Description:

Wild Kingdom, Midway #549, 6/71, gun game with wild animal theme, electronic sound and modified consumer 8-track player. It uses only one channel of the 8-tracks, just for background sounds. There is a manual switch on the consumer quality 8-track which plays tracks one to four. The switch can be on any track for the Wild Kingdom tape to play). The 8-track is really a cheap portable player with a 9 volt power jack. It even has a carry handle on the top and a speaker inside. Midway however wired power and a speaker directly to the unit through a Molex connector, and disconnected the internal speaker.

Gameplay:

The game has four animal target styles: Leapers (two Zebras and two Antalope), an Elephant, an Alligator, and a Tiger. All are worth 200 points except the Leapers which are worth 400 points. The maximum score is 6200 points based on 25 shots. The Leapers rotate in a circle with two of the four Leapers showing. The Elephant constantly moves across the playfield width left to right (left & right speed is adjustable via two trim pots on the motor control board). The Alligator and Tiger move from the behind a bush at the edge of the playfield to the center.

Only one animal target is available for shooting at a time (unlike say Haunted House where the player must choose which of the multiple targets to shoot at any time). When an animal is shot by the player it screams a distinct electronic yelp – there are four different electronic sounds (one for each animal type). Jungle Charlie and the player’s electronic gun sounds are slightly different (there are also separate volume controls for these two gun sounds). If the player hits an animal, the game makes an unique animal yelp. If Charlie hits the animal, there is no animal yelp. The sound board has eight trim pots, six of them are for animal/gun volumes, and two are for sound amplitude on the elephant and tiger.

Gameplay cont.:

Midway’s Wild Kingdom is a very challenging gun game because the player is shooting against “Jungle Charlie”, a 3″ high moving mechanical marksman on the game’s playfield. Unlike say Haunted House where the player can take their time and shoot as slow as they want, Wild Kingdom forces the player to shoot fast. After the first shot is taken, the player is shooting against Jungle Charlie (the first shot is a ‘warm up’ shot and the player can take as long as they want for the first shot).

If the player takes too long to shoot, Jungle Charlie shoots the animal instead causing the animal to retreat, and Jungle Charlie *never* misses. To slow Jungle Charlie, the player can fire his gun – Jungle Charlie can not shoot if the player is shooting (and likewise the player can not shot if Jungle Charlie is shooting). Each game gets 25 shots, with Jungle Charlie shooting out of the 25 shots. If the player is slow he may only get the first shot, and Jungle Charlie will use the other 24 shots! Jungle Charlie’s movement speed can be adjusted. If he’s adjusted too fast the game is nearly impossible to shoot as Jungle Charlie is too quick. At 3000 points the game automatically speeds up Jungle Charlie too.

Gameplay cont.:

The game also has a “Top this Score” feature which randomly moves from 3000 to 6500 points (500 point increments). If the player can beat the top score, either a credit or extended play are given. If set to extended play, the a total of 40 shots are available per game (instead of 25). In this case the Top Score Relay energizes allowing the player an additional 15 shots. Depending on how Jungle Charlie is adjusted, this is extremely hard to achieve as 3000 points is the bare minimum needed for extended play.