TurboTime

"Turbo-Tastic!"

―Turbo

TurboTime (denoted as Turbo Time in some contexts^[1]) was the game in which Wreck-It Ralph‍'s main antagonist, Turbo, starred before abandoning his game and taking full control of Sugar Rush. A classic 8-bit arcade racing game, TurboTime was a hit at Litwak's Arcade following its release. The game featured several look-alike characters dressed in dark blue and white, while Turbo was set apart from the rest by his red and white outfit.

TurboTime became so popular, Turbo eventually became obsessed with attention, pushing other racers away from him in the podium to emphasize his trophy and eventually considering himself to be "the greatest racer ever". However, in 1987, when a new game called RoadBlasters was plugged in, it immediately gathered the attention of Litwak's customers due to its superior graphics and game design.

Turbo got so jealous, that he chose to abandon his own game in order to reclaim his glory and the attention that he always craved. He initially interrupted a RoadBlasters race by driving his car through the background while chanting his catchphrase, but he later ran directly into the player's car; glitching the game and forcing it to crash. Both machines were considered to be out of order, being permanently unplugged by Mr. Litwak; in the process stranding their characters and giving birth to the phrase "going Turbo" in reference to game-jumping recklessly. The only character known to have escaped the disconnection was Turbo himself, who secretly reprogrammed another racing game, Sugar Rush, usurping its original ruler and adopting a different persona known as King Candy.

After being unplugged and removed from Litwak's Arcade, its assumed that both machines were likely either scrapped, or recycled prior to the events of the film.

In December 2012, Disney released a 16-bit version of TurboTime also as Turbo-Time X, which varies greatly from the one featured in the film in both graphics and game play, as part of the Wreck-It Ralph iOS package. The player controls Turbo and the game mechanics are defined by driving at "turbo speed" from a bird's eye view and collecting coins to gather points in three-lap races, while other racers wearing different colors serve as opposition.

Trivia[]

TurboTime appears to be largely inspired by Rally-X from Namco in 1980 as it has the same colours and similar themed decals alongside its cabinet design.
The name appears to be a reference to Sega's 1981 arcade racing game Turbo.
Turbo's character design appears to be inspired by the driver in Rally-X, who in turn appears to be inspired by Speed Racer.
Unlike TurboTime, RoadBlasters was a real arcade racing game released by Atari in 1987.
Turbo most likely went Turbo in 1987, since that was the year Roadblasters was released in arcades.
Additonally the game was released in 2012 as a downloadable app. An online 3D version of the game was made for the Wreck-It-Ralph app.
TurboTime was right next to Fix-It Felix Jr. for the duration of its time at Litwak's Arcade.
Strangely, TurboTime can still be seen inside the arcade in the story adaption, despite that it was unplugged for years.
Due to Turbo traveling very fast through both consoles' plugs, its possible that he drove his race car all the way to Roadblasters, instead of somehow spawning it by hijacking the game.
While Turbo is known to have escaped his game's demise, it hasn't been explained if any other characters like the Turbo Twins (Turbo's rivals) escaped, though they were all most likely wiped out if they didn't manage to do so as they aren't seen in Game Central Station.