Electronic Popple (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Byteshock

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Release Date:

1997

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Systems:

PC

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Electronic Popple, a DOS game by Byteshock released in 1997.

I went searching the internet looking for any kind of information about the game to write up here, and it seems like Byteshock were a bunch of Korean college students who disbanded soon afterwards. Plus it seems like 'popple' might be a mistranslation of 'purple'? Also the game apparently has multiple endings. That's all I could find out about it though I'm afraid! I'm all out of trivia now.

Man, that's a pretty pitiful amount of text for an intro, I need to think of some more words. Uh, it seems to have a two player mode, that's probably worth mentioning. Plus there's lots of anthropomorphic computer people exploding on the title screen. Poor guys.

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The game begins with a tiny pre-rendered intro in the middle of the screen. I'll be getting rid of that border for the rest of the cutscene so you have a better shot at seeing anything.

It seems like we're looking a little computer people hanging out on someone's motherboard. Some are staring at the glowing orbs bobbing up and down in the air, others are staring at the giant speakers blasting particles of light into the world. Either way there's a lot of standing and a lot of staring.

These two with the Rayman-style floating limbs have their own glowing orb to stare at. But suddenly disaster happens, and they stare at that for a bit instead.

For some reason everyone's fallen unconscious, and the glowing orbs drop and go dark. Then they explode!

Now black cylinders are breaking through the ground! It's all fairly apocalyptic and I have no idea what's going on.

All I know is that's it's over. That's all the introduction I'm getting!

I'm not keen on these default controls. They're definitely from a time before Windows keys were added to keyboards. Fortunately there's also an 'arrow keys + ASD' option so I'm going with that. (You can just use a joypad but I'm choosing the path of least resistance.)

Oh cool, I get to select my character.

I'd usually go with 'max' over 'min' in a game, but I feel like a CPU's going to be more effective here than a CPU fan, seeing as they're the brains of the operation. Ideally they'd work together as a team, but there's only one of me here to press the buttons.

I'm sure whoever I pick it'll be fine though. They've both got the angry eyebrows of determination.

Well how the hell am I supposed to get all the way over there?

Alright, it looks like this is going to be a side scrolling brawler. Something like Golden Axe or Streets of Rage, except here I'm trashing delicate computer hardware. It works just as you'd expect as I can tap the punch button for a combo, double tap in a direction to run, jump and punch for an aerial attack etc.

Right, I guess I need to leap over that gap and go punch a floppy disk with my tiny floating boxing gloves.

Aww. I thought I was going to make it, but then I didn't, and poor Min went plummeting into the endless void between these mysterious red computer rocks. The floppy disk seems more surprised by it than I am.

These enemies have some great animation I reckon, better than you might assume from a still screenshot. Plus all I love all the bits of paper blowing around, even if I've got no idea what they're supposed to be.

Aww c'mon guys just let me jump over the hole! I want to play the game!

Well there goes my other two lives. Don't fuck with floppy disks I guess.

And that's it! Game over! No continues! I got kicked back to the developer logo!

Ultimate defeat came bloody quickly today.

Karateka (Apple II)

It wasn't quite as fast as my record-breaking failure in Karateka, but it's got to be top 10 at least.

On the plus side, at least this means I get a short reprieve from having to listen to the music. It's not actually bad, but I can't say I've been enjoying it. More like enduring it.

Here, have a YouTube link, see what you think.

Alright I've started a new game and things are going much better for me this time. I'm headbutting a floppy disk to death!

That radioactive capacitor up there has been trying to get my attention with a 'HELP!' bubble, so once the enemies were sorted out I went over and tried to assist it with punches. I've actually been punching it for 14 seconds straight and it refuses to break open, so I don't know what I'm meant to do here.

I love that move where he grabs his own body and slams it down, pins first, but it doesn't seem to be doing much good here. Though the floppy disks took a surprisingly long time to break as well so maybe I just need to be persistent.

Hang on, is that transformer over there wearing slippers?

Yay, all the punching finally got it open and a dude flew out of it to have a chat! He claims that he'll be saving me from instant death falls from now on, which sounds good to me.

There's also some kind of pickup in the wreckage for me to swipe. No idea what it does.

Eat my charged up fist, resistor scum! Not sure it was worth the effort of holding the button down to be honest.

I wonder how the hell I'm supposed to get up there on top of the 'It's Good!' capacitor. Do I need to jump onto one of those CPUs flopping off the conveyor belt before they grow pins maybe? No? They don't come after me as enemies and I can't punch them so I don't know what their deal is.

I've grabbed one these son of a bitch transformers and now I'm going to throw them into his friends! Or the ground in front of his friends at least (I don't know if it hurts them more, I just like the way the screen shakes when they land).

Oh hey is that a bomb pickup? I'll have that.

I took care of the transformers but then another group spawned in to give me hassle while I was racing to collect the miscellaneous items left lying around. I wish they'd leave me alone for a minute; any one of these pickups could be health and I could really do with grabbing it before it disappears.

Ah, there you go, the H batteries give me a tiny bit of health back. C milkshake doesn't though. Maybe it's coolant to lower my heat bar? I mean I think that's what the red meter at the bottom of the screen is. I haven't been kicking enough ass for it to make a noticeable difference yet though..

It seems like I've ran into a dead end, but the question mark sign is pointing to the right so I guess I have to make a leap of faith? A running leap of faith that is.

I guess I guessed wrong. Fortunately my new buddy showed up to save me so it only cost me a bit of life this time instead of a life, but I didn't want to lose any! I'm trying to get more health!

Okay there's got to be something obvious I'm overlooking here.

Aha, seems that I've got an inventory full of the things I've been picking up. Shame that I don't know what any of them does, or how to activate them. Let's try… this key coin.

A save disk? Not what I expected, but it works for me! But hang on, aren't floppy disks my enemies in this? How do I know I can trust it?

Right, I'm going to try going back the way I came to see if there's anything I missed. I'm not sure how likely that is, but it's unusual to find a scrolling brawler like this that lets you scroll the other way so maybe there'll be a reason for it.

ONE LIFE LATER

LIGHTNING FIST!

I really didn't want to do that, it was an accident. This lightning move is a special attack that costs me a bit of my precious health, and I've lost enough of that already.

There's more of these enemies around than you might expect, seeing as I already killed them all the first time through the level. I don't know if that's a good sign or not. I don't know how to get up onto that transformer to grab that H battery either. The game is full of mysteries.

Well here I am back at the start of the game and I achieved absolutely nothing along the way, so that trip was pointless.

Now I've got a tiny fraction of my health left and a lit bomb in my hand. Wait, how the hell did I manage to equip the bomb? Where's the unequip button? How the hell do I get rid of this thing!

I managed to throw it in time, I just didn't throw it far enough. And so poor Min was blasted into his components, which bounced around a bit before exploding.

Well I give up. I just don't know what to do and I'm bored of the game now.


CONCLUSION

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Sorry that I didn't get anywhere in this one.

I probably should've given it a third try, but then I would've had to listen to that tune some more. Well, okay I could've muted the music, but there's nothing I can do to turn down the amount of hits it takes to kill anything. It always takes just a little bit longer than you'd want it to, and that really adds up when you're cleaning out screens of the little jerks.

I could've sped things up by punching them over the edge of the level, or just throwing them off, but then I'd be missing out on the things they drop, and extra health is pretty crucial in a game with no continues. Also I get the feeling I needed to get 50 of those swirly marbles they drop.

The graphics are pretty nice though... sometimes. I mean that level 1 background's not much to look at, but the characters are well animated and have tons of personality. Plus I suppose it's a change to have to beat up the floppy disks in a retro game instead of collecting them for points. But overall I wasn't really into this one I'm afraid.

Here, have a GIF of Min's buddy Max bouncing up and down to make up for the short article:

I didn't know the fan was going to be going the whole time! Oh, there's a CPU behind there as well by the way, so the heroes are both processors with boxing gloves.

Right, onto the next game then.

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Next on Super Adventures, I'll be...

Okay fine! I'll start up Electronic Popple again and give it a third try if you're really dying to know what's on the other side of that gap. Spoiler: it'll be more computer components that needs punching.

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STAGE 1, AGAIN

 

Oh, it turns out that I can make it over the gap with a running jump. Well what the hell was I doing wrong last time then?

Huh, the villain is Min's brother with a lightsaber? Now I'm curious to know if the text is different if Max comes along. Maybe they're all brothers.

I was expecting a boss fight here, but he didn't stick around. It seems like I can follow the stairs and go after him, but Min mentioned something about taking a different path leading upwards, so I'll go that way instead first.

I love Min's idle animations by the way: the sprite's got tons of charm. His tiny lives counter icon also takes a break occasionally, whenever it needs to deal with a bug that's strayed onto the HUD.

Fortunately there's no time limit, so you don't get penalised for checking out the idle animations.

Oh hey, now I'm fighting tiny capacitor enemies on top of a giant capacitor. Are these two pissed off I shattered their medium-sized cousin earlier?

Capacitors are a lot like the other enemies, except they discharge electricity sometimes and it always catches me off guard without fail. Punching them off the level got the job done though.

Once the enemies were dead the mouth in the background opened up and nothing else came out, so I suppose I'm supposed to go inside? I don't usually go anywhere near mouths with radiation warnings next to them, but there's something about that face that makes me feel like I can trust them.

Hey I've reached the next area! Looks a lot like the place from the intro. In fact this might actually be a frame from the intro.

I jumped another gap and beat up another group of enemies and an ancient 5 ¹⁄₄-inch floppy disk appeared to replace a key symbol that was on the floor.

Hang on, I just remembered that I have a key symbol in my inventory as well. It's where I found that 3 ¹⁄₂-inch save disk (that didn't actually save the game when I used it).

Now there's two disks in there.

I tried using the black disk on that device over on the top right and it activated a lift, bringing me up to the next floor.

There's a couple more disks up here, but these ones just need punching. I also found a phone booth, because hey why not?

Hang on, I wonder what would happen if I used my other disk on the phone...

Aha, so that's how I save!

This means I basically have infinite continues, which isn't so bad (though I'm always going to start with the lives I had when I saved).

Piss off resistor, I'm trying to have a conversation with my friend here. This person's being really helpful, considering I thought they were an enemy and punched them a half-dozen times before they convinced me to stop, and they're telling me about the dangers up ahead.

Apparently there's some mean diodes with red eyes ahead and they explode, so I'm going to need to tread on them first.

These must be the diodes they were talking about. Turns out that they're para-LEDs!

That sign in the background has 16 on it, so I figure that's how many I need to stomp on before I'm done here. Trouble is I've only got a tiny shred of health left before I lose my penultimate life, and that friendly battery wasn't lying when they said they explode. They're walking proximity mines and they're walking everywhere.

EVENTUALLY

Fortunately I've got something those LEDs don't... a save game! Those lil bastards kept blowing me up and I kept getting sent back to the title screen, but I eventually stomped on all of them without losing both my lives. In fact I nearly made it through without losing any, but then I screwed up right at the end and threw away my last pixel of health.

Anyway my prize for beating them all was a 3 ¹⁄₂-inch key disk... and a giant health kit. Could've done with that 10 seconds earlier!

Now I have a 0 on my lives counter, so I'm playing extra cautiously, using all these items I've been collecting along the way. Bombs don't blow enemies up right away, especially when I haven't aimed them right, but it doesn't seem like they're enjoying them much.

This looks like a dead end, but killing the enemies up here got me a temporary super-jump power up. And I mean really temporary, it's already flashing and about to disappear. Hang on, there's a 1 up just over to the right! It's up on a ledge that I can't jump high enough to reach, even with my new power up, but if I use that mid-sized capacitor as a step I think I can get there. 

C'mon, stop waving your arms and step onto the capacitor so I can super-jump up and get the extra life. This isn't even meant to be a challenge, it's just two easy jumps!

Crap, he slipped off! I tried jumping back up onto the capacitor and somehow landed exactly on the edge again. How am I continually screwing this up?

And the super-jump just wore off. No extra life for me. This is what I'm always like with time limits; they really throw me off my game. I guess I'll have to go back the way I came and see if I can find another path then.

So I'm still stuck with no lives and a third of my health, but that's fine as I've just discovered I've got a rocket punch power up in my pocket! While this is active I can kick their asses from the other side of the screen and they can't even touch me. Things are finally going my way for a change.

1.28 seconds later Min was punched off the level and died. Game over.

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Thanks for reading! I kind of already showed the next week's article to everyone in the Official Super Adventures Discord, so I won't be shocked if someone identifies the game in record time. But you can also use the comment box to share your thoughts about Electronic Popple, and I hope you have something more interesting to say about it than I did.

Incidentally if you do have interesting things to say about games, you should drop by the Discord sometime, show the rest of us how it's done.