Crackpots
Crackpots is an Atari 2600 game designed by Dan Kitchen and published by Activision in 1983. It was Kitchen's first game for Activision; he later did a number of ports to the 2600, including the arcade games "Kung Fu Master" and "Double Dragon". In "Crackpots", the player controls Potsy, a gardener. Potsy's Brooklyn building is being overrun by bugs trying to climb inside six windows. The player moves Potsy back and forth along the roof to drop pots on the bugs before they can get close enough to enter the windows. Gameplay. Each level consists of four  waves of twelve bugs each; defeat all four waves and the player will move on to a more difficult and faster-paced level. Play then resumes until the building crumbles to the ground. If six or more bugs enter through the open windows, part of the building will be eaten away, and you will have to replay the level. The patterns vary for different colored bugs. Black bugs will move straight up the building, blue bugs wiggle from left to right, red bugs move diagonally, and green bugs zig-zag between windows. Reception. A review in the November 1983 issue  of "Videogaming and Computer Gaming Illustrated" stated, "I think Activision has finally reached the point of saturation with the "Kaboom!" theme of having to catch or toss objects," but still gave the game a letter grade of B. Legacy. "Crackpots" was included in the compilation packages "Activision Classics" (1998) for the PlayStation and the "Activision Anthology" (2002) for the PlayStation 2.