TRAPSHOOT
Gremlin Industries, 1975. A wall game built from light bulbs, colored gels, a radio transmitter and a board full of TTL logic chips - rebuilt here lamp by lamp so you can play it in your browser.
PLAY TRAPSHOOTHOW TO PLAYWhat is a wall game?
Before video games took over the bars and arcades, Gremlin Industries of San Diego built wall games: big, flat, wall-mounted cabinets with a printed backglass and rows of lamps behind it. No screen. Everything you see is a painted picture lit from behind by individual bulbs, switched on and off by digital logic.
In TRAPSHOOT two teams take turns at a hand-held radio transmitter with a single button. Press it once and a traphouse launches a clay bird across the sky - a chase of lamps across a dotted arc. Press it again and your shooter fires. Time it right and the bird bursts, the HIT SCORE coins count up, and the EXPERT trophy might light with a roar from the crowd.
Behind the glass sits a single printed circuit board two and a half by five feet, and a game costs one quarter.
The Machine
Gremlin's story, and how a 1975 lamp game decides who hit the bird - straight from the owner's manual.
How to Play
The real rules from the coin box and the manual, plus the controls for the simulation.
Gallery
Photos and full video of a working machine: three complete games, the power-up, the sounds.
The Project
How the game was reverse-engineered from video, photos and schematics - and what we added.