‘He was alone in the centre of the clearing, alone except for a little group of larvae huddled beneath a dandelion leaf, the last survivors of all his kin. He knew he had to save them, or all was finished.’
– Robin Hawdon, A Rustle in the Grass, 1984.
Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (Mar. 7 – Mar. 13, 2023).
Shortly after the release of Nanosaur (1998), Brian Greenstone, having been prevented by his immediate superior from working on a new project in order to focus on OpenGL, decided to resign from his position at Apple to create a game that would offer a glimpse of the next generation of video games. More ambitious than Nanosaur, Bugdom was intended to be not just a technical showcase, but a complete platformer experience, with different mechanics and a real sense of progression. Bundled with the iMac DV 2000 and the first iBooks, the title was a huge commercial success, introducing video games to many families.
What ambitions for a 3D computer platformer?
The player assumes the role of Rollie after the king of the red ants, Thorax, has kidnapped all the Ladybugs, leaving the hero to embark on an adventure to rescue his friends and defeat the enemy king. The adventure is divided into ten levels, which either require reaching the end-level log or defeating a boss: Rollie starts in a relatively peaceful meadow and progresses through increasingly hostile environments, be it a garden lawn with oblivious humans, a hive of aggressive bees or a pseudo-volcano. Rollie can jump, roll and punch, but is still a relatively weak creature compared to the other insects, and must tread carefully.
After a brief introduction, the player can start experimenting with the controls, and Bugdom manages to be particularly intuitive in the way it works, but its ambition soon suffers from the technical limitations of the time. Although the game is vibrant and features decent 3D, the comparison with previous platformers is rather harsh. Brian Greenstone is certainly right when he mentions Bugdom's colourful look, which was quite unique for computer games at the time, but the same effect was achieved by Super Mario 64 (1996) – and to a lesser extent Banjo-Kazooie (1998) – with a much more subtle balance between a dynamic camera and a wide range of movement.
Bugdom remains particularly simplistic and is not bothered by its multiple collision problems or the relatively illegible nature of its levels, due to the repetition of graphic elements without any variation and the rather poor viewing distance. It is easy to miss a corridor in the camera's blind spot, as in Level 3. The emphasis is more on the other secondary elements of the game, which help to demonstrate the new potentialities of the computer games. Rollie's roll is particularly fast, allowing him to traverse entire sections in a fraction of a second, before bouncing off a wall and heading in the other direction at full speed. Similarly, the Water Taxi and Dragonfly segments are reminiscent of racing and flying games, but without any real consideration for level design: it is easy to get stuck in the scenery or be punished for going outside the boundaries of the level.
Gameplay dissonance and tedious exploration
The charming and cute nature of the game soon disappears and is replaced by a more creepy and frightening atmosphere for children. The red ants have a violent stance and are difficult to kill, but the player will quickly learn to also watch out for bees and other flying insects, which can be particularly vicious. Bugdom does have an easy difficulty mode, which makes it more accessible to a lay audience, but the problem lies less in the damage that enemies can individually inflict than in their sheer numbers and the deadly platforming that the camera never facilitates. The game occasionally features creative ideas that were somewhat impressive for the time – such as dynamite that detonates when enemies shoot flames at it – but the execution is generally rather weak. The lack of a map and visual clues provides little incentive to explore beyond the bare minimum, lest one gets lost again or takes unnecessary risks, while the Level 7's boss battle is simply a design disaster.
Speed, which seems to be the hallmark of exploration in the early levels, is traded for extreme caution towards the end, rendering a whole section of Rollie's gameplay ineffective. In Level 8, Fireflies can force the player to restart an entire section, after having transported them backwards for several excessively long seconds. They can only be avoided by deliberate and careful exploration, as far as the controls allow. The platforming also suffers from this problem in Level 6, where a mistake can easily cost a life, one that the player does not necessarily have the leisure to lose at this stage. Exploring in Bugdom is not necessarily unpleasant, but it does suffer from the presence of aggressive enemies that put undue pressure on the player. While the crawling insects are generally harmless enough and never unduly disrupt the gameplay experience, the later enemies are particularly cruel and often unwelcome.
Nanosaur managed to charm with its rather benign nature and short adventure: the twenty minutes allotted to the player quickly become superfluous once they know the map. Bugdom, even if it remains quite concise, can be much more punishing than its predecessor. While it serves as a charming and unique first experience for anyone new to video games, its technical limitations and level design oversights prove frustrating and regrettable. The title remains an important entry in Mac video game history, but struggles to stand comparison with the console platformers that truly established new standards.
– Robin Hawdon, A Rustle in the Grass, 1984.
Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (Mar. 7 – Mar. 13, 2023).
Shortly after the release of Nanosaur (1998), Brian Greenstone, having been prevented by his immediate superior from working on a new project in order to focus on OpenGL, decided to resign from his position at Apple to create a game that would offer a glimpse of the next generation of video games. More ambitious than Nanosaur, Bugdom was intended to be not just a technical showcase, but a complete platformer experience, with different mechanics and a real sense of progression. Bundled with the iMac DV 2000 and the first iBooks, the title was a huge commercial success, introducing video games to many families.
What ambitions for a 3D computer platformer?
The player assumes the role of Rollie after the king of the red ants, Thorax, has kidnapped all the Ladybugs, leaving the hero to embark on an adventure to rescue his friends and defeat the enemy king. The adventure is divided into ten levels, which either require reaching the end-level log or defeating a boss: Rollie starts in a relatively peaceful meadow and progresses through increasingly hostile environments, be it a garden lawn with oblivious humans, a hive of aggressive bees or a pseudo-volcano. Rollie can jump, roll and punch, but is still a relatively weak creature compared to the other insects, and must tread carefully.
After a brief introduction, the player can start experimenting with the controls, and Bugdom manages to be particularly intuitive in the way it works, but its ambition soon suffers from the technical limitations of the time. Although the game is vibrant and features decent 3D, the comparison with previous platformers is rather harsh. Brian Greenstone is certainly right when he mentions Bugdom's colourful look, which was quite unique for computer games at the time, but the same effect was achieved by Super Mario 64 (1996) – and to a lesser extent Banjo-Kazooie (1998) – with a much more subtle balance between a dynamic camera and a wide range of movement.
Bugdom remains particularly simplistic and is not bothered by its multiple collision problems or the relatively illegible nature of its levels, due to the repetition of graphic elements without any variation and the rather poor viewing distance. It is easy to miss a corridor in the camera's blind spot, as in Level 3. The emphasis is more on the other secondary elements of the game, which help to demonstrate the new potentialities of the computer games. Rollie's roll is particularly fast, allowing him to traverse entire sections in a fraction of a second, before bouncing off a wall and heading in the other direction at full speed. Similarly, the Water Taxi and Dragonfly segments are reminiscent of racing and flying games, but without any real consideration for level design: it is easy to get stuck in the scenery or be punished for going outside the boundaries of the level.
Gameplay dissonance and tedious exploration
The charming and cute nature of the game soon disappears and is replaced by a more creepy and frightening atmosphere for children. The red ants have a violent stance and are difficult to kill, but the player will quickly learn to also watch out for bees and other flying insects, which can be particularly vicious. Bugdom does have an easy difficulty mode, which makes it more accessible to a lay audience, but the problem lies less in the damage that enemies can individually inflict than in their sheer numbers and the deadly platforming that the camera never facilitates. The game occasionally features creative ideas that were somewhat impressive for the time – such as dynamite that detonates when enemies shoot flames at it – but the execution is generally rather weak. The lack of a map and visual clues provides little incentive to explore beyond the bare minimum, lest one gets lost again or takes unnecessary risks, while the Level 7's boss battle is simply a design disaster.
Speed, which seems to be the hallmark of exploration in the early levels, is traded for extreme caution towards the end, rendering a whole section of Rollie's gameplay ineffective. In Level 8, Fireflies can force the player to restart an entire section, after having transported them backwards for several excessively long seconds. They can only be avoided by deliberate and careful exploration, as far as the controls allow. The platforming also suffers from this problem in Level 6, where a mistake can easily cost a life, one that the player does not necessarily have the leisure to lose at this stage. Exploring in Bugdom is not necessarily unpleasant, but it does suffer from the presence of aggressive enemies that put undue pressure on the player. While the crawling insects are generally harmless enough and never unduly disrupt the gameplay experience, the later enemies are particularly cruel and often unwelcome.
Nanosaur managed to charm with its rather benign nature and short adventure: the twenty minutes allotted to the player quickly become superfluous once they know the map. Bugdom, even if it remains quite concise, can be much more punishing than its predecessor. While it serves as a charming and unique first experience for anyone new to video games, its technical limitations and level design oversights prove frustrating and regrettable. The title remains an important entry in Mac video game history, but struggles to stand comparison with the console platformers that truly established new standards.