Poly Play

Poly Play is an arcade game developed in the German Democratic Republic in 1985; it is the only such machine to originate in the GDR. It was created by VEB Polytechnik and contained a number of games, including a knock-off of Pac-Man.

Hardware
Poly Play ran on a Soviet clone of the Zilog Z80 CPU, which was clocked at 2.457600 MHz and a custom sound chip. Its display ran at a resolution of 512*256 at 50 Hz and supported a palette of ten colours, though it could also use coloured overlays. The machine's coin slot was designed for 50 Pfennig, but it was flawed - the pressure sensor could be deceived by pressing a 1-Pfennig coin very sharply into the top of the slot. However, this was largely tolerated because the machine was not a capitalistic commercial venture, but a state-owned product found predominantly in FDGB holiday homes, youth hostels and non-profit clubs. The machine ran with a deactivated coin slot in many youth clubs. However, the free play often caused large crowds to form around it, which incited their reactivation.

A Poly Play machine is currently on display with the touring video game show "Game On". Two machines can also be seen at RetroGames e.V. in Germany.

Games
Four other games were planned. In the source code, there are paragraphs referring to the following games: "Der Gärtner / The Gardener", "Im Gewächshaus / The Greenhouse", "Hagelnde Wolken / Hailing Clouds" and "Der Taucher / The Diver". At least two games (probably "Hagelnde Wolken", a Space Invaders clone, and "Der Taucher" (a game where malicious fish attack a diver) have been installed on some machines.