Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984)

There's a very nice animation proceeding the title.

Name:Raid on Bungeling Bay
Number:240
Year:1984
Publisher:Broderbund
Developer:Will Wright
Genre:Top-Down Shooter
Difficulty:4/5
Time:1 hour
Won:Yes (105W/77L)

When we think of a predecessor to SimCity, one would naturally think of a strategy gather rather than...this. As we've often found, important game ideas come from the unlikeliest sources. One particular element of a game is more interesting than the rest, so let's turn it into something more. Welcome to Raid on Bungeling Bay, the game SimCity was originally a level editor for.

The concept is simple. The Bungeling Empire has built six factories, destroy them, and don't get shot down by the enemy. To aid in this task, you have five helicopters, and an aicraft carrier to act as a base.

Keyboard controls consist of the IJKL cluster, with I being forward. Space shoots and Z drops a bomb. Turning is generally smooth, but you can't turn and shoot at the same time. Instead, you lock into place. Forward movement is increased by gradually holding down I or decreased with K, but you only go backwards as long as you hold down K. Which occasionally creates some problems, like when you have to land on the carrier.

You don't die in one hit and you get nine bombs. Landing on the carrier restores your health and bombs, which you do by getting to a low enough speed above the carrier and shooting. Unlike the rest of the time you shoot, this stops it. Because of the nature of how it works, it's easy to accidentally press space before an action finishes and then have to take off again. What's weird is if you get shot while on the carrier, you get knocked off.

A bomber going after the carrier.

The carrier is not a static object, it constantly moves slowly upwards. To prevent you from forgetting where it is, the game includes an arrow which points back to it. At later stages, it gets annoying when you might have to worry about enemies attacking you over it, but it's manageable. It can also be attacked by black planes, which the carrier either regenerates from when not under attack or takes so long to destroy that you have plenty of time to deal with it.

And here's a fighter...doing something as I try to bomb a factory.

Your primary target is the six factories. You might think, having nine bombs on your helicopter, that this would be easy. You can hover over the factory and just unload. Thing is, factories have weak points where you can destroy them with less than nine bombs and points where you need more than nine. Which means a trip back to the ship and hoping you get back before the factory repairs itself. It can and does get very annoying at times.

There's a secondary target of a battleship the Bungelings are building. If it gets completed, it goes after your carrier. The thing is, it's broadcasted to you when it's nearing completion. So I never actually had to worry about it moving around, I could always send its progress back to zero.

It's fairly easy to figure out where everything is, simply because there are three factories on islands to the left of the carrier, and three to the right of the carrier. The battleship is on the left island off the start. Everything loops, but generally you don't need to loop around horizontally outside of extraordinary options.

There are three enemies who pose a threat to you. Turrets, which have difficulty actually hitting you, to the point that you could stand still and they'd miss you. Hits they get feel like bad luck rather than bad movement. The planes, meanwhile, are harder to deal with. The don't exactly have perfect aim, but sometimes they can get a shot on you despite it feeling like the result of random luck. It's hard to take them out sometimes owing to the whole turn and shoot things. The radar helps, but because everything hostile is yellow, isn't foolproof.

Then there are missiles. They appear and chase after you. Hitting them is hard, because they're usually so close to you that dodging them is the only thing you can do. You basically have to just outrun them until they mysteriously disappear. Which is a thing that happens with all enemies, sometimes they just mysteriously stop chasing you when you cross off/on an island or approach the carrier.

As you take out factories, or as time goes on, more enemies and defensive measures pop up. The manual says it's as time goes on, but it seemed more tied into how many factories have been destroyed. This is a hard thing to measure, as there's no reason to take out the defenses of a factory without taking out the factory and things which don't shoot back are unimportant.

The game starts off quite easy, but by the time you're taking out the last factory the sky tends to fill with planes and the ground with turrets. You actually do get to see these things being built and try to take off, with the option to destroy them before they become a problem. It's a nice touch.

Sadly, winning the game results in you just getting a text scroll along the bottom saying that the enemy has surrendered. Then again, this was relatively easy for the year, so I shouldn't be counting on too much.

Weapons:
Basic weaponry. 1/10

Enemies:
Fairly simple variety, some turrets, a few chasers, cannon fodder, static targets and something that goes after your base. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
None as such.

Levels:
The area is described as over 100 screens long. Not sure how true that it, but it's certainly a big place. I don't feel it's that special though. 3/10

Player Agency:
Very smooth, if still janky in a few places. 5/10

Interactivity:
None, as such.

Atmosphere:
Feels like a lot of classic top-down shooters, but doesn't necessarily distinguish itself. 3/10

Graphics:
Nice, clean, simple. Pretty nice animation too, even if it's just machines going around. 3/10

Story:
Basically none.

Sound/Music:
Simple sound effects. 1/10

That's 18.

Raid on Bungeling Bay is a fine game, but it doesn't really feel all that exciting. It's competent, but it doesn't really have much going for it beyond that. I sort of struggled to find the time to play this one despite starting off really well and still struggle to find interesting things to say about it.

Next week, we'll see Catacomb Abyss again as we get through the very last of 1992.