are added and become more aggressive. The player has a radar beneath their fuel meter, which displays their current position on the map as well as the location of the flags and red cars. The third level and every fourth thereafter is a bonus round, where the objective is to collect the flags in a certain amount of time. In these bonus rounds, the red cars remain idle and will not chase the player unless their fuel is empty. Development and release Rally-X was created by Namco and designed by Hirohito Ito, with hardware developed by Kouichi Tashiro. It was produced as a successor to Head On (1979), an older arcade game from Sega that similarly involved collecting items in a maze while avoiding enemy cars that pursued the player. Head On was a popular title in Japanese arcades, which gave Namco the idea of creating a game that built on its mechanics. Rally-X was created on a version of the Pac-Man arcade system board that supports multi-directional scrolling. The programming was done by Kazuo Kurosu, who went on to design the multi-directional shooter Bosconian (1981), and featured music from Pac-Man composer Toshio Kai. Rally-X was first demonstrated in Japan in January 1980, before receiving a wide release on October 3, 1980. When preparing to release the game overseas, Namco believed Rally-X had more foreign appeal than Pac-Man with its audiovisual presentation and challenge, which it believed American audiences would prefer to the simplicity and "cuteness" present in Pac-Man. Namco presented Rally-X at the 1980 Amusement & Music Operators Union (AMOA) tradeshow in Chicago, Illinois, alongside Pac-Man, King & Balloon, and Tank Battalion. An often-repeated story is that out of the games presented, specifically Pac-Man, the attending industry analysists believed Rally-X was the stand-out and the one destined to be successful. Though it received praise from the press, Rally-X did not attract much attention during the event. According to Play Meter magazine, both Pac-Man and Rally-X received mild attention at the show. Midway Manufacturing, the video game division of Bally Manufacturing, agreed to distribute Rally-X and Pac-Man in North America. Dave Marofske, the president of Midway, believed the two had the most potential out of the four Namco games presented. Midway released Rally-X in North America in February 1981 in upright, tabletop, and cabaret cabinet variations. Conversions A home conversion of Rally-X was released for the VIC-20 in Japan in