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Anyone here remember the 1983 game B.C.'s Quest for Tires? Based on the comic strip B.C. by Johnny Hart (1931-2007), this is basically a clone of Moon Patrol. You play the character of Thor from the B.C. comic strip (not the Marvel comics character), who rides on a stone wheel dodging obstacles on a quest to rescue the Cute Chick.

 

bcs_quest_for_tires_3.gif

 

I played the port of Colecovision. It was also ported to the Atari 800, Apple II, MSX and Commodore 64.

 

It was a fun game. Given its similarity to Moon Patrol, I'm surprised that it never got a port to other platforms like the Atari 2600, 5200 or 7800. (Cue to homebrew developers out there!)

 

Anyone else play this game?

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It was a fun game. Given its similarity to Moon Patrol, I'm surprised that it never got a port to other platforms like the Atari 2600, 5200 or 7800. (Cue to homebrew developers out there!)

 

They're on it.

 

 

 

 

The lack of interest in this port will likely discourage ports to other consoles though.

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Oh wow. There was one for Intellivision? Cool.

 

It's too bad we never saw more games with the B.C. cast or maybe even some kind of platformer or adventure game with Johnny Hart's other creation, the Wizard of Id.

It was made for the intellivision, but only in limited numbers and only certain people were given the opportunity to purchase initially.

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I thought it was kept quiet to hide it from the BC rights owner.

You may be right. I'm not sure I ever knew why, it just suddenly appeared one day and most were told sorry, it's unavailable. Oddly enough a couple of the biggest flippers out there were selling it on eBay not long after though for a healthy profit.

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I don't know what kind of people the current BC IP owners are, but after the Smurf drama I understand if homebrewers want to keep a low profile in such cases.

 

Besides, was BC ever a particularly significant comic? I'm thinking it was comparable to Hägar the Horrible, Beetle Bailey, Andy Capp and alike. Well known enough to license 1 game about it, would require some spectacular content to license a sequel, highly doubtful it is worth the expenses to license a third game unless the IP owner is very eager and more or less doesn't charge for the rights.

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I see.

 

This user generated list of best comic strips ever currently has B.C. at a honorable position 7.

 

This list of the 25 best Sunday comic strips of all time puts B.C. at position 22.

 

However B.C is not listed in either of these two lists:

The 10 greatest syndicated comic strips in American history

Top 10 comic strips from each decade

 

Regarding intellectual properties and licensing, supposedly Bill Watterson saw the comic strip as a piece of art and was very protective against merchandising Calvin & Hobbes with a rare exception for a postage stamp in 2010. He also declined meetings with both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and left fan mail from Stephen King unopened. That is rather interesting, and if anything explains why we've never seen any video games based on that particular comic. There are few mock-ups and tributes though.

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B.C. never had the level of pop cultural osmosis that Peanuts achieved, the avant-garde nature of Krazy Kat, the mass merchandising of Garfield or the sheer artistic quality of Calvin & Hobbes - but it was still a magnificent comic strip.

 

I'm well aware of how Bill Watterson fought tooth and nail to stop the merchandising of Calvin & Hobbes. Part of it was that licensed merchandise undermine the artistic integrity of his creation but it was also personal for Watterson. Prior to hitting it big with C&H, he worked in an advertising agency, a job he detested. Of course, what would be the plot of a C&H game in the first place?

 

As a fan of newspaper comic strips, there was so much wasted potential when it came to having video games or computer games made from them. Look at Johnny Hart's other creation, the Wizard of Id, or Dik Browne's Hagar the Horrible. With those medieval settings, they'd have made fun platformers, RPGs or Zelda style RPGs.

 

I do know the Wizard of Id had two educational games made - a typing game and a math game. A turn-based strategy game with the Wizard of Id cast would have been a hoot. Think Defender of the Crown or Gemfire - a game over screen could result in "the King is a fink".

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Just a reminder Johnny Harts passed away about 11 years ago so the rights are probably somewhere and somewhat difficult to obtain.

 

I enjoyed BC back in the day and I even had BC Christmas Special on video tape. When I got the game for my C64, I eventually got good that I could do first 4 levels practically blindfolded. I didn't know of the sequel until after I got internet and tried playing it in emulator but it's rather long and challenging.

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It took two clicks to find that Brad Bushell (no, not Nolan Bushnell) nowadays handles licensing matters regarding B.C. and the other comics. It seems that the comics live on through the grandchildren and their spouses, so the rights don't seem to have been transferred to some anonymous IP hoarder.

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I enjoyed BC back in the day and I even had BC Christmas Special on video tape.

 

I found that last year when I was doing my annual 'weird Christmas specials' marathon. Not at all what I was expecting, especially given that his comics had some heavy religious overtones after he became a Christian. I wonder if this came out before that or something?

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