Mangia (also styled Mangia', with a trailing apostrophe) is a 1983 video game by Spectravision for the Atari 2600 video game console. The North American (NTSC) version is one of the rarest games for the 2600, and has earned a rating of 10 ('Unbelievably rare') from the AtariAge rarity guide.
Mangia's gameplay has been described as 'bizarre'. The player gets to control a young boy, who must eat plates of pasta placed in front of him by his mother, who will keep feeding him until his stomach explodes on-screen.
To prevent this, the player can, instead of eating the pasta, throw it to a cat, who occasionally appears at the window, and a dog, who walks across the bottom of the screen. However, if the mother sees the pasta being thrown to the cat or dog, she brings three times as much pasta the next time she returns.
The joystick is used to control the player: pressing right causes the boy to grab a plate of pasta, pressing left causes him to eat it, and pressing up or down causes him to toss the pasta to the cat (named Frankie in the manual) or the dog (named Sergio) respectively. If the cat and dog are not nearby when the food is thrown to them, the mother returns with extra pasta to 'punish' the player. The fire button is not used.
If, instead of eating the pasta or throwing it to the animals, the player is idle, the pasta will accumulate on the table until it breaks, causing the player to lose a turn. Attempting to eat all the pasta without giving any to the cat or dog will cause the boy's stomach to swell, changing colors from blue to yellow to red, before finally exploding in a mass of chunky blue pixels.
The title 'Mangia' is an Italian word meaning 'eat!'.
More details about this game can be found on
Wikipedia.org.
Find digital download of this game on
GOG
or
Steam.
Videogame Console:
This version of Mangia’ was designed for Atari 2600, which was commercially very successful video game console of second generation produced by Atari from 1977 to 1992. It was the first console that used removable memory modules with games. At the time of its greatest fame, more than 30 million units of this console were sold for about $ 200 a piece. To date, the game library for this console contains nearly 1,000 original games. More information about the
Atari 2600 can be found here.
Recommended Game Controllers:
You can control this game easily by using the keyboard of your PC (see the table next to the game). However, for maximum gaming enjoyment, we strongly recommend using a USB joystick that you simply plug into the USB port of your computer. If you do not have a joystick, buy a suitable USB controller on Amazon or AliExpress or in some of your favorite online stores.
Available online emulators:
5 different online emulators are available for Mangia’. These emulators differ not only in the technology they use to emulate old games, but also in support of various game controllers, multiplayer mode, mobile phone touchscreen, emulation speed, absence or presence of embedded ads and in many other parameters. For
maximum gaming enjoyment, it's important to choose the right emulator, because on each PC and in different Internet browsers, the individual emulators behave differently. The basic
features of each emulator available for this game Mangia’ are summarized in the following table:
If you like Mangia’ you'll probably like also some of the similar games in the overview below. The games you see here
are selected based on title similarity, game genre, and keywords. However, the list is generated automatically and can therefore be very 'subjective'
especially for some specific games. To find a particular game, please use our search form.
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This version of Mangia’ was designed for Atari 2600, which was commercially very successful video game console of second generation produced by Atari from 1977 to 1992. It was the first console that used removable memory modules with games. At the time of its greatest fame, more than 30 million units of this console were sold for about $ 200 a piece. To date, the game library for this console contains nearly 1,000 original games. More information about the
Atari 2600 can be found 
