Bound High

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Bound High

Developer(s)	Nintendo Japan System Supply
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Hideyuki Nakanishi
Platform(s)	Virtual Boy
Release date	Cancelled
Genre(s)	Action, puzzle
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB:Kids to Adults (6+)
Media	16 Megabit Cartridge

Bound High (バウンド・ハイ！, Bound High^?) is a cancelled game for the Virtual Boy consists on manuveuring Chalvo, a robot that can roll itself up into a bouncing ball, around a series of levels while avoiding various hazards. Bound High would have been the first second-generation game for the Virtual Boy, but the poor sales of the console caused to be put on hold numerous times before eventually being cancelled altogether. Of all the cancelled Virtual Boy games, Bound High was the closest to completion. Bound High was exhibited in Shoshinkai at Famicon Space World in 1995. Bound High was exhibited in the "Symbolic Zone" which was a special exhibition area for outstanding titles on about ten Virtual Boy units. Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo at the time, mentioned Bound High as the most promising Virtual Boy title in his keynote speech.

1 Gameplay
2 Development
3 Expectations
4 Cancellation
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The basic gameplay of Bound High consists on moving the bouncing Chalvo around, jumping on enemies and avoiding the various crevices, spikes, and "shockers".

[edit] Development

While alone in the Japan System Supply office around midnight, Hideyuki Nakanishi looked at some of the game plans on the company's president's desk. The plans he saw felt orthodox and boring (one game was a mixture of squash and Breakout), so he wrote a summary of his idea for Bound High and put in on the office wall. The president liked the idea and development of the game began.

[edit] Expectations

Bound High was largely regarded, along with Dragon Hopper, as being the most promising Virtual Boy game of 1996.

[edit] Cancellation

Once Bound High was completed, Nintendo did not wish to waste resources marketing another game to a dying system and the game was scrapped. By the time the game was cancelled, the development of the game, the manual design, and a number of packages for the North American market had all been completed. The created games were all destroyed; the only known fully working prototype to exist is owned by Nintendo. Because Nintendo bought the license during development, Japan System Supply still got plenty of money from making the game and helped them establish a good connection with Nintendo. Bound High eventually received a follow-up game for the Game Boy titled Chalvo 55 that was only released in Japan. The game was similar to Bound High in its gameplay but Hideyuki Nakanishi had no part in its development.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Journals

"Bound High" (JPEG) (February 1996). Nintendo Power (81): p. 99.
"Bound High" (JPEG) (April 1996). Nintendo Power (83): p. 101.
"The Second Coming" (JPEG) (August 1996). Total! (56): p. 9.
M., Andy (October 2005). "Virtual Boy's Unsung Hero" (JPEG). Nintendo Power (196): p. 105.