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HUCARD

PC Genjin

1989

PC Genjin



ALSO KNOWN AS BONK'S ADVENTURE, PC KID

A bald caveman who fights with his head.

NOW LOADINGCover art of PC Genjin

PC Genjin is a side-scrolling platformer for the PC Engine. Its hero, a bald caveman, attacks by headbutting his enemies. The game came out in Japan in December 1989 and started the Bonk series.

STATUS
RELEASED IN JAPAN15 December 1989
DESIGNED BYRed Company
DEVELOPMENTAtlus
BACKGROUNDSA.I
PUBLISHED IN JAPAN BYHudson Soft
WESTERN NAMESBonk, PC Kid and B.C. Kid
HOW IT PLAYS

Bonk headbutts enemies, which knocks them back and into the air. He eats fruit and vegetables to heal, and red hearts refill his health.

Meat changes him in stages. Small meat gives him a ground-pounding stun, and large meat gives temporary invulnerability. The power wears off step by step.

Defeated enemies drop smileys. Their total is counted after each stage's boss, and it adds bonus points.

STORY

The game is set in a fictional prehistoric world. King Drool kidnaps Princess Za after learning that her crown holds special powers. He uses the crown to brainwash her and her people. Bonk beats Drool on the moon, Za's home, and frees her people from his control.

MAKING OF

The character began as a doodle by Ōji Hiroi, founder of Red Company. It then ran as a four-panel strip in the magazine Gekkan PC Engine.

Red Company designed the game and its characters. Atlus did most of the development, and A.I handled the backgrounds. Hudson supervised the project and published it in Japan.

LEGACY

Since Hudson's 2012 merger, Konami Digital Entertainment and Red Company hold the series copyright.

Entertainment Weekly named the North American version the third greatest game of 1991. The game sold 350,000 copies.

A manga called PC Genjin-kun ran in Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic from February 1992 to April 1994.

ON THE PC ENGINE

The character is known as NEC's TurboGrafx-16 mascot. The first three Bonk games all came out on the PC Engine, and the last of them arrived in 1993.

BONUS
  • PC stands for Pithecanthropus Computerus, a made-up species.
  • The Japanese name PC Genjin sounds like PC Engine.
  • Europe did not use the American title, because bonk is slang with a sexual meaning there.
ON THE TV
LONGPLAYPC Engine Longplay [322] PC Genjin: Pithecanthropus Computerurus
World-of-Longplays on YouTube
COMMERCIALBonk's Adventure (PC Engine) TV AD 1
mcb games on YouTube
REVIEW"Bonk's Adventure" - Turbo Views 23 (TurboGrafx-16 / Duo game REVIEW!)
spida1a on YouTube

WHERE TO FIND IT

Where these facts come from