You probably remember Bobby's World, the children's show with a kid named Bobby who had a rather huge imagination, from the early days of the Fox Television Network. But did you know there was a video game back in the 16-bit era? Read on!
Yep, Bobby's World. The 1990s cartoon created by Howie Mandell about a four-year-old with an interesting world view and a big imagination to match that ran through most of the decade and became of the most enduring things to come out of the old Fox Kids weekday afternoon and Saturday morning blocks.
Believe it or not, there was a game. At least, there was supposed to be a game. The game is dated 1994, but the game was strangely never released during the planned time frame of early 1995.
In this game, Bobby's mom tells him to clean his room. As he does so, he keeps finding toys and having dreams about putting them away.
Level 1: Spaceship
Every level contains two side-scrolling sections, then a shooting section which is followed by a boss.
The game teaches you to use Bobby's favorite stuffed spider Webbly as a shield right away. To do that, press A. This will save you from anything that will hit you, but it has to hit Webbly directly. If it still touches Bobby's head, you're taking a hit.
Bobby can attack with flashing orbs with the Y button. They don't have much distance, but they're better than nothing. You can run to move faster, but that involves holding the Y button, so you have to make a priority out of whether to run, walk and fight here. Thankfully, this isn't so bad since the game is meant for kids, but the whole "attack and run command assigned to the same button" thing from the NES era shouldn't be applying to a Super Nintendo game, either way.
You can also jump on enemies to stun them. This allows you to get a hit in, especially on faster enemies.
Collecting 100 lollipops gives you an extra life. The cookies restore one unit of health, while the milk and sandwich refill them all. If you take damage without any hearts, you lose a life.
Watch out for the shooting stars that drop from the sky with basically no warning.
Enemies to defeat include meteorite pieces that walk around when you get close enough, purple aliens that hide in craters in the background and try to smack you, and aliens in UFOs that try to zap you with their tractor beam.
In the second section, you'll be taking on green lizards with ray guns. Use Webbly to shield yourself from getting zapped. You can use your blocking enemy to send them (and any other walking enemy) in the opposite direction.
In the third section, you'll be in a spaceship that lets you move in all directions and shoot straight ahead. You'll be flying around trying to avoid literal meteor showers as well as literal black holes. Wait for a pause in the meteor showers before moving past them.
The heart replenishes one hit will add one heart to your maximum health. At least you don't lose those when you die. You can have up to a maximum of six hearts.
The boss is some sort of space amoeba, and he's pathetically easy to defeat. Just stay all the way to the left and avoid being touched by this thing.
You get a password after beating every level. The kid with the blond rat-tail haircut is Derek, the girl with the huge hair is Kelly and the dog is Roger. In case you don't know who the characters here are, there you go.
Level 2: Under the Bed
Password: Bobby, Derek, Kelly, Roger
Bobby's mom wants him to check under the bed as part of the room-cleaning. This will obviously be an adventure in itself, and the music here makes it feel worth doing.
You'll learn before the level happens that if you use X, you can use Webbly to hand on a bar. This will come in handy throughout the game. While hanging on, you can move left and right across the bar with the Control Pad.
You now throw pillows instead of green energy balls, but they work the same way. Expect your unlimited ammo to change form throughout the game.
There's not a lot of enemy variety in this game, it seems: aside from the purple bugs that crawl low to the ground, there are still the small bedbugs enemies that drop from the sky with no warning unless you know they're coming (much like the shooting stars in the first level), and the crater monsters that try to smack you are yellow and now come out of soda cans. There are a few news ones, though: evil sock creatures on clouds that spit fireballs downwards, tiny sub sandwich enemies that walk back and forth, sock snakes that bounce up and down as they trudge forwards, and purple bedbugs that fly forward and divebomb you when you're close enough.
The purple bugs are the worst, since they're low to the ground and you'll have to be far enough and/or high enough above them to hit them effectively sometimes...unless you're right in front of them. That works too.
The Bobby head is an extra life. It's self-explanatory. I couldn't tell what it was because the hair on the Bobby Head icon meshed with the background. Speakng of the background, what is going on here? How much stuff does Bobby have under there? According to his imagination, there's a zillion things down there and they're all bigger than he is. No wonder this feels like a chore to him.
In the second section, you'll find out there's a whole village under there. Use Webbly to get on those bards and shimmy over the bottomless pits.
In the third section, you'll be riding a bedbug and shooting at stuff, avoiding the spring walls as you go. This is more of a basic obstacle course than the first level's shooting part. At least you don't have to deal with literal meteor showers anymore.
Unlike the first level, there's no boss here. The picture of the purple creature with the antennae is Webbly, while the woman with red hair is Bobby's mom.
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