Bugaboo: The Flea

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/bugaboo/bugaboo.htm

Many of the genre structures and core concepts of how video games work that are taken for granted today took shape during the time after the American Video Game Crash of 1983. Bugaboo (The Flea), developed in Spain in 1983, is both unique and addictive thanks to the way in which the titular character navigates the game world.

[320x240]

My favourite game from Indescomp was Fred. I played the C64 version quite a lot as a child. 

When I think of Spanish games in the 80's I think of the typical arcade-adventures with flip-screen scrolling and black backgrounds that where so common on the ZX Spectrum and the Msx. Spanish and British games where quite alike back then, with Spanish games often having a higher level of difficulty and a slightly more 'arcade-attitude' to them, while British games where more atmospheric.

Since I only had a C64 at the time I didn't get to play many of those games until much later, since very few where ported to that computer. I don't remember many (if any) of Opera Softs games being ported to the C64 for instance. Others here will know more about that.

Later on Dinamic was probably the best known of the Spanish game developers outside Spain. Army Moves was a favourite of mine. Lot's of sexy women on the covers as well...

[Woody Alien]

The only Spanish developers I knew were Gaelco for the arcade market, also I remember having played Dinamic's Risky Woods but outside of the graphics it wasn't very good.

Speaking of the article, I didn't know about that game and it doesn't interest me that much in itself, but the story around it is fascinating! HG101's articles about development are always a must read.

Also, they missed the opportunity to call the sequel "The Flea 2: Electric Bugaboo"

[320x240]

Risky Woods is a very European game. More about fooling the player than challenging him.

I always felt that most European developers in the late 80's early 90's where stuck in the past, constantly trying to emulate certain arcade-games from the mid 80's. For instance, every shoot'em-up was either 1942 (the British ones) or R-Type (the German ones). Every platformer seemed to be inspired by certain Capcom games, mostly Black Tiger. Then came the big boom of 16-bit platformers with endless levels of grass-covered rocks and infinite inclines, but let's not talk about that, it makes me sick to even think about it.

[Neo Rasa]

This is totally true. I like a lot of the older European platformers because of the art and music (even Risky Woods ) but I don't think there's a single European shmup that doesn't make me bored fast. The older games are much more interesting to me though because of the tricks used to work around limits of the hardware at the time. Like Chronos on the Spectrum belongs in a museum just for that song being as good as it is with just distortion, real 1-bit music! And I love how alien Bugaboo looks just from the jagged graphics and bright colors even though there's so little actually going on in it.

This might sound weird but I think my favorite European platformer might by Wolf Child. It has the right balance of controlling pretty well, and is really simple but fantastic music and cool backgrounds on the SNES version.

[Deleted]

New Zealand Story was a major influence to EU platformers as well, CJ's Elephant Antics being the most blantant I've come across:



And of course there's Mario 1 inspiring Great Giana Sisters and Terry's Big Adventure:

[Elvin Atombender]

Jan 1, 2016 14:43:19 GMT -5 320x240 said:

Later on Dinamic was probably the best known of the Spanish game developers outside Spain.

Here in Italy Dinamic, after going bankrupt and being resurrected as Dinamic Multimedia, garnered a cult following thanks to their PC Fútbol series in the late 90s.

Army Moves was a favourite of mine.

I tried very hard to like Army Moves,and mostly because is a clone of Moon Patrol, but it's too hard to be even remotely enjoyable.

[Woody Alien]

Jan 5, 2016 12:08:32 GMT -5 320x240 said:

I always felt that most European developers in the late 80's early 90's where stuck in the past, constantly trying to emulate certain arcade-games from the mid 80's. For instance, every shoot'em-up was either 1942 (the British ones) or R-Type (the German ones). Every platformer seemed to be inspired by certain Capcom games, mostly Black Tiger. Then came the big boom of 16-bit platformers with endless levels of grass-covered rocks and infinite inclines, but let's not talk about that, it makes me sick to even think about it.

Funny that you say this, because this kind of thing is going on even today!

A couple of weeks ago I submitted an article about a retro-styled game made by an Italian company in 2015 that is a fairly blatant copy of Ghosts 'n Goblins and its sequels: it purports to be a revival of the genuine arcade experience, the problem is that they kept also all the design problems, illogical choices and unfair difficulty typical of the coin-ops of the time, and as such it's a weak and annoying title.
They also say a few things such as bad translations and cheesy designs have been made on purpose to pay homage to that genuine experience...

[Gendo Ikari]

Are you talking about Cast of Seven Godsends by any chance? The many combinations of transformations and weapons are nice but I was not impressed overall (some Italian press was more generous but I suspect it was just patriotism).

[Neo Rasa]

I find the GnG throwback games like that, Volgarr and Maldita Castilla interesting because they show how much work had to go into balancing the originals' difficulty properly (especially if it was designed for the arcades) so that it would beat you down just enough that you want to keep playing without getting too frustrating.

I think when people want this type of game back many are looking more for the feeling and colorful graphics than they are for the quarter eating. Maldita Castilla feels pretty good with this, though some could say it's too easy I have a really good time with it.

[X-pert74]

Bugaboo seems like a really interesting game. I enjoyed this write-up on it

[Neo Rasa]

Thank you! I hope more people learn of Bugaboo and how the 1983 video game crash wasn't a worldwide thing, the opposite outside of the US.

[Woody Alien]

Jan 9, 2016 8:45:42 GMT -5 Gendo Ikari said:

Are you talking about Cast of Seven Godsends by any chance? The many combinations of transformations and weapons are nice but I was not impressed overall (some Italian press was more generous but I suspect it was just patriotism).

That's exactly the one. I was favourably impressed with the weapon combinations as you say, but overall the game left me cold. Also because on the site the devs said some absurd things like (paraphrased) "We didn't make the game graphics in pixel art because the youth of today wouldn't have liked it", or some lame excuse like that.


And, just like Neo Rasa said, the devs need to understand that nobody today cares anymore about the high score table, it's more a matter of a difficult but balanced gameplay that doesn't want you to hurl the joypad out of the window (looking at you, Castle in the Darkness), with some added risk/reward mechanics.
Also, Maldita Castilla isn't so easy if you want to get the golden ending with all the items and secrets to unlock the Hell level and the true final boss.