How to play Squoosh online
- Walk left and right: left and right arrow keys
- Jump: Space bar
- Start or restart the demo: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
What is in the prototype
You control a little Frenchman in a beret. In the middle of the screen stands a big wine press over a covered pit. After you start, a grape bounces in from the right and rolls back and forth across the floor. The finished game would have had you nudge grapes under the press so it could crush them into wine, which would collect in the pit.
None of that works yet. The press moves up and down by itself, but the grape cannot be crushed. The only thing the press can squash is you: jump while standing underneath it and your man is knocked into the pit, where he stays until you press Reset. One of the spare men in the lives counter drops away to show you have lost a life.
History
Collectors knew the Squoosh cartridge existed from the late 1990s, but for years nobody had copied its contents, so its gameplay was a mystery. Only after the cartridge changed owners was it finally dumped and shared. Apollo was one of the first companies to go under when the video game market crashed in the early 1980s, and several of its games, like Squoosh and Pompeii, never got past this early stage. Wikipedia gives “Squoosh” as the working title of Apollo’s released game Wabbit, but the grape prototype that turned up is a completely different game.
Similar games to play next
- Pompeii – another unfinished Apollo demo
- Kyphus – an unreleased Apollo maze game that got further along
- Wabbit – Apollo’s finished farm game about protecting carrots from rabbits
- Lost Luggage – Apollo’s released game about catching falling suitcases