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Peek
Arcade · plays in your browser, no download
Things come out of the holes for a moment and go back in. Tap the green ones, leave the spiky red ones alone. It is a pure reaction test with one twist — the twist being that half of what you see must not be touched.
Where it comes from
The cabinet is Japanese and specific: TOGO, a company that mostly built fairground rides, put out Mogura Taiji — roughly “mole buster” — in 1975, designed by Kazuo Yamada from a set of his own pencil sketches the year before. It was a hit in Japanese arcades, placing second among electro-mechanical machines two years running, and Bandai licensed a home version in 1977.
It reached America the following year, and it is there that it acquired the name everybody uses: Whac-A-Mole is a trademark coined for the US version. The name has since escaped the arcade entirely — it is now an ordinary English expression for a problem that reappears somewhere else every time you solve it.
On a touchscreen the game can finally do something the cabinet could not. A padded hammer hits one hole and cannot be made to care which; a finger can be asked to choose. Putting something in the holes that must not be hit turns pure speed into speed plus a decision, which is the only interesting thing anyone has added to this design in fifty years.
How to play
| Tap | Click or tap the green ones while they are up. |
|---|---|
| Leave | The spiky red ones cost you if you hit them. |
| Speed | They stay up for less time the longer you survive. |
Our version
Nine holes, two kinds of visitor, and a window that gets shorter as you go. It runs in a browser tab and it is the one game here that is actually better with a finger than with a mouse.
Three things that help
Watch the holes, not the creatures. Your eyes should be moving between the nine openings, not chasing whatever popped up last. By the time you have focused on a thing, its moment has usually gone.
Hover between two holes. With a mouse, parking the pointer halfway between the two likeliest holes halves your travel.
A missed green costs less than a hit red. When you are not sure, do not tap. Restraint scores better than reach.