Name: Gumball
Platform: Atari 800
Region: USA
Media: Disk (atx)
Controller: Joystick, Keyboard
Genre: Action - Strategy
Gametype: Licensed
Release Year: 1983
Developer: Eltanan Effects
Publisher: Broderbund Software
Players: 1
Programmer: Robert Cook, Sadato
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It's not the policy of Computer Fun to review business software, but faced with something as valuable as Gumball we had to make an exception. To call Gumball a game is misleading. It's a decision-making laboratory, a microcosmic simulation of real-life mini-crises, calling for global strategic thinking and a clear grasp of megatrends in the absolute.

Gumball puts you in the role of a sorter in a gumball factory. You must make sure that green gumballs end up in the green bin and blue gumballs end up in the blue bin. You have a quota of gumballs and a time limit. The gumballs roll down from the top of the screen and pass through a dizzying assortment of chutes and conveyors, You control a series of trip-gates which regulate the gumball directional flow and you can also move the bins to align with various gumball spigots.

You are not penalized for letting the occasional gumball fall through the cracks, but don't let a green gumball fall into the blue bin, or vice versa. If you do, the boss comes out, shakes his fist, and in a wild rage dumps your entire bin of gumballs onto the floor. Gumball is a highly imaginative game and a difficult and challenging one at that. To meet your quota on the higher levels before the time runs out, you've got to increase your production speed to levels which the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Gumball Sorters have deemed dangerous, frivolous and wanton. No time and a half, either.

[Computer Fun ? May, 1984]
