What Is Whack-a-Mole? How It Works and Where It Came From
Whack-a-Mole is a reaction game: toy moles pop out of holes for a moment and you hit them with a soft mallet before they duck back down, scoring a point for each one before the time runs out. It started in Japan, where the company TOGO released it to arcades in 1975, and became a fixture of American carnivals and pizza-parlour arcades from the late 1970s.
How the game works
The classic arcade machine is a waist-high cabinet with a row of holes in its top, a score display and a big padded mallet, often tied to the cabinet with a rope. When the game starts, cartoon moles rise out of the holes one or two at a time, at random. Hit a mole on the head before it sinks back and you score; miss it and it's gone. Machines usually have five to eight holes.
The game gets harder as it goes: the moles come up faster, stay up for less time and appear more often together. When the time limit runs out, your score is the number of moles you hit (or points for them). Some carnival versions let several players race side by side, and the first to a target number of moles wins a prize.
That's all there is to it, which is exactly why it works for everyone: there are no rules to learn, a three-year-old understands it instantly, and adults still find it hard to stop after one round.
Where Whack-a-Mole came from
The game began in Japan. The amusement company TOGO released it to arcades in 1975 under the name Mogura Taiji, roughly "mole buster". It is credited to the designer Kazuo Yamada, who sketched the idea the year before. It was an electro-mechanical game rather than a video game: real moles moved by real mechanisms, which is a big part of why hitting one feels so good.
It was a hit. In 1977 the toy maker Bandai licensed it and sold a home version called Mogura Tataki ("mole smash"), a name still used for the game in Japan today.
How it reached America
The game crossed the Pacific at the 1976 IAAPA trade show for the amusement industry, where a Japanese machine caught the eye of two carnival operators, Gerald Denton and Donny Anderson, who saw it as a perfect midway game. Accounts of what happened next differ. Aaron Fechter, the inventor behind Creative Engineering, says he built an American version and came up with its name. Bob's Space Racers, a Florida maker of carnival games run by Bob Cassata, got a working machine into production and began selling it in the late 1970s.
From there it spread to carnivals, amusement parks and the pizza-restaurant arcades of the early 1980s, and it has never really left. The best-known American version is sold under the trademarked name Whac-A-Mole (without the k); the brand has been owned by Mattel since 2008, while the arcade machines are still made under licence. The generic spelling, whack-a-mole, is what most people use for the game in general, and for the phrase.
Exactly who "invented" the American version is still argued about, even by the people involved. What's clear is that the game itself came from Japan first.
What does "playing whack-a-mole" mean?
The game became an everyday expression. Playing whack-a-mole means dealing with a problem that keeps popping up somewhere else as soon as you knock it down, so the job never seems to end.
- Programmers use it when fixing one bug causes another to appear.
- Website owners use it about spam and pop-ups that come back under new names after being removed.
- News and policy writers use it when a problem moves to a new place every time it is stopped in one.
It's usually said with a sigh: the point of the phrase is that hitting harder doesn't help, because there's always another mole.
Whack-a-Mole today
Besides the carnival cabinets, you'll find small battery-powered tabletop versions for children, giant inflatable versions for parties where people pop out of the holes, and plenty of versions on phones and computers. On a screen the mallet is your finger or mouse, which makes the game fit in a spare minute.
GameLake's version moves the game to a sunny lake shore. Moles pop out of mud holes in the meadow, and two extras make it more interesting than the arcade original: golden moles worth five times as much, and a sleepy turtle in a nightcap that costs you points if you bonk him. Rounds last 60 seconds and get faster as they go, and hitting moles in a row builds a combo that multiplies your points.
Easy has 6 holes and slow moles, Medium and Hard have 9. A Classic look switch turns the meadow into a red arcade cabinet with glowing digits, a nod to the machines that started it all. There's a Daily round that gives everyone the same moles, and a Race mode where two players get the same round at the same time and watch each other's score. For ways to score higher, read the Whack-a-Mole tips, or just play Whack-a-Mole now.
Frequently asked questions
Who invented Whack-a-Mole?
The game started in Japan, where TOGO released it to arcades in 1975 as Mogura Taiji; it is credited to the designer Kazuo Yamada. The American carnival version followed in the late 1970s. Aaron Fechter of Creative Engineering says he built and named it, and Bob's Space Racers put it into production.
When was Whack-a-Mole invented?
The Japanese original reached arcades in 1975. It was shown at the IAAPA trade show in the United States in 1976, and American versions followed from 1977 onwards.
What does "playing whack-a-mole" mean?
It means dealing with a problem that keeps popping up somewhere else every time you stop it, like a mole appearing in another hole, so the effort never seems to end.
Can I play Whack-a-Mole online for free?
Yes. GameLake's Whack-a-Mole is free in your browser on phone, tablet or computer, with no download and no account. It has Easy, Medium and Hard, a Daily round and online races.
How many holes does a Whack-a-Mole machine have?
Arcade machines usually have five to eight holes. On GameLake, Easy has 6 holes and Medium and Hard have 9.