1995 Hudson Soft
Platform: Nintendo Virtual Boy
Bonk was a very popular character from Hudson Soft that featured in a number of popular platforming titles, especially on the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. The first title for the game was known as PC Genjin in Japan, and BC Kid everywhere else and would almost make it to the Virtual Boy too.
The popularity would see a number of other titles produced, many of which featured on the NES and SNES platforms. So, it comes as no surprise perhaps that when Nintendo announced the Virtual Boy, Bonk would look to try and make an appearance.
Former Hudson developer Norio Okubo would bring to light that a proposal was pitched, showing the idea of a side on platformer, but with what seemed to be elements where you could move in and outwards. Perhaps similar to how Beyond the Forbidden Forest worked on the Commodore 64?
There isn’t much detail, but it seems the game was a new design for the series, and the documents from Norio reveal that there would be around 6 stages and a hidden stage (with a boss parade – which I think you can see in the scans). Capacity was to be 16M and it seems the document suggests a year long development from between August 1995 and August 1996.
Unfortunately, Norio confirmed to a fan on Twitter in September 2020 that work stopped at the presentation stage of the proposal, and no work was ever started. This is likely due to the failure of the Virtual Boy platform. The design document elements that you see here, are all that ever existed.
Sadly, it is very much a case closed, but if anything else comes to light then we will mention it here.
With thanks to ParanoiaDragon for highlighting and Norio Okubo for design documents via their Twitter feed.
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