Bubsy Bobcat Fan Blog

Hi. I have a few questions for Michael Berlyn

 

1. how did you come up with Bubsy? What made you decide to make him into a bobcat?

 

2. Do you have any concept art and sketches of Bubsy,his friends and enimies?

 

3. Do you still draw?

For Faran:

 

1. Bubsy FFT is notoriously unforgiving. Like the first Bubsy game, its one hit and you're dead. Did the teams at Imagitec or Atari ever consider giving the player multiple hits? What about power ups?

 

 

2. Why the yellow exclamation mark?

 

 

For Michael:

 

1. Did you have any inolvement in Bubsy FFT?

 

 

2. What were your impressions of the finished game and this treatment of the Bubsy character?

For Faran:

1. What're your favorite tracks from the "Fractured Furry Tales" game?

 

2. Do you ever wish Bubsy had a better game yourself?

 

3. Do you still have the screen shot from the genie boss?

Faran Thomason, though, I'm sure he has some good insights into the game. Producers always have the juiciest information. I'd be interested in things like the earliest origins of the title, what kinds of challenges they experienced in making the game, what he is most proud of, what he wishes they were able to complete but didn't, that sort of thing. I greatly value any stories about the development of the game, start to finish.

* Looks like Bubsy on the Jaguar started out as port of the Sega Genesis code. Andrew Seedy mentioned that they had the first level running with no bad guys. So as thankful as I am that the Jaguar Bubsy is a different game, what lead to the decision not to port the first Bubsy game? Space limitations? Not wanting to make a port for a existing game? Just thought it would be easier to make a new game rather than port a old one?

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* Looking at what code I've been able to find, I see this:

Ali Baba (World 3) was originally listed as world 1.

Jack is listed as world 2 - the same.

Hansel and Gretel (world 5 and final) was listed as world 3.

20'000 leagues as listed as world 4 - the same.

Alice in Wonderland (world 1) was listed as world 5.

So here is the speculation:

I've always thought Ali Baba would have made a better opening level so I thought it was funny it was listed as level 1 at one time. Looks like development continued. Hansel and Gretel (if the boss animation sequence was the same) would have ended with defeating the boss, but Mother Goose is taken away in the cage on a chain, So the chase continued through the water level (the lobster boss is more difficult than Hansel and Gretel) and then Alice and Wonderland was created with the Mad Hatter being not as difficult as the lobster but still very challenging. More challenging than the Genie at least.

Was there supposed to be maybe a harder level beyond Alice?

Or did the five levels get completed and it was said "Hey, Alice in Wonderland is more colorful than Ali Baba, let's start there in stead" Which lead to putting Alice first,Jack, then Ali Baba as the Genie was not that challenging, 20,000 leagues (always the fourth level), then Hansel and Gretel?

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Were any other worlds considered/started? And what happened to them?

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At one time Andrew Seedy mentioned that Atari wanted a nerf gun in the game. Naturally Bubsy 2 had a nerf gun, and the release dates of Bubsy 2 and Jaguar Bubsy were relatively close.

This tells me that Jaguar Bubsy was given the Bubsy 1 code and not the Bubsy 2 code to work with, and that is why Bubsy has the one hit like the first game. I'm sure Atari would have loved to get in on the marketing with nerf in promoting Bubsy. This morning I saw the poster for Accolade/Nerf:

http://www.ebay.com/...QUAAOSwT6pV6LUy

So how hard did Atari push to have the nerf gun shoe horned in? Was it tried? Was the game too far into development to make that happen? Shinto who is the producer of the Jaguar Game by Game podcast specially thought that would make an interesting story for the Jaguar Bubsy episode.

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And think of what a day in the life of working on this project was like for us gamers who wonder what it was like working on these Jaguar games. I'm sure it was a job like any other with the usual frustrations and office drama, and in this day and age, all that makes for good story telling.