Whilst working on preserving Mark Greenshield’s C64 disks, we were told to look out for a game called Rooster Booster. An interesting name, and when asked what it was – we were told that it was the original name for Bombo, which was released by Rino Software. A great Bombjack clone which many felt was better than Elite’s official effort.
It seems that at some point there had been an executive decision to rename the game (possibly briefly to Defuse before settling on Bombo), and also change the sprites before its release in 1986.
Initially, it was looking like the search through the disks was to be in vain, as a few disks that had Rooster Booster clearly labelled, had been overwritten with other games and the old data was no longer recoverable.
Thankfully, we found at least one which had a working build – seemingly complete, but just missing Ben Daglish’s iconic music. There was seemingly a build with the music included, but this seems to be long gone now – but if any other disks turn up with later versions, we’ll be sure to add here. At some point we’ll add the graphical assets and possibly source code of Mark allows.
So, here is Rooster Booster! What eventually became Bombo – and featuring a main character who seems to be a human/chicken hybrid. The title screen has the different name. The background seem to be the same, though some enemy sprites are different too. There might be minor differences in power ups and game play – if you spot anything that we’ve missed, please let us know.
Contributions: Mark Greenshields
