The original Qix is a tense, claustrophobic game, full of unknowable horrors.

What is the QIX and its purpose?
Why does it want to kill you?
What of the SPARKZ?
Why are you trapped in a battle for board space?
Just what does the QIX want?

So, naturally, every rip-off of the game misses this element entirely. And has pictures to uncover. Often nude pictures.

We're not going to look at those, though! Don't be silly. Instead, let's see what Taito themselves were up to.

Versions of Qix published by Taito were numerous, with quite a few of them being outsourced to different companies. None of them really captured the feeling of the original, though- with the exception of Volfied/Ultimate Qix- and two of them in particular, Twin Qix and Qix 2000, copied what Qix clones were doing, i.e. focusing on uncovering pictures of women beneath the board. So, we'll be showing a gallery of these pictures below, for your perusal. Because, well, it's a weird gaming thing, ain't it? Taito sorta copying the competition in their own way? Then again, Taito also made Puzznic which did have nude photographs, and... Oh, I've lost you already. Let's get started then.



First up is Twin Qix.

This is a very odd game indeed. Running on Taito's F3 system and created in 1995, most places say that it was a location test release and never made it to full production. That's a fair assessment- although advertised on this flyer there's very little about it on the 'net otherwise, and the fact that it reuses music from Puzzle Bobble 2, probably as placeholder music, seems to indicate it didn't get far. However, while it defaults to the US version with realistic and photos of famous landmarks hiding behind the board, set the region to Japan and things change dramatically, chucking out the photorealism for two women in various situations and costumes (drawn by Izumi Takemoto who you might recognise from the Lup Salad and Yumimi Mix games). Also, on one of the stages the Qix is replaced with a frying pan. Not going to lie, the main purpose of this page is this paragraph on Twin Qix because it's a mysterious game and no-one seems to really care! This is where I come in.

What's especially interesting is that in the Japanese version, the two sides of the board- one for player 1, the other for player 2- snap together to make a complete picture... That you can never see in-game because when one player clears their board, you only see their side of the picture. With that in mind, we've stuck them together through the power of MS Paint:







Also, the final picture only appears after you've beaten the first eight stages twice in a row.

After beating it, the credits roll and you're done.



Next, SuperLite1500 Series: Qix 2000.

From what I can find, SuperLite1500 was a series of budget Playstation games- funnily enough, selling for ¥1500- that was created by Success Corp, a name you probably associate the most with the Cotton series. The SuperLite1500 series, which is also available on the Japanese PSN for super-cheap, has a lot of guff (hope you like board games and slot machine titles) but hiding amongst them are the likes of Starfighter Sanvein, a port of the Super Famicom Marchen Adventure Cotton 100%, and two Qix games- Battle Qix and Qix 2000. So, Qix 2000 is first- feel free to guess what year this oen came out. Apparently developed by Success themselves, this is as barebones as it gets, with a port of the arcade version and a '2000' mode that adds power-ups and has you uncovering pictures of women, again in various costumes and situations. Apparently the same woman if you look carefully. There's 25 rounds in all, each one with a different picture, and the game ends after beating the 25th one. Roll pictures:



So, that's your lot. Hopefully you found it interesting.

volified's the best official qix variant man why would you play anything else