The year is 1983, only a few months after Barbuta was unleashed onto the world. Thorson Petters, the artist, was nearly fired for making the game on company time, but after his bosses played it, they actually ended up enjoying it. What if, instead of focusing on business applications, this little computer could be used for entertainment? So the company completely shifted gears, Thorson’s two bosses Gerry Smolski and Benedikt Chun joining Thorson in creating video games. Well specifically, Chun joined Thorson. Gerry Smolski was the hardware specialist, he actually made the computer, and produced and shipped them. While we don’t know a whole lot about these two men yet, as the co-founders of LX Systems, they are EXTREMELY important to the story at large. The game doesn’t have credits, but so we don’t know who did what on this game, and we won’t really learn much about Chun or Smolski for at least a little while yet. But anyways, their first game together as a trio: Bug Hunter.

"Bug Hunter"

In Bug Hunter, you play as a mercenary exterminator hired by a moon quarry to stop bugs that have been running rampant. Can you stop the bugs before they overrun the mine? To assist you, the owners of the quarry will drop energy blocks on you, which can be used to upgrade your weapons.

The game is an extremely interesting strategy puzzle game. You have slots for seven actions. You start with very simple actions, run, jump, shoot, and lob. As you collect energy, you can spend it to change out your actions for a new action. This also refreshes the action, so if you have the energy, you can keep cashing out to do more and more things in one turn. Each turn, bugs and energy will spawn, and your goal is very simple. Kill the bugs. If a bug is not killed in a turn, it will evolve into a new form of bug. These bugs all have different abilities, some way worse than others. You’ve got bugs that make holes when they die, bugs that turn energy into anti-energy near them, bugs that explode when they die, bugs that create fodder and can’t be killed unless you kill the fodder (the worst), bugs that take two hits (the OTHER worst). And after they evolve, then evolve again into scarier forms, they will become… take a guess… yep, that’s right.

An egg. Oh, Petters.

"A screen of Bug Hunter"

And then if you can’t kill the egg, it will hatch and you’ll IMMEDIATELY lose. Eggs also don’t count towards your kills, so it’s best to not even let them get to that point. On top of needing 30 bug kills to win a round, you also need to finish in ten days. So an average of 3 bugs a day. Not too bad, right? Well, it can get pretty hectic, and it feels very RNG heavy. Some bug types feel like straight up run killers. It’s probably easier in multiplayer, and it DOES have one of those though I haven’t tested it, but the game is a real brain tickler. It also helps to remember you can mario stomp enemies by walking on them from heights, I kept forgetting that. Also, you can shoot energy to make it explode and kill enemies around it. But it can ALSO kill you, so be careful. For being a 1983 brain tickling puzzler, it’s shockingly kind, because if you’re targetting things, it’ll show where an energy explosion will reach, including all the chain reactions. Very pleasant.

"The bug threat has evolved!"

Overall, Bug Hunters is an interesting game, but not one I’d go back to every much. I got my 6 runs in a row for the cherry, and that was probably good for me. It has no music, and the graphics are primative, but pleasant enough. It feels weirdly isolating and uncomfortable, which hey, that fits. It also introduces Benedikt Chun and Gerry Smolski into the story as the other two co-founders of the company. Though they don’t have a chance to really shine here, we’ll learn more about them later.

7/10