Behind this particularly long title hides a game that was my absolute favorite among many Commodore 64 multi-event games. The thing that distinguished Bit Top O’Fun from all the sports game was the setting (the circus) and the fact it actually had a plot. The game was filled with black humor and a surprising amount of brutality.
The plot was fairly simple. The circus owns a businessman (Fiendish Freddy) some heavy cash - $10 000 to be exact. Freddy wants to demolish the circus and in its place build a luxury hotel, but if the player will manage to raise the money the circus will be spared. The show master organizes a series of six events that are supposed to astonish five clown judges who will pay the player money. The sum is proportional to the display of skill, so it’s the player’s job to impress the judges. However, Freddy would rather build the hotel than get paid by the circus so he will do anything to stop the player from succeeding in raising the funds.
As I mentioned before there are 6 different events:
Diving
The player must jump from 4 diving boards placed on different heights into containers with water. The containers are getting smaller with each board and they range from a huge, wooden bowl to a glass. While the player falls down from the board he must perform stunts to increase the judges scoring. Freddy will occasionally try to blow the player off course with a big hairdryer.
Juggling
The player must endure 4 juggling sessions while raiding a unicycle. Each session bring more balls to juggle as well as babies that must be thrown back to their prams, bombs that must be thrown back to Freddy and missiles that must be juggled until the session ends. Dropping a bomb or a missile ends with an explosion and death of the unfortunate juggler.
Trapeze
The goal is to get from left side to the right side. Simple, huh? Not really. You will have to jump though fire and time your jumps well, as some of the ropes are moving back and forth. Not only that. You need to be fast enough; otherwise Freddy will fly up on his jetpack and cut you down with a pair of large scissors.
Knife throwing
The player must throw at balloons placed on a spinning wheel with an assistant strapped to it. The number of knifes is limited and b sure not to hit the assistant as she bleeds extensively. Freddy will throw smoke bombs to make your, or rather your assistant’s life miserable.
Tightrope
The aim of this challenge is to walk the tightrope from left to right with a pole to keep balance and deflect (with the afore mentioned pole) razor blades that Freddy will be throwing. If you fail to deflect a blade you’ll be treated with an animation the character being cut in half.
Human cannonball
Last, but not least we have the human cannonball challenge. The player must judge the angle necessary to launch the character safely. Be aware, that if you take to long Freddy will detonate the cannon.
The game was released in 1990 for 16-bit Atari ST, IBM PC and Commodore Amiga and was converted a bit later for C64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.
I had it on C64 and was lucky enough to have it on a cartridge, as the tape version featured a terrible multi-loading system.
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1 comment:
I won't even tell how many times the canon spitted me out in a form of a black instant:D
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