As the early home video game industry took shape, developers experimented with all sorts of different content in order to determine just what kind of interactive experiences the primordial gamer community desired. One of the strangest of these trial-and-error phases came in the early 1980s when a number of pornographic titles hit the market for the Atari 2600.

While there have been purposefully controversial games created on every platform, the adult titles developed for Atari were particularly surreal considering 1) the "wholesome family entertainment" reputation the company cultivated and 2) the early medium's notable inability to render anything remotely human.

Many of these explicit titles were developed by Mystique, an offshoot of porn film studio, Caballero Control Corporation. In Mystique's two-or-so years of existence, it published several "X-rated" games under the "Swedish Erotica" banner (though the titles were all created in the U.S.). As the completely predictable (and surely sought-after) furor erupted, Atari ended up suing Mystique to block the production of its digital debauchery.

But then came the video game crash of 1983 and Mystique went under. The games, however, enjoyed a few additional years of novelty existence when the rights were purchased by a new company, Playaround, which also created gender-switched versions of the original Mystique titles.

Are the games any good? Eh, not really. And while the basic blocky graphics of the era were a natural barrier to anything being too explicit, some of the concepts are just downright gross, even by the standards of today's porn-on-demand culture. Still curious? Here, we present a brief rundown of the adult Atari games that time forgot.

Note: we're going to label this slideshow NSFW-ish, meaning that while the blocky, unrefined visuals aren't anywhere near explicit, they may not exactly fly in your company's open office plan.


1. Bachelor Party I would love to think that this game was the inspiration for the 1984 Tom Hanks film Bachelor Party, but I doubt it really inspired much of anything in anyone.



In this game, the user controls a paddle of some kind (supposedly a bottle of Spanish fly), which sends a naked man into a room full of naked women, which he must run into in order to clear the board. As the game advances, the little naked dude starts bouncing around faster and faster, making the game more difficult. I can't imagine the game being more fun than two or three rounds.



Probably not a good idea to play this game at your next bachelor party. Or any party.

2. Bachlorette Party It's the same exact thing as Bachelor Party, but you paddle a naked woman into a room full of naked men. This game's development was an important milestone for female equality in video games. Why should horrible games only be geared towards men?

3. Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em Ugh. One of the most notorious pornographic games of the Atari era, this game is less funny or silly than it is just gross. Perhaps you can tell the basic premise from the above image. If you are truly curious and/or deviant, you can play it in emulator form

4. Philly Flasher This gender-switched version of Beat 'Em has nothing to do with the city of brotherly love as far as I can tell. Rather, it focuses on the bodily secretions emanating from a naked Halloween witch to some naked men below. Equally gross and just as dumb.

5. Custer's Revenge Another notorious game of the era. In Custer's Revenge, the player takes on the role of General George Custer as he dodges arrows (or perhaps bullets? They're a bunch of flying black lines) in order to have sex with a naked Native American woman. Many critics have derided the game as portraying rape, though the game's designer emphatically defended the blocky union as mutual.

6. Gigalo This memory-style game is the story of a woman who goes out on the town to find seven different men (er, gigalos) to "score" with while avoiding police and muggers. Ladies can relate to this one, right? It was a gender-switched version of a game with a male protagonist known as Cathouse Blues.

7. Lady in Wading In this game, you are a buxom woman trying to cross a river fraught with demons and alligators trying to make your way to a naked prince at the other end. It's the gender-switched version of a game called Knight on the Town.

8. Porky's Based on the beloved teen sex romp, this 1983 video game adaptation from Fox Video Games was a cross between Donkey Kong and Frogger, but with the occasional showering naked lady.

9. X-Man No, this lame Pac-Man rip-off has nothing to do with Wolverine. In this game created by Universal Gamex, the player takes on the avatar of a naked man making his way through a maze while trying to avoid flying scissors (which presumably, would render you an "ex-man," get it?). If you make it to the end of the maze, you are awarded with a badly rendered pornographic act. Congrats to you!

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