Overview
This was the first video game designed by famed SimCity creator, Will Wright. Brøderbund published it for the Commodore 64 in 1984. It was also later released for the MSX computer and the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Each version of the game has a slightly different graphical style.
Gameplay
The game is displayed in a 2D overhead view of the terrain, which is populated by the enemy buildings & vehicles of the Bungeling Empire. The player controls a helicopter that takes off from an aircraft carrier. This carrier slowly moves around the map on it's own, and performs several functions. It acts as a resupply point for more bombs, it restores health, and it is a respawn point if the player is shot down. The helicopter has two attacks; missiles (which are infinite) and bombs (which are very limited). The goal is to destroy the six factories that are scattered across the islands by using the bombs, while defending with the missiles. Over time, the factories grow and develop new weapons to use against the player, such as gun turrets, fighter jets, guided missiles, and eventually even a battleship. If any factory is left alone for too long, it will create enough new weapons to overwhelm the player, shooting him down and destroying his aircraft carrier. If a player is shot down, he still is given a limited ability to control the helicopter as it's going down, and if he can manage to crash into a factory, it will destroy it. In order to beat Raid on Bungeling Bay, the player must destroy all of the factories as quickly as possible, keeping them from growing & advancing their technology. If the player succeeds, he is awarded a parade.
Influence
The game is an interesting precursor to the eventual creation of Will Wright's SimCity franchise. He continued to develop the editor for Raid on Bungeling Bay as his own personal toy, because he enjoyed creating different maps & layouts. He figured if he was having fun with this, others might as well. So this map editing, combined with the dynamic feature of the growing factories in Bungeling Bay, was the main inspiration for his next game, the widely successful SimCity.
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