16/03/2017

Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle: A snapshot of 1990 portable gaming


Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle was my second Game Boy game and saved me from a frustrating diet of Tetris and Super Mario Land, two games I only marginally enjoyed. BBCC, on the other hand, turned out to be one of my favourite Game Boy games, and I played it extensively until third game Ducktales came into the picture. It goes without saying that I purchased BBCC solely because of its ties with the Looney Tunes franchise, which was the cult classic cartoon series of my childhood; and being especially fond of ol' Bugs, any game that featured him as a hero was a must-buy. Little did I know at the time that the game had been designed with Roger Rabbit in mind and that my favourite carrot-munching rabbit was just a placeholder amongst many; but had I known it, it probably wouldn't have changed anything. Bugs Bunny as the star role or not, this game is one of my personal Game Boy cult classics; and after a whopping 25 years spent without touching it, I finally decided to play it again and see how it measured up to my pristine and perfect childhood memories.

Surprisingly, BBCC stood the test of time pretty well. I only wanted to clear a couple of levels before writing down a password and picking up the game later, but I found myself playing it for two hours straight without a shred of boredom, irritation or lassitude. Not only was playing BBCC genuinely fun, but it was also quite interesting from an historical point of view. BBCC was released in 1990, and it reflects faithfully the gaming trends of that very year; and yes, I'm zeroing on a single year there, because this was the time when the gaming industry took quantum leaps every passing year. And since BBCC was one of the very first Game Boy games, it also marks the beginning of dedicated portable gaming and is thus doubly fascinating.

So what does BBCC tell us about 1990 gaming in general and portable gaming in particular? Well, it first tells us that fake advertising was definitely a thing back in the days. It still is nowadays to some extent, obviously; but oh boy, is current fake advertising totally innocuous compared to its 1990 counterpart. See the cover art for that game? You have Bugs bouncing around with a milling mass of foes at his heels. That screams action, right? And the title! Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle: now that promises some insane gameplay, right? I mean, how can a game called like that, with a cover art like that and one of the looniest cast of characters ever created not be a frantic romp of epic proportions? Herm, maybe because the Game Boy wouldn't allow such a game to exist and run on its weak hardware? But nevermind that; fake advertising had to work its nasty magic on that game and make us believe we're purchasing an action-packed game when BBCC is anything but. Such underhand tricks were the meat and potatoes of gaming advertising back in the days, and that was probably a necessary evil; because let's be honest, no one would have purchased a game based on said game's real looks and performances. You really needed a whole lot of advertising polish to sell the dream and help people view games as more than just a bunch of crappy pixels.

Although BBCC is definitely not the frantic, action-packed game it masqueraded to be, it's still an excellent game with a really interesting gameplay. And that leads us to another characteristic of 1990 gaming, namely the fact that gaming genres and subgenres were not so finely determined back then. Nowadays, we tend to praise games that cross over genre boundaries and borrow gameplay elements from different genres; but such a thing was routine back then. Experimentation was the key word and developers were not afraid to try all sorts of new things; and that was all the truer in the burgeoning Game Boy scene, which provided the perfect terrain to tinker with gameplay formulas at a lower cost. BBCC's gameplay is a beautiful illustration of that open and daring state of mind. The game looks like a Platformer at first glance, but there is no jumping or platforming feat of any kind. It's not a pure Puzzle game either, because the presence of foes deadly to the touch and determined to have Bugs' hide creates some tension and trepidation that are usually absent from Puzzle games. I remember vividly that back in the days, BBCC was classified as a "Strategy" game, and maybe that's the aptest description for what is actually happening in that game. You're presented with a series of tableaux in which you must find a viable way to pick up all the carrots lying around while avoiding deadly enemies; isn't that the perfect embodiment of what "strategy" is about?

Then you have more random gameplay elements, such as the very pronounced Stealth flavour: more often that not, you have to avoid enemies and work your way around them rather than confront them. As a kid, I didn't perceive that Stealth dimension: I always went out of my way to eliminate as many foes as I could, making the game much harder than it needed to be in the process. I dare say that there is even a touch of Rogueliking in BBCC: the way you move Bugs around has a direct influence on the way enemy sprites move, and you can manipulate enemy movement to some extent. Starting a level by heading left can and will often have totally different consequences than starting the same level by heading right; and sometimes, heading in a certain direction at the beginning of a level is totally mandatory to clear said level, because it will set enemy movement a certain way and allow you to access areas that would be blocked by foes otherwise. Of course, like with so many games back in the days, it's hard to know if such a feature was fully intended by developers or if it was just the result of hardware limitations leading to programming oversights. That's the beauty of 1990 gaming: you could find ingenious ways to break games and relish in the thought that you were exploiting programming foibles to do things that were never planned by developers. We'll never know if Kemco actually wanted BBCC players to exploit enemy movement to their own benefit; but it works beautifully all the same.

When engrish ruled in games.
Last but not least comes the defining characteristic of 1990 gaming, especially in its burgeoning portable guise: while it took me several weeks to finish BBCC back in the days, the two hours I spent playing it a couple of days ago were enough to polish it off entirely. Indeed, 1990 games were short, and 1990 portable games were even shorter. While such games may have been considered poor investments, this was the norm back in the days, and everybody accepted it good-naturedly. Such paltry lengths would be unacceptable nowadays, in a gaming scene where even the meanest indie Platformer or Puzzle game packs more content than BBCC; and yet, I feel that short games are more rewarding than they may seem at first glance and should be granted a place in the current gaming landscape. Being able to polish off a game in one neat, clean go generates a feeling of completion and fulfillment that can't be emulated by longer games, no matter how tailored they are to short bursts of gameplay. I was deeply content when BBCC presented me with its final screen bristling with typos  another quirk of games of this era  and even somewhat relieved that I wouldn't have to pour more hours into the game. I'd like to get more of these gaming quickies in the current gaming scene, with the gentle price tags to match  all the more so as just like BBCC, such games tend to pack a lot of replay value.

All in all, replaying BBCC 25 years after I last touched it was a great experience: it aged surprisingly well and is still very much worth playing today. The gameplay is challenging and stimulating without being unnerving, and although the game is not soul-crushingly difficult, it still provides ample opportunity for some solid brain-racking. BBCC is also weirdly relaxing, a quality I would be tempted to attribute to its barebone, nearly abstract level-design: it's like we're dealing more with a bunch of symbols than with game sprites, and I found myself unusually focused and alert as I progressed through the levels. In fact, my focus only grew as I played, as if the game was acting as some kind of meditation device; and although I died and had to restart levels more than once, I never felt a shred of irritation or lassitude. Now I remember why I loved that game so very much back in the days and why I wasn't disappointed that it didn't sport an hectic gameplay: Super Mario Land did rile me up so much and so often than getting to play a game as relaxing as BBCC was like a breath of fresh air and a soothing balm on my gaming wounds. Although I decided to snatch BBCC primarily for nostalgia's and old days' sake, I'll definitely indulge in playing it again at some point; and I certainly encourage you to do so as well if you have the opportunity, dear fellow gamers, if only for the sake of getting a taste of 1990's brand of gaming. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

6 comments:

  1. I had the third game in this franchise for the original gameboy (at least I don't remember it being in colour...), but I was so young I can scarcely remember it as you can tell. But what I do remember is pretty special; apparently I must have had some trouble with the game and tried inputting a random password to skip ahead. And the crazy thing is, it worked! Now to be fair, the passwords in that game are pretty short, but still, what are the odds huh?

    Not that it helped me at all, obviously. Since I was having trouble with early levels, there's no way I could get past what I assume was a late game level. I got stuck in there as well and I never beat the game. And heh, it's not a series I have the urge to revisit nowadays. It's a cute memory nonetheless.

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    1. I pondered the purchase of the Game Boy sequels at some point, but gave up on the idea because these games were simply too figurative for my taste, so to speak. The abstract quality of the original game made it quite unique, while the sequels looked like your average Platformer.

      The third Game Boy entry of CC is widely said to be one of the hardest in the series, so you really don't have to be ashamed of not having managed to finish it. Now that's another reason I probably won't ever buy these games; I just don't have the time and patience for a hardcore retro Puzzler nowadays.

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  2. Whoa, I have this game! I was just going through my Gameboy/GBC games the other day (I do not remember having so many, but I probably have almost 40) and this was a highlight. I vaguely remember playing it from your screenshots but I totally plan on breaking it out when I get home. I recall being extremely frustrated as a young kid trying to play it but that left/right initial move direction is a good tip I might be able to make use of.

    Thanks for the great callback!

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    1. You're very welcome! I have a whole wealth of tips&tricks for that game, accumulated during countless hours spent on it when I was a kid. Here are a couple of other tips that could help you clear a full playthrough:

      -Going up/down a door when a foe enters that same door on the other side at the exact same time doesn't kill Bugs. The same goes for pipes, and you can avoid a lot of deaths and craftily work your way around foes that way.

      -Punch gloves stack up and can be picked up again if they miss their target.

      -You can influence enemy movement by going left or right, but also by staying immobile or by running against walls.

      I wish you tons of fun with that great game, and hopefully you'll review it on your blog when you're done! ^^

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  3. OMG such a souvenir!!! Your pictures took me back to my childhood, when I was playing that game with you: D
    I remember having a favourite level, which I would play over and over again, and was happy about it!

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    1. Nice to hear! Never knew you had a favourite level in that game. ^^ I had a couple myself, as well as a favourite theme track:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cEyV-pxCVM

      This is probably one of the best 8-bit tracks ever recorded, and I still love it to this day. ^^

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