Machine Guides

Game History

Paperboy is an iconic arcade game developed and published by Atari Games, released to arcades in 1985. The game was conceived by Atari game designer Dave Ralston during a brainstorming session in February 1983, inspired by his own childhood experience delivering newspapers.

The arcade version of Paperboy was notable for its innovative control scheme, featuring handlebar-style controllers that mimicked the action of riding a bicycle. This unique control mechanism, combined with colorful graphics and engaging gameplay, helped the game stand out among other arcade titles of the mid-1980s. The game ran on Atari's System 2 hardware, making it the first game to utilize this system.

In Paperboy, players take on the role of a paperboy delivering newspapers while navigating suburban obstacles and hazards. The game was a commercial success, becoming the top-grossing arcade conversion kit in the United States in December 1985 and ranking as the fifth most-successful upright arcade unit in Japan in October 1985.

How to Play

Objective

The main goal of Paperboy is to successfully deliver newspapers to subscribers along your paper route for one week (Monday through Sunday). You must navigate through suburban streets while avoiding obstacles and hazards, delivering papers to subscribers' houses and avoiding non-subscribers' houses. The ultimate objective is to complete the entire week without losing all your customers or lives.

Controls

• Handlebar Controller: Use the handlebar to steer your bicycle left and right, push forward to accelerate, pull back to brake
• Throw Button: Press to throw newspapers to the left or right side of the street

Gameplay

• Starting the Game: Press the Start Button to begin your paper route.

• Route Navigation: Navigate your bicycle through suburban streets, avoiding obstacles like cars, dogs, and other hazards.

• Newspaper Delivery: Throw newspapers to subscribers' houses (marked with numbers) by aiming and pressing the Throw Button. Delivering papers to non-subscribers' houses results in penalties.

• Customer Management: Successfully deliver papers to subscribers to keep them as customers. Missing deliveries causes customers to cancel their subscriptions.

• Obstacle Avoidance: Avoid or jump over obstacles like cars, dogs, and other hazards that can cause you to crash and lose a life.

• Bonus Points: Earn bonus points by breaking non-subscribers' windows, running over objects, and performing other actions.

• Day Progression: Complete each day's route to advance to the next day of the week. The route becomes more challenging as the week progresses.

• Life System: You have limited lives that are lost when you crash. The game ends when you lose all your lives.

• Game Completion: Successfully complete all seven days of the week to finish the game with your final score based on deliveries, remaining customers, and bonus points earned.