True Facts:
The humble potato is the most consumed vegetable in the United States. The second most consumed veggie is the tomato.
The United States is not alone! While there is the persistent concept of “Potato Europe vs. Tomato Europe”, Potatoes dominate almost all of Europe in per capita consumption. The only countries to promote the tomato are Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the general Romania cluster down by Turkey (please do not ask me to name Bulgaria’s neighbors). Other countries in Europe, like France, Ireland, Norway, Poland, or the whole of Russia, are firmly Team Potato.
But let’s not count out the tomato! We need tomatoes for pizza, pasta sauces, and gazpacho. Nobody would ever touch an open-faced potato sandwich, but good ol’ tomatoes have got that bread covered. And while we are all about the more American foods on this English-based blog, if you ever get a chance, feel free to seek out szczecin paprikash, shakshouka, or qalayet bandora for some international tomato dishes. And this blog will always promote curry in all shapes and sizes, so add (technically) British tikka masala to the list.
And if you are making a Bloody Mary with a potato? You have lost the hearts and minds of a nation.
On the other side, it is impossible to count the number of meals that include a potato. Hell, we could be here all day just noting the number of side dishes that are potato-based. Mashed, julienned, fried, scalloped… There are rarely any bad ways to prepare a potato. Even the potato skins can be a tasty snack! Have a samosa with your curry, or spread that paprikash on tater tots. And if you still want to fixate on Spain promoting tomatoes, try their tombet side dish. Spaniards love their potatoes, too!
You can leave both tomatoes and potatoes out on the counter. Keep ‘em out of the fridge. On the long-term level of things, potatoes can be stored in special warehouses for nearly a full year. Tomatoes cannot compete with that kind of staying power, but that is only because the humble potato appears to be a mutant of longevity. Just ask anybody that has ever seen those spuds put down (literal) roots in a basement! You can grow potatoes with the same level of effort as accumulating ear wax.
And why this sudden focus on vegetable wars? Well, when Puzzle Boy was released in its native Japan, it starred a potato…
But when it was localized for an American release, “Kwirk” became a cool tomato…
Who went on to have very public merchandising by way of the Video Power cartoon.
So, somewhere along the line, some executive at Acclaim made the distinct decision to transform Puzzle Boy the Potato into Kwirk the Tomato. One must assume that this was because said decisionmaker thought tomatoes were somehow better than potatoes.
And imagining the possible circumstances leading to this inference has haunted me for years.
That’s it! No moral! Go read that penguin Let’s Play again if you need more content! I haven’t been getting enough sleep thanks to thinking about Kwirk…
FGC #681 Kwirk
System: Kwirk is exclusively available for the Gameboy. Its original incarnation is Puzzle Boy, and that was available for the Famicom Disk System in Japan. There was apparently a PC Engine version, too, but that was also Japan-exclusive. Not even going to try to figure out what was going on there.- Number of players: Two-player competitive Kwirk is available with a link cable. One could argue the greatest advantage of 2-player Gameboy’ing is that you cannot snoop your opponent’s screen for puzzle solutions.
- Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: I must confess that the only reason this game got on the roster was because looking back on Video Power last week made me realize that Kwirk was the only character from The Power Team that was unknown to me. I had played Kwirk for five minutes on my friend’s Gameboy back in the day, and that was it. And now I know why! Kwirk is an extremely limited block-pushing puzzle game. It gets boring miraculously fast, and this whole dang game could be the gimmick of one dungeon in a Playstation adventure game. All that said, though, it is at least an inoffensive little jaunt, so if you really like pushing blocks, have at it.
- Pick your Poison: There is a 30 level story mode, and a 99 level time attack mode. They are labeled “Going Up?” and “Heading Out?” respectively. The theoretical explanation is that Kwirk is fighting up a tower to rescue his girlfriend in “Going Up?”, and “Heading Out?” is the challenge mode that sees Kwirk escaping to head home (to a V8 factory?). However, these labels relay no meaning in the game itself, so we can consider this a dark preview of games in 2024 claiming to feature an “arcade mode”.
- Ease of Use: Because you can make a block puzzle unsolvable through careless pushing, Going Up? mode has a “start stage over” and “undo last move” (on the Famicom) function. There is also no such thing as a “lives count”, and you can select most levels as a starting point from the main menu. This is maybe the most forgiving a game could possibly be in 1989.
So, did you beat it? God help me, in an effort to ream some decent content out of putting myself through Kwirk, I completed not only Kwirk, but also Puzzle Boy on the Famicom. It’s just block pushing! There isn’t anything more interesting to it! It even looks like both games have the exact same puzzles! I have wasted my life!- What’s in a name? Tammy is Kwirk’s girlfriend/rescue object. She is a potato. Does anyone understand how easy it would have been to make her a tomato too, and call her Tammy the Tomato? Was anybody paying attention in this game at all!?
- Goggle Bob Fact: Any other references to Kwirk I have ever made anywhere outside of this article have secretly been references to Qix. I always get those two games confused (apparently).
- Did you know? The most interesting thing that ever happens in Kwirk is the ability to switch to a second “helper character” in a few Going Up? stages. They all have names/species, and they are Curly Carrot, Eddie Eggplant, Pete Pepper, and Sass Squash. That last one is clearly an attempt at a lasting pun, and you have to wonder if Acclaim thought they could adapt these creatures into some manner of Kwirk Squad series…
- Would I play again: Nope! Moving on.
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Bill & Ted’s Excellent Videogame Adventure! Excellent! Party on, Garth! Please look forward to it!