Dung Beetles (video game)

Dung Beetles is an Apple II maze game by Bob Bishop published in 1982 by Datasoft.[1] The gameplay is similar to Pac-Man, but a portion of the maze around the player-controlled character is enlarged as if being viewed through a square magnifying lens.

Dung Beetles
Developer(s)Datasoft
Publisher(s)Datasoft
Tandy
Gentry Software
Designer(s)Bob Bishop
Programmer(s)Apple II
Bob Bishop[1]
Atari 8-bit
Mark Riley[2]
Color Computer
Steve Bjork[3]
Platform(s)Apple II, Atari 8-bit, TRS-80 Color Computer, NEC PC-6001
Release1982
Genre(s)Maze
Mode(s)Single-player

Dung Beetles was ported to Atari 8-bit family and the TRS-80 Color Computer. The Color Computer version was sold by Tandy and renamed Mega-Bug.[3] The Mega-Bug port was programmed by Steve Bjork. Later versions for both the Apple II and Atari were named Tumble Bugs.[4] In 1983, Datasoft moved the game to its Gentry Software label with another name change: Magneto Bugs.[5] In Australia, the game was sold as Bug Attack. It was also released for the NEC PC-6001.

Gameplay
In-game screenshot (Atari 8-bit)

The game concept and gameplay are based on Pac-Man, but features a much larger maze and a moving "magnifying rectangle" which makes it easier to see graphic detail of the main character and the opponents, but also obscures a small area of the map near the main character, making short- to medium-range navigation more difficult. In addition, whenever the main character passes through a part of the maze, it leaves a trail of dung. When a dung beetle finds this dung, it eats it and follows the trail; however, if the trail branches, or it encounters a point along the trail, it picks at random which branch to follow, thereby giving the player anywhere from a 50% to 66⅔% chance of losing the pursuer. The player can backtrack over the dung beetle's trail (often necessary as the map can contain dead ends), creating false leads for pursuers.

Whenever the player is caught, the game plays a digitized voice saying, "We Gotcha!" This is the only use of voice in the game.

Reception

Softline found the magnifying glass "an impressive programming feat," and concluded that it was "a solid game ... It could stand some more variety, but it certainly does not lack challenge".[6] Writing for ANALOG Computing, Marc Benioff called Tumble Bugs, "an outstanding variation on Pac-Man".[7]

References
  1. Hague, James. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers".
  2. "Tumble Bugs Atari manual". archive.org. Datasoft. 1982.
  3. Boyle, L. Curtis. "Mega-Bug". Tandy Color Computer Games.
  4. "Tumble Bugs". Atari Mania.
  5. "New Products". ANALOG Computing (13): 17. September 1983.
  6. Durkee, David (May 1982). "Tumblebugs". Softline. pp. 16–17. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  7. Benioff, Marc (May 1982). "Benioff At Large". ANALOG Computing (6): 7.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.