Retro Game Review -- LadyBug (Atari 2600)

Game: Lady Bug

System: Atari 2600

Publisher: John W. Champeau (Homebrew)

Year: 2006

Ranking: Four Quarters

"Two-thousand and six!", you exclaim. "But I thought the Atari 2600 died at the hands of a pudgy Italian plumber back in 1985?" 

The longevity of the 2600 is truly surprising. Atari continued to produce, market, and sell the Atari 2600 until 1992, 7 long years after Super Mario and the NES were launched in the US. The last Atari 2600 unit shipped nearly 15 years after the first one rolled out of the factories. Although it may not have been the dominant video game system during that entire time, it developed a passionate following. Once the Atari 2600 factories, such as they were, were retooled for the "superior" 16-bit generation, fans could only look to themselves to continue the development of new titles. Like the prohibition era moonshiners before them, Atari fans around the world took to their studies, basements, and attics to homebrew a new line of titles. Luckily for us, homebrewing Atari titles is less Bonnie and Clyde and more Lady Bug and Master Chief. 

Homebrew titles come in a variety of flavors. There is a subset that aims to improve tragic, original Atari 2600 releases. The best example of this is Pac-Man 4K by Dennis Debro. This title shows that the original Pac-Man for the 2600 did not have to be a flickering barf-fest. Another category of homebrews aims to bring a completely new game to 2600 fans. In Duck Attack! by Will Nicholes, the player must collect radioactive eggs laid by enormous, mutant, and fire-breathing ducks to prevent a mad scientist from using them to create a doomsday device. Finally, there is a subset of homebrews that takes popular titles of the era that were originally released on other home systems and brings them to the 2600 for the first time. Lady Bug, released for both Intellivision and ColecoVision and ported to the Atari 2600 in 2006 by John W. Champeau, fits into this category.

Lady Bug is a complex game. You control a mild-mannered Lady Bug. Your goal is to eat the delectable flowers that line the garden paths. Sharing the garden with you are several disagreeable bugs. At the start of the game, the inhospitable insects are corralled in the center of the board. A green timer runs along the edge of the board. Once the timer completes a cycle, one of the viscous vermin is released and it starts to chase you through the maze. Up to four insects can chase you. When they are all out, you'll have an opportunity to storm their bunker and eat one of their delicious high-scoring vegetables. As you run though the maze, you'll have the opportunity to open and close the many green garden gates to delay your enemies. If you flip the doors at the right time, you can drive the insects into one of the two death skulls to instantaneously vaporize them. The flipping doors create a dynamic and exciting game board. A smart Lady Bug will take advantage of this to stay one step ahead of trouble.

In addition to the delicious flowers, there are also hearts and letters that you can collect for points and bonuses. During the course of the game, the hearts and letters cycle through three colors: blue, yellow, and red. Collect blue hearts and get point multipliers. Snatch yellow letters to spell the word EXTRA and get an extra life and a bonus cut scene. Finally gather all the red letters to spell the word SPECIAL and you will be transported to a special stage containing only the coveted high-scoring vegetables. The special stage is where your score grows to magical beanstalk heights. As far as I've been able to tell, the letters appear randomly, so you'll have to have patience my young grasshopper, er, lady bug, to collect the bonus words.

I love Lady Bug. It's exciting, fun, and it makes you think. I am amazed that Champeau managed to create such a remarkable port on the limited 2600 hardware. Playing a fantastic homebrew like Lady Bug is inspiring. It makes me think that if I put my mind to it, I could go out and create something new for the system that kindled my love of video games. It's a bit of a stretch, but, hey, it's important to dream.

Start of Lady Bug for the Atari 2600.

Extra life cut sequence: Lady Bug dances a little jig around the screen.

Death for Lady Bug: at least it looks like she's on her way to a better place.

Retro Game Rankings: No Quarters to Four Quarters. It should be noted, that although the going price of an arcade game was a single quarter when many of these games first came out, I feel that true retro game fans would be willing to pay a little bit more to capture the glory of playing some of the truly great ones one more time.