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Anteater

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Arcade

The player controls an anteater that elongates his proboscis through maze-like anthills eating ants. The player can only eat ants with the tip of the anteater's proboscis. If an ant bites your proboscis at any other location you lose a life. Pressing the second button will quickly retract the ant...

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Developer
Stern Electronics

Released on
1982

Size
1–2 Players

Version
Arcade

Requirements
Arcade

Downloads
Action

Publisher
Tago Electronics

ESRB Rating
Not Rated

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Description

The player controls an anteater that elongates his proboscis through maze-like anthills eating ants. The player can only eat ants with the tip of the anteater’s proboscis. If an ant bites your proboscis at any other location you lose a life. Pressing the second button will quickly retract the anteater’s proboscis. Worms will not harm you unless eaten head first, in which case you lose a life. Worms can be safely eaten from behind. Eating queen ants at the very bottom of the nest will temporarily clear all ants and worms from the screen. Once the sun has travelled across the screen and night falls, a spider will appear. The spider climbs down the anteater’s proboscis, taking a life if it touches the tip.

The object is to eat all of the larvae before time runs out, clearing the screen. Each larva is worth 10 points. Each ant is worth 100 points, while eating a worm is worth 200 and multiplies the score you receive from eating ants by 1x (Ex. eating 5 ants +2 worms = 500 x 2 = 1000). Queen ants are worth 1,000.

Anteater

Overview & History

Released in 1982 by Taito, Anteater is a quirky and overlooked gem of the golden age of arcade gaming. While contemporaries relied on shooting aliens or dodging ghosts, this title tasked players with a distinctly subterranean strategy: guiding an impossibly long, articulated tongue through a network of underground tunnels to devour invasive ants before they overrun the queen's nest. Designed as a maze-puzzle hybrid, it combined frantic time-management with precise spatial planning, carving out a unique niche in arcade history.

Gameplay Features & Mechanics

Players control a hungry anteater whose snout extends dynamically into a grid of underground burrows. The objective is to clear sections of the maze by sweeping your tongue across paths populated by colorful ants and deadly queen bees. Timing is critical; retracting your tongue takes time proportional to its length, meaning an overextended poke can leave you vulnerable to counter-attacking insects. Power pellets occasionally appear, temporarily turning the tables and allowing you to consume the bugs directly. As you progress, the tunnels narrow, the ants multiply in speed and aggression, and dead-ends become lethal traps, demanding calculated routing and lightning-fast reflexes.