The Definitive Glossary of Elevator Action terms

Several years ago (1997, to be exact) my college roommates and I were actively playing the game Elevator Action on our original NES machine. During that time, we came up with a few names for actions, events, or people in the game. We thought, in an effort to increase the knowledge of other people on the Net, that we should share this list with others. Thus, we present The Glossary. (Note, however, that the more specific of these terms are unique to the NES game -- the Game Boy game is significantly different in a number of areas.)

NEW! Also, a recent addition. I just (9/99) got a Game Boy Color, and of course one of the first games I got was Elevator Action. For those of you who are interested, or have lost yours, I present the Elevator Action Game Boy Instruction Manual. A series of scanned images, so you get the best of Taito's great creation. If you have a problem with this information being freely available (Taito, I'm talkin' to you), please let me know and I'll take it down. As far as I know, Taito is no longer making any money from this game.

Note that the modifiers "Double" and "Triple" (etc.) may be added to these descriptions as necessary.

• Gunning: Shooting an enemy agent.

  • Shanghai Double Gun: When you are shot simultaneously from both sides by enemy agents.

  • Gubernatorial Short Shot: This is the name for gunning an enemy agent at such short range that the bullet never actually appears.

• Crotching: To jump at an enemy agent and 'kick' them in order to kill them. (Note that this works even if you pass over a kneeling enemy agent.) So named because it looks for all the world as if the sprite representing you is strangling the enemy agent with its crotch.

  • Mississippi Turnaround (AKA Mississippi Double Take): When you jump at an enemy agent with the intent of killing them, but turn around in mid-air, thus effectively 'butting' them.

  • Miscrotching: When you jump at an enemy agent with the intent of crotching them, but they gun you before you can get to them.

• Shanding: To gun down a light fixture, crushing an enemy agent in the process; this also darkens the screen for a number of seconds, increasing the score for killing an enemy agent.

  • Carter Shand: When you gun down a light fixture with the intent of shanding an enemy agent, but miss.

  • Harding Shand: This is when you gun down a fixture with no intent at all.

• Otissing: When you crush an enemy agent with an elevator.

  • Inverse Otis: To crush an enemy agent while he is standing on top of the elevator.

  • Mexican Otis: When an enemy agent walks under an elevator of his own volition, but when you are not controlling the elevator.

  • Cuban Otis: Similar to a Mexican Otis, this is when an enemy agent not only walks under an elevator of his own volition, but also while another agent is actively being crushed. This usually only happens when you are in control of the elevator.

  • Nicaraguan Otis: When an enemy agent walks under an elevator not only of his own volition, but when another enemy agent is in control of the elevator.

  • The Infinitely Recursive Soapbubble Boot Scoot: This is when you are attempting to Otis an agent, but he seems to recursively slip out just in time to avoid being crushed (even when walking towards the elevator). Perhaps he has an invulnerable rubber hat.

• Shafting: This is when an enemy agent is so anxious to get to you that he jumps down the elevator shaft (to his death). There is no way to cause this yourself. The appropriate way to use this word is: "What happened to that guy?" "Man, he shafted." Usually happens in the higher levels, or during a Spanish-American Spy Spaz (see below).

• Poor Man's Blind Date: When attempting to jump across an elevator shaft, the elevator comes down upon your head, and you immediately fall to your doom at the bottom of the shaft.

• Dickensian Wormhole: A nearly inexplicable maneuver, which involves the player jumping from a moving elevator with the intention of reaching a given floor, but mysteriously landing on the floor above that for which he was aiming.

• Micronesia Mud-Shuffle: To twitch back and forth as quickly as possible, while kneeling and gunning, in order to kill enemy agents on both sides. (Diametrically opposed to the Shanghai Double Gun, above.)

• Alabama Sidestep: When you kill an enemy agent (usually on an elevator) and he dies in the middle of a floor (ie, between levels).

• Spanish-American Spy Spaz: When you've been going for a while without getting killed, and suddenly all the enemy agents go berzerk, usually resulting in your nigh-unavoidable death. Can result in extremely hilarious behavior on the part of enemy agents, including multiple Mexican Otises, Shafting (agents can appear to shove each other into the shaft), etc. as they try to get to you.

• Boznian Double Ballot: When two enemy agents get on a double elevator, one a floor above, and one a floor below you, and don't move -- presumably because they're giving conflicting up and down orders.

• Dudley Q. Gnumbnut: The intensely stupid denizen of floor thirteen on many levels. This agent immediately walks away from you and attempts to gun you via some non-existent "screen wrap" feature. Note that in the event of a Spanish-American Spy Spaz, he becomes one of the deadliest agents.

• The Sandinista Buzz-Cut: When you are shot (and rather improbably killed) in your copious Pompadour-like hair.

• Non-Euclidian Hum-Dinger: While attempting to jump across the elevator shaft, you impact the elevator "cable," which turns out upon closer inspection to be a planar surface; you then plummet to your death.

• The Purely Mythical Upper-Voltan Dildo Dip: ????

Game Boy variants and terms

With the advent of the Game Boy game, I've come up with a few new terms to describe some quirks of that game.

• The Greg Louganis Swan Dive: While attempting to jump from the floor you're on to the next floor below you, across the elevator shaft, you miscalculate and hit the edge of the shaft, causing your own shafting death.

• The Lower Persian Anti-gravity Death Dance: Having shot an enemy agent with the shotgun, he's thrown back into an elevator shaft, where he hovers until his death dance is complete.

We have found that great constructions can take place, such as, "Wow, that was a Double Inverse Mexican Otis!" to explain that two enemy agents were simultaneously crushed on top of an elevator while it was not under the player's control.

Last updated Wed Aug 2 15:52:11 PDT 2000

Designed and implemented by Ian Johnston (reaper at obairlann dot net).