Baby Jack

Published on Game On 04/90

Have you ever wondered what Bomb Jack did as a wee lad before he became the world-famous, cape-wearing bomb disposal officer? No? Well, that's too bad, because Baby Jack is here as an unofficial prequel, telling you all about the hero's thrilling past when he was still a tiny toddler.

The original Bomb Jack was an arcade game released in 1984 by Tehkan. It saw conversions to a lot of home systems, including the C64 in 1986.

Here's a shot of the original. You play the eponymous Bomb Jack and have to defuse all bombs on the screen by collecting them. If you pick them up in the order they are lit, you get more points. If you touch an enemy, you turn upside down and lose a life. What makes the game quite unique is Jack's unusually high jump which gets even higher if you press the jump button and push the stick up at the same time. While he's in the air, you can move Jack sideways, and you can stop his upwards trajectory with the jump button (or by bumping into a platform). When he drops down, you can make Jack briefly hover in the air by pressing jump repeatedly. He's wearing a cape, after all, an accessory widely known for its physics-defying properties.

This is the C64 version. It got a bit ugly in the conversion process, unfortunately. The different aspect ratio and the bigger sprites result in a more cramped play area which makes the game harder than the arcade original. This version also features new music with the in-game tune being an unlicensed cover of Jean-Michel Jarre's Magnetic Fields, Part 2.

To prove that the C64 can do better, an unofficial remake called Bomb Jack DX is currently in the works. The graphics are significantly improved and the level layout is much closer to the arcade original. Here is a video of the latest beta version:

But enough about adult Bomb Jack. Let's see what shenanigans he was up to as a baby:

The title menu presents itself with a large logo and some text that cycles between showing the credits, the high score table, and some greetings. I have to play a cracked version here because the only disk image I found of the original doesn't start the game properly. The crack also added some cheats. At least, I think to remember that skipping levels by pressing 'P' wasn't something the vanilla game offered.

The menu options are at the bottom, and as you can see, this is another title with a built-in editor.

The music in this part is awesome, by the way. The game's entire soundtrack was done by Michael Hendriks, and his music style contributes a lot to Baby Jack's unique mood. You can listen to the title tune right here:

For now, let's just dive into the game and look at the editor later on:

Gee, I don't know if I'm fully prepared for this. I didn't anticipate this immediate requirement for readiness.

It seems like Jack isn't prepared either, seeing how he is still wearing his nightgown and cap as if he just got pulled out of bed.

I think his inappropriate attire implies that he is currently asleep and what we are witnessing here is something of a nightmare. Jack finds himself in front of what looks like the inside of an asteroid belt. There are walls, platforms, a lot of crystals, and some blob-like monsters that slither back and forth.

I like how Jack and the monsters visibly spawn in the level and then drop down. It's as if they were just thrown into the stage.

In order to escape this hellish realm (and advance to the next one), Jack must collect all crystals. If he touches any of the strange monsters, he loses one of his five lives.

Hm, now that I look at those crystals and enemies, I get reminded of yet another game...

Considering that The Great Giana Sisters also takes place in a dream world, the visual similarities do not strike me as merely coincidental.

Look at Jack go, hoovering up crystals as if his life depended on it (which maybe it does in the context of the dream). The controls are similar to Bomb Jack's with a few key differences: Baby Jack's jumping height can be controlled by holding and releasing the fire button. He can reach the ceiling without the need to press fire and push up the joystick at the same time. The jump is not an arc, but a straight up and down movement which feels a bit awkward at first. Jack's fall can be briefly slowed by pressing fire, but it's way less effective than it is in Bomb Jack.

The first level is easy enough to handle and gives the player time to get used to the jumping mechanics. The enemies can't get off their platforms, so most of the level's area is safe to travel. The bonus that is counting down in the bottom right corner is just for points and doesn't kill off Jack if it reaches zero.

Once all crystals have been collected, the action freezes and a short victory music is played that ends with a wolf whistle. I'm not quite sure who is being whistled at here.

If you look at the crystals, you'll notice that they black out the background graphics behind them (which then reappear when Jack collects the shiny rocks). The crystals are not sprites but character graphics (each crystal being a 2x2 grid of characters), thus they have no transparency. To prevent these visual artifacts while still using characters, a lot of additional character graphics would be needed to cover all possible positions on the screen. It seems that the people working on Bomb Jack DX went out of their way to do exactly that, as the bombs blend seamlessly into the backgrounds.

Level 2 continues with the space theme and features some very purple planets. The Wizball-like monsters in this stage move back and forth like the previous ones but at a much faster pace. Do not be deceived by their bright expressions. Their friendly smiles are made of death.

For new players, the main cause of life loss here may be the low ceiling of the platforms. If Jack hits his head, he immediately drops down. In the above animation, you can see me jump up and down several times in quick succession to avoid one of the rolling faces. This level is still on the easy side and mainly serves as an introduction to a new enemy type.

At first, I thought the domes in level 3 contained futuristic cityscapes (as one would expect), but the structures inside look more like art installations. IN SPACE!

This is the first stage where you get killed just by doing nothing. The bouncy ball homes in on your position, so you better take shelter before it reaches you.

As long as there are platforms above you, it's easy to avoid the jumping blob. Unlike Baby Jack, the monster can jump through platforms, so it'll always end up on the highest point it can reach.

Level 4 goes with a moonlit night theme and fittingly introduces a vampire face that moves like the ball in Breakout. You wouldn't want to encounter one of these in a narrow alley because its move pattern is quite hard to dodge. This stage's layout is pretty generous, though, and leaves enough space to get past the bloodthirsty monster. Getting into the center room with the sixteen crystals can be a bit fiddly thanks to the narrow gap. I think I usually lost a life while trying to squeeze in there and letting the vampire sneak up on me.

Here's level 5 in all its green glory. Note how the crystals have been placed in the black regions to minimize the masking effect they have on the background graphics.

I was so close to doing a perfect run of this stage, but then I missed the last dream crystal and immediately made contact with the bouncy ball instead. The game is fair enough to let me continue from where I left off, thus I only had to collect the last crystal in order to complete the level.

Level 6 is one of the few stages that don't have any platforms. Luckily, the enemies are placed in a way that there is always a gap where Jack can safely stand.

At this point, the backgrounds start repeating, but they reappear with different color schemes. I'll start skipping stages here and only mention the ones that stand out somehow.

Level 10 certainly stands out for being one of the hardest stages in the game. It introduces the last type of monsters, shifty-eyed robot balls with moving lights in their mouths. They relentlessly home in on Jack's position, so it's a good idea to move around a lot and lure them away from areas that still contain crystals.

I got lucky with level 14 and managed to record an intense-looking playthrough. It's less impressive if I consider the many times I died while trying to figure this stage out. Since the jumping blobs try to move in my direction, I have to repeatedly lure them away from where I want to go and then make a run for it.

Level 21 starts with a bit of a goof: The vampire face appears at a position that's apparently too high up and it leaves the play area as soon as it spawns. Its vertical position then flips around and the vampire re-enters the stage from below by wiggling past the bottom border.

This level can get pretty chaotic, as I have to keep track of four different monsters, each with their own moving pattern.

Level 25 is probably the worst stage of the game, as the enemy placement is simply there to screw the player over. The four vampire faces remain contained within their rooms, but with each bounce, they shift ever so slightly around in their prison. One time I get lucky and can squeeze past, the other time the enemy touches me by a pixel's margin, even though I moved the exact same way. I estimate the chances to grab all crystals in a room and get out alive to be about 50%. If I lose all my lives in a level, it's definitely this one.

Level 30 expects the player to be clairvoyant: If I want to survive this screen, I have to immediately make my way down by running back and forth and just ignore that it sometimes looks like I'm about to smash into a cyborg enemy. It's probably still possible to finish the level in a different way, but the longer I wait, the closer all the enemies get to me. The idea for this level is pretty neat, it just doesn't translate too well to a game with limited lives and no passwords.

Number 32 is the final level which fittingly spells out END with crystals.

What do I get for surviving all stages and finishing the game? Is it a nice ending sequence that shows Baby Jack waking up from this nightmare? Could there be a last-minute twist revealing that these monsters needed the crystals to survive and Baby Jack stole them purely for evil purposes? Or do I just get a cheap congratulatory text message?

Unsurprisingly, it's the latter. At this point, the game also plays the same victory jingle that's used for finishing each level, so I just heard that melody twice in a row. Not the ideal way to make me feel accomplished.

Baby Jack doesn't really end, though, because after this message, it loops back to the first level. If I feel so inclined, I can continue playing until I've lost all my lives or my interest in the game. Whatever comes first.

The inevitable Game Over makes a somewhat baffling music reference as if Baby Jack were involved in a marital dispute. The message is accompanied by a short, somber melody that ends with wailing guitars. It's pretty awesome.

I also get to enter my name into the high score table which is already filled with people who either worked on the game or cracked it. As far as I know, MR.CURSOR is the handle of Ivo Herzeg who was responsible for Baby Jack's copy protection. The identity of FAST OLLY will remain a mystery, though.


The game also comes with an editor, so let's have a quick look at that as well:

The editor's interface is pretty straightforward. I can move a cursor around with the joystick and place/remove platforms. To the right are options to switch between the placing of crystals and platforms. I can also move monster spawn points around, change the enemy types and adjust their colors. While the background graphics are fixed depending on the level number, I can change the three main colors of every stage. Baby Jack's spawn point cannot be changed, though.

The bottom option allows me to test my creation by playing it with infinite lives. If I managed to make a level that's impossible to complete, I can cop out by pressing RUN/STOP and go back to the drawing board.

The editor reveals an interesting detail about how the enemy sprites are placed: There are always five enemies visible and there is no way to deactivate any of them. So how is it possible that some levels only have two monsters, like the very first level? The other monsters are placed behind the one that's supposed to be visible. If they are the same enemy type, they move exactly the same way and never deviate from the front sprite's position. This seems a bit inefficient at first glance, but since keeping track of five enemies hardly eats any performance, the programmer probably just decided to streamline the system like that.

CONCLUSION

Baby Jack is a simplified version of Bomb Jack. There are no bonus points for collecting crystals in a certain order, nor are there any bonus objects that grant Jack special powers or even more extra points.

The difficulty is a nice, slow curve at first but then suffers from unfair spikes with levels that either need a lot of luck or a lot of retries. If the game offered some password system or another way to start from later stages, that wouldn't be as much of a problem. The cracked version I'm playing includes the option to skip levels by pressing 'P'. While this helps remedy the difficulty issue a bit, it's still a cheat that wasn't intended by the original authors.

The graphics look perfectly fine for a low-budget title. They are certainly nicer than what the official Bomb Jack conversion has to offer, but they suffer a bit from monochromatic shading where the entire level uses the same three colors. I like the asteroid belt the most, as it uses a bit of perspective which makes it look more dynamic than the other backgrounds. I also like the monster design, simple as it is. The game was clearly released before the Internet came into wide use, but having a nightmare about being chased by various emoticons seems oddly present-day.

The clear highlight for me is the music. Michael Hendriks did an awesome job here and delivered a couple of short but very memorable tunes. My favorite is the title menu track, closely followed by the Game Over music.

Since I currently have no way of starting up the game's manual that came on the disk, I can't tell for sure what is going on storywise. Assuming that the whole game is a dream, I tried to deduce the nature of Jack's nightmare from the various level backgrounds. A lot of them display scenes in space, which make me wonder about Jack's age and if he can already grasp the concept of planets and such. If so, maybe he learned about the topic only recently, and now he's afraid of ending up in space and running out of air. Maybe those crystals are fancy oxygen tanks. Or maybe I'm putting too much thought into a game that doesn't really need a story.

In closing, I'd say Baby Jack is worth a quick spin. It's a simple game, and the first few levels are quite entertaining. I never felt much motivation to create my own levels, but the editor is a welcome feature nevertheless. Even if you don't intend to play Baby Jack for long, the music alone is worth the time investment of a couple of minutes.