''Raid on Bungeling Bay'' is a

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by Will Wright and published by

Broderbund Broderbund Software, Inc. (stylized as Brøderbund) was an American maker of video games, educational software, and productivity tools. Broderbund is best known for the 8-bit video game hits ''Choplifter'', ''Lode Runner'', ''Karateka'', and '' ...

for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

in 1984. It was the first

designed A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

by Will Wright. The Commodore 64 version was published in the UK by

Ariolasoft Ariolasoft GmbH, later known as United Software, was a German video game developer, publisher and distributor. It started in 1983 as the software subsidiary of Ariola Records, itself the record division of Germany's large Bertelsmann empire. ...

. The game inspired Wright to develop ''

SimCity ''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, ''SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and were followed by several sequels and many other spin-off "''Sim' ...

'' in 1989.

Gameplay

''Raid on Bungeling Bay'' is a 2D

. The player controls a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

launched from an

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

to bomb six

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

scattered across islands on a small planetoid occupied by the Bungeling Empire (frequent villains in Broderbund games), while fending off escalating counterattacks by

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

fighter jet Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

guided missile In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket ...

s, and a

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

. There is also a hidden island for the player to reload on. Failure means that the Bungeling Empire develops a war machine to take over the planet

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. Players have to attack its

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

while defending the

which serves as home base. The game offers an insight into the design style of Wright, who also designed ''

''. Over time, the factories grow and develop new technologies to use against the player. There are also visible signs of interdependency among the islands, such as supply boats moving between them. In order to win the game, the player must prevent the escalation by bombing all the factories as quickly as possible, keeping them from advancing their technology. If left alone for too long, the factories create enough new weaponry to overwhelm the player.

Ports

''Raid on Bungeling Bay'' was ported to the Famicom/NES by Hudson Soft. Hudson published this version and released it in Japan on February 15, 1985. A conversion for the arcade-based VS. System was created based on this port, and it was distributed to arcades by Nintendo. An MSX version was developed by Zap and published by Sony. The Japanese releases of the game are alternatively titled . Will Wright stated in an interview that he was not sure if the arcade version was actually released in the United States.

Reception

''Raid on Bungeling Bay'' for the Commodore 64 sold about 20,000 to 30,000 units in America, while the NES version sold about a million units in Japan. The large discrepancy was attributed to lack of

software piracy Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, su ...

on the NES due to its cartridge system along with ''Raid'' being one of the first American games published in Japan. Sales of the game gave Will Wright the financial freedom to create SimCity. ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

'' wrote in 1985 that ''Raid'' "possesses all the virtues needed to appease the demanding gamer", with "amazingly detailed" graphics. ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' in 1988 approved of the Nintendo version's graphics, calling it a "high adventure with realistic overtones" that did not involve dragons or elves. The magazine named it the Action-Strategy Game of the Year for Nintendo, writing that ''Raid'' had been "rescued from Broderbund's computer software vaults, updated slightly, and sent out to challenge all the bright new intendo games andblew them out of the water ... a delightful game experience". In 1996, ''Computer Gaming World'' declared ''Raid on Bungeling Bay'' the 24th-best computer game ever released.

Legacy

Wright continued to develop the editor for the game as a personal toy because he enjoyed it so much. He researched

urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

and realised that others might enjoy constructing and building cities themselves. The result was a more advanced

simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...

that eventually became ''SimCity''.

References

External links

*
Review
in

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{{Sim series 1984 video games Broderbund games Commodore 64 games Helicopter video games Hudson Soft games MSX games Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo games Nintendo Vs. Series games Shoot 'em ups Video games developed in the United States Video games set on fictional islands ZAP Corporation games Ariolasoft games