” he asks.

“Uh, sure.” You throw the switch, and you see pulsing electricity leap from the stack of rocks, and flash down a cable that disappears down the hallway.

“Nooooo!” you hear from inside the lab. “Where is the power going?”

Igor smiles. “That’ll teach him to lock himself in the lab. Follow me.” You and Melvin follow him down a dark corridor illuminated only by the pulsing white and blue sparks coming off of the cable next to you. “Careful,” says Igor. “You… don’t want to touch that.” You keep a respectful distance from that side of the corridor.

“Hey Igor,” asks Melvin, as a bat flutters by you, lands on the cable, and is incinerated by the electricity, “When you gave us those rocks, they were red. But when we stacked them up here, they turned brown. What’s up with that?”

Igor shrugs. “The iron in them oxidized in the presence of the electricity. Soon, nothing will be left but a pile of rust. Ah, here we are, the game room.” The hallway ends at a wide wooden door that Igor opens with a prolonged creak. Behind it is a small stone room containing a pinball machine with flashing letters reading “MIDNITE MAGIC.” It is plugged into the electric cable Igor warned you not to touch.

“Finally!” shouts Melvin. “Some pinball!”

“There’s no time for pinball, Melvin,” you chide him, “we just need to get the crosses, and get out of here.”

“Oh, no, you don’t understand,” says Igor. “Master hid the crosses inside the pinball machine. The only way to get them out is to get a good score… at midnight.” He sniffs again. “It’s almost midnight now.”

You squint at Igor. “Why in the world would he do that?”

Igor rolls his eyes. “Well, Dracula knows that people want to use these crosses to stop him. They don’t stop him much, since he’s an immortal undead, but each one will give you maybe four seconds before he kills you. Anyway, Dracula and Frankenstein have had this ‘frenemies’ thing going since I don’t know when, and so the Doctor gathered up the crosses and hid them here, in case he ever needed to use them against Dracula.”

You put your face in your hand, and then take a deep breath. “Okay, sure, but what does a pinball machine have to do with it?”

Igor shrugs. “Duh. Dracula hates pinball. Everyone knows that. Maybe because the ball is like a mirror? Anyway, just drop a quarter in, and you’ll get one cross for every 10,000 points you score. There’s five in there, I think… if you wanna beat Dracula, you’d better get them all. I better get back to the Doc before he gets suspicious.”

You search your pockets frantically. “Wait! Igor! Don’t go! I don’t have any quarters!” You run out into the hallway after him, but he’s gone. You punch the start button on the pinball machine a few times, but it’s no good. Just then, you hear a distant clock start to strike twelve. “Melvin, what are we going to do?”

Melvin smiles, and looks at your chest. “I think the answer is right in front of you.” You look down, and see the Spectran Medal of Valor attached to the double rainbow ribbons. Melvin is right, it is just the size of a quarter. You pluck it off of your chest, leaving the ribbons dangling, and slot it into the machine. It plays an electronic bugle call, and a ball appears by the plunger.

“Well, Melvin, I guess we’re off to the races!” You pull back the plunger, and hope this machine won’t electrocute you.

Place the Midnight Magic cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 1, and set difficulty switches to a. Play until you get 30,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 55: Come Up to the Lab

You’ve destroyed wave after wave of Morpuls, which seem to keep getting faster and more dangerous. You and the Spectra Warrior have been firing the Spectron back and forth between your ships so much it has overheated dozens of times. But you blast one last group of Mastrods, just as your sensors indicate that the Spectron has gone into permanent meltdown. Melvin has reappeared in the loading chamber, dripping with sweat, and about to pass out. Just then the Mothership glides across the battlefield and you are sure that the next group of Mechanolds it releases are going to do you in. But… this time the Mothership stops, just hovering there. The white lights on the side fade out ominously. Then they blink back on, spelling out “We Surrender!”

On your video screen, you see and hear the Spectra Warrior hoot victoriously. “We have done it! Spectra is avenged!” He presses a button, and again your body is gripped with painful electricity, and everything fades to white.

When the pain and the white light subside, you and Melvin are standing in the center of a vast arena, in front of an audience of thousands of Spectrans who are howling with excitement. On a vast screen above, you see replays of your battle, and each time a Morpul is destroyed, the crowd howls again. The Warrior is there with you, and is shouting and howling along with the rest of the crowd. Suddenly, the crowd goes silent. Out of the shadows, an enormous form looms forth, a giant Spectran, at least forty feet tall, wearing rainbow war paint like the warrior, but with many elaborate decorations in his braided hair. He stares at you grimly, and with booming footsteps, strides to the center of the stage. “SPECTRANS!” he thunders. “OUR LONG NIGHTMARE IS OVER!” The audience howls back in excitement. “THE INVADING MORPULS HAVE BEEN CHASED BACK TO TZORIS, AND HAVE SURRENDERED! IT IS ALL THANKS TO MIGHTY WARRIOR JAANTIK AND THE ALLY THAT HE FOUND. SIX CHEERS FOR THE ALLY!” The audience barks six times, sounding something like “GAMP GAMP GAMP GAMP GAMP GAMP!”

“WE ARE AT PEACE – FOR NOW.” He looks down at you sternly. “ALLY, YOU ARE TRULY A FRIEND OF THE SPECTRAN PEOPLE. YOUR PROWESS AT BATTLE IS INDEED MIGHTY. THE PEOPLE OF SPECTRA OFFER YOU TWO THINGS: FIRST, THE MEDAL OF VALOR!” Two Spectrans, a man and a woman, come out, each holding either end of a string. In the middle of the string is a strange floating pillow, and upon that, a shining circular medal, about the size of a quarter, emblazoned with the seal of spectra, and adorned with rainbow ribbons on either side. The man and woman stop before you, but the floating pillow keeps moving by its momentum. It floats over and hovers before you, and suddenly the medal rises up from the pillow on a strange ropy tentacle, which guides the medal to your chest, where it attaches. The crowd erupts into howling approval. The warrior, whose name is apparently Jaantik, strides to you and shakes both of your hands at once in what seems to be a Spectran salute. He smiles and whispers, “What? No Medal of Klig?” He laughs. “I tease you! You should be proud!”

The giant Spectra speaks again. “NOW ALLY: AS MUCH AS YOU WANT TO, YOU MAY NOT STAY WITH US. WE WILL RETURN YOU TO WHATEVER NOBLE ENDEAVOR WE TOOK YOU FROM.” A thing that looks like a vast bundle of tree roots, but facing up, floats down from the unfathomably high ceiling in darkness above. Amongst the roots are glowing spheres in every color of the rainbow. Ropy, vinelike tentacles wave around beneath it. It makes you think of a giant jellyfish wearing some sort of crown. “OUR DIMENSIONAL SENDER CAN PLACE YOU ANYWHERE YOU CARE TO BE, IN THIS WORLD OR ANY OTHER.”

Of course, you think, we need to get to Dracula’s castle, so we can get the crosses so that we can… but then, an image of your own bed comes into your mind. You realize how tired you are, how strange this all is, and how it feels like the end of a dream, and you are ready to wake up. One of the tentacles comes forth, spreads into a series of thin fingers, which ever so gently grip your head. In your mind, you see a glowing rainbow of light. Up on the screen, you suddenly see your bed, in your room at home. “JUST THINK OF WHERE YOU WOULD GO, ALLY, AND WE WILL SEND YOU THERE.” You look longingly for a moment at that picture of your bed. But suddenly the picture changes, and on the screen is Peek, sitting alone in a dark corner of his dark house. You can tell he is hiding from something horrible, and though tears are streaming down his cheeks, he does not make a noise. Then the picture changes again to the gray castle of Queen Stella, which still looks sad and crumbling. Then your bed reappears. The leader booms, “THERE ARE MANY PICTURES HERE, ALLY. WHERE WOULD YOU GO?”

“I…” you look longingly at your bed. Then you look at Melvin. He looks down at the floor. “You have done a lot, Player, I won’t make you go back.”

You look up at the leader. “I have chosen.” A picture of your front door appears on the screen. Melvin looks crestfallen. You go on. “As much as I would like to return to my true home, this missile and I must continue our quest. We must go somewhere in none of these pictures, because we have never been there. It is a castle on earth that contains a terrible monster. We must stop that monster, to save the souls of many. Can your sender bring us to a place we have never been?”

The leader looks surprised, and the crowd breaks into murmurs. Clearly, this has never happened before. What appear to be Spectra advisors float up on pillows of their own to the leader’s massive face, so that they might give advice. They all appear to be arguing, and the murmuring of the crowd becomes louder. The leader shouts “SILENCE!” and stamps his foot with a thunderous boom. The advisors bow their heads and float to a respectable distance. “ALLY, YOU ASK MUCH, BUT NOT MORE THAN WE CAN PROVIDE. CONCENTRATE ON WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THE PLACE YOU SEEK, AND THE SENDER WILL BRING IT TO YOU.”

You close your eyes and think about a castle, and monstrous Dracula, and a pile of silver crosses. Melvin, who is watching the screen, says, “I see it! Keep concentrating!” While your eyes are gripped shut, a terrifying castle looms on the screen. Bolts of lightning flash in the sky around it, and then suddenly one great bolt of lightning flashes, and your feel your entire body seized with painful electricity, and you feel yourself fall down into the mud.

You open your eyes and find yourself and Melvin lying on your backs in the mud, with rain pounding down on you, soaking your clothes. Suddenly there is a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, showing the silhouette of a huge, evil castle in front of you. “We’re here!” Melvin shouts, over the pounding rain, and you realize that, yes, it appears you are at what must be Dracula’s castle. But then you have a terrible thought. “Melvin! We’re not supposed to be here yet! We don’t have the crosses!” Melvin looks horrified. “You’re right! I… well, we’ll just have to… uh… you don’t suppose it’s too late to just… go play some pinball?”

The lightning flashes again, and you are startled to see a weird hooded figure, with a strange twisted face standing before you. He holds a shovel, and a strange red stone. He is smiling, and seems to have no idea that it is raining. “Can you help me?” he asks. “There is a problem in the castle, and it is urgent.”

You and Melvin look at each other. “A problem with Dracula?” asks Melvin. The weird figure laughs. “Dracula? Oh, no. The Doctor has nothing to fear from Dracula.” He looks serious again. “The problem is with… the creature. The doctor has connected him to the power probe, and with all this lightning, I’m worried something terrible will happen.”

“Terrible like what?” asks Melvin.

“Terrible like… last time,” says the figure. “The creature turned green, became enormous, and destroyed everything in the village.”

You shake your head, and the rain streaming down your face flies off in all directions. You’ve had enough. “We can’t help you now. We need to find crosses so that we stop Dracula. I think you’ll have to work out the creature problem on your own. Come on, Melvin.” You start to stride away from the castle, towards… well, you aren’t sure.

“Wait!” calls the figure. “The Doctor has those crosses! They are what keep him safe from Dracula! But if the monster gets loose, he’ll destroy us all!”

You stop and put your head in your hand. You take a deep breath and look up at the sky. Huge raindrops keep splashing loudly on your face. You return to the weird figure. “Okay, fine. What do we have to do?”

He looks up to the top of the castle, nervously. “The power probe is at the top of the castle, and the Doctor has locked the laboratory. I think he suspects I want to stop him.”

“So, how can we get in?”

“We don’t need to get in.” He holds up the red rock. “These rocks have a strong iron content. If we can build a wall of them outside the lab, it will shield the lightning from getting to the creature.” The figure hobbles a little closer to you. “But I’ll never be able to get them all up there in time. If you can carry these rocks to the top of the castle and build the wall, we’ll all be saved, and I can help you get those crosses.”

Melvin says, “That sounds easy… we just need to carry some rocks? Where are they?”

“Here’s the first one.” He drops it into your hands, and you almost fall over it is so heavy. “This must weigh twenty pounds,” you say. He looks at you. “Yes… It’s full of iron, that’s why it’s red. You take this first one up, and I’ll look for more.”

“What if the Doctor sees us?” you ask nervously.

“Here,” he says, producing a white cap from under his robe. “Put this on. If the Doctor sees you, he’ll think you’re the painter.”

You put it on. It’s hardly the weirdest thing you’ve had to do today. You look up at the castle. It is intimidating, especially with lightning flashing behind it. “How do we get in?”

He points to an open grate that has rainwater pouring into it. “That’s the only safe way to go in. But, it’s easy once you are down there. Just cross the pool of acid, mind the white spiders, climb through the ceiling trap door, mind the brown spiders, climb through the other ceiling trap door, mind the ghost, and then, presto, avoid hundreds and hundreds of bats, and drop the stone outside the lab. Then come back down, and I’ll give you another stone.”

“How many times will we have to do this?” you ask.

“Six stones should do it. But… hurry!” A lightning bolt hits the power probe atop the castle. “The monster is energizing as we speak!”

You start climbing down into the grate. “What’s the Doctor’s name, anyway?”

“Frankenstein,” he calls back, shovel on his shoulder. “And I’m Igor. Pleased to meet you.” He bows, and you see how pronounced his hunchback really is.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” you say, as you and Melvin climb down through the flooding grate into the cold air of the dungeon below the castle.

Place the Frankenstein’s Monster cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 1, and set the difficulty switches to b. Play until you successfully stop the monster. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.