Development and Release History
The Japanese name for the original game for the PC-Engine is PC-Genjin (PC-原人, literally, PC-barbarian). In Japanese, PC-Genjin sounds like PC-Engine, and the PC stands for Pithecanthropus Computerus, a pun on Pithecanthropus Erectus. It is generally called PC-Kid in English, as he was meant to be NEC's mascot at the time. Later, when the game was ported (or given different versions) for other platforms, it was renamed accordingly, like FC-Kid (after Family Computer, the original Japanese name for the NES, and the FC stood for Freakthoropus Computerus), GB-Kid (after the Game Boy), or the more generic name BC-Kid in some other versions, including Amiga. In North America, this was scrapped, as the game name is always Bonk's Adventure or something similar.
In 2003 Hudson Soft included a 3D remake of Bonk's Adventure in their Hudson Selection series of games released exclusively in Japan for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube consoles.
In the mid-1990s, at the height of the PC-Engine/TG-16's popularity, Bonk's character was used to market the brand in Europe and North America, similar to the way that Mario was (is) the face of the Nintendo franchise, and Sonic the Hedgehog was the face of the Sega franchise.
Factor 5, developers of the Amiga port, have made BC-Kid available for free through their company website but it requires an emulator to play.
The TurboGrafx-16 version was released for Wii's Virtual Console on November 21, 2006, and according to informal surveys it has been one of the most purchased games.
Hudson was developing a reboot of the franchise entitled "Bonk: Brink of Extinction" for WiiWare and PlayStation Network. With the closure of Hudson the status and future of this title is uncertain.
Read more about this topic: Bonk's Adventure
Famous quotes containing the words development and, development, release and/or history:
“Theories of child development and guidelines for parents are not cast in stone. They are constantly changing and adapting to new information and new pressures. There is no “right” way, just as there are no magic incantations that will always painlessly resolve a child’s problems.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“A defective voice will always preclude an artist from achieving the complete development of his art, however intelligent he may be.... The voice is an instrument which the artist must learn to use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb.”
—Sarah Bernhardt (1845–1923)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“There is no history of how bad became better.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)