It's not well known that Hudson created the chips that powered NEC's TurboGrafx-16 console. After an astonishing series of hits on the MSX and Nintendo's Famicom, Hudson was sitting pretty. They dominated the 8-bit consoles and, with their own chips inside the TG-16, they were poised to dominate the 16-bit era as well. These new chips were solid, and NEC provided the manufacturing muscle Hudson lacked. As the PC Engine Hudson's little baby was unstoppable, and it quickly dethroned Nintendo's Famicom. The success it enjoyed in Japan did not follow it's North American launch.

So it happened, back in 1989, that NEC needed a hit game. It needed a Mario or Sonic of its own and it was Hudson that delivered it. Roughly translated as Computer Man, PC Genjin rhymed with PC Engine, and the game fit the diminutive console like a glove.

(note: this article is a rewrite of a segment that appeared in my book) It may seem odd that a pre-historic character has a history, by definition it should predate history! I'll leave that one to the philosophers to sort out...

Renamed Bonk's Adventure, the game was released in North America in 1990 to critical acclaim. A platform game like no other, it featured a caveman protagonist who attacked his enemies by head-butting them, or by leaping into the air, spinning, and landing on them head first. It was a radical departure from the staid old Mario routine of running and jumping feet-first. It was immediately a top seller for NEC, one of their first big hits, and Bonk quickly became the de-facto mascot for the system.

Graphically it wasn't particularly noteworthy, though it offered impressively smooth animation and played very well. It was the variety of animations that impressed - it was packed with unique new moves. To climb walls Bonk would latch on with his teeth and gnaw his way upwards as fast as the player could mash the button. He was also fond of meat, and whenever he'd find a shank he'd greedily eat it, then launch himself into the air and temporarily become more powerful. By the time a player reached the first boss he'd already run, jumped, climbed, become invincible, crossed the spiny back of a dinosaur, crawled inside the dinosaur's mouth and worked his way out the other end. It was a marvelously refreshing change of pace.

When the first sequel came out in 1991 it didn't stray far from the formula. There were plenty of new bonus stages and a few new moves were added, like the ability to climb waterfalls. The big change was in Bonk's appearance. He had become softer, rounder, a little more cuddly, no doubt in an effort to improve his marketability. The second game was also very popular, and it spawned one more game for the PC Engine.

The third game offered yet more new features, like two-player modes and the ability to become very tiny or grow to enormous proportions. In spite of these additional features the game wasn't as big a success. The time had come and gone for the TurboGrafx-16, and this final Bonk was too late to sell in significant numbers.

The game and character design were so successful Hudson couldn't let them die. Several other systems received ports, and in 1993 and 1994 Nintendo's NES and SNES each saw a version using the same character sprites, though with fewer and more colours, respectively. It's never easy converting sprites from one system to another, but Hudson's artists knew their stuff: even the GameBoy versions, whose sprites are scaled down versions of the first two PC Engine games, managed to capture the spirit of Bonk nicely using only two colours.

- There are three distinct phases of Bonk evolution, and one aberration. Starting from the top of the above images:

The original Bonk was a little rough, with a crooked mouth, large ears and a tiny tuft of hair on the back of the head. The first GameBoy sprite is identical in design. While functional it didn't take Hudson long to realize they could do better. The second generation Bonk is much rounder, with a smaller ear and no more hair.

The first SNES version used so many colours that the resulting Bonk sprite looks almost disturbingly realistic, as if they had digitized a real head and pixelled in new features. New sprites were used for the second SNES version, though curiously they were now much smaller in size, almost a cross between the second generation Bonk and the GameBoy version.

This design persisted until the very last, when Hudson went too far. The second SuperNES version, second last on the above column, used a less attractive, smaller sprite. This was to be the last console release of a Bonk game for nearly a decade.

The aberration is the arcade Bonk. Released only in Japan by Kaneko, this new bonk was a complete redesign. Bonk's head was narrower when standing, and he planted both his feet firmly when attacking, unlike the console versions where his feet usually left the ground. At first the arcade Bonk had more colours than the console versions, but by the time the second SNES version came out the consoles were more colourful.

At first Bonk didn't change much when he ate meat. He became meaner looking, but still recognizably Bonk. When the second PC Engine game was released Bonk's meated-up form was... decidedly butt-like! This strange change in shape was a sign of things to come, as every new game saw Bonk become progressively uglier. By the time Bonk hit the SNES for the first time, he was so ugly his own mother probably put a bag over his head.

When the second SuperNES Bonk was released Hudson... Well, they went a little crazy. Depending on the colour of meat Bonk ate, he would transform into a different Bonk animal, with different abilities. Every level saw Bonk changing shape to clear an obstacle, then change again to clear the next, and again and again, so that the player quickly became numb to it all and lost interest.




Lawrence.

Many thanks to Christopher Coleman for a thousand nitpicking corrections and suggestions...