B.C.'s Quest for Tires

B.C.'s Quest for Tires

Developer(s)	Sydney Development
Publisher(s)	Sierra On-Line
Designer(s)	Charles Benton
Platform(s)	Apple II family, Atari 8-bit ColecoVision, C=64 MS-DOS, MSX ZX Spectrum
Release date(s)	1983
Genre(s)	Action game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Screenshot from the Commodore 64 version.

B.C.'s Quest for Tires is a 1983 video game developed by Sydney Development and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, ColecoVision, ZX Spectrum, MSX, and Apple II, based on the comic strip B.C. by Johnny Hart. The game was designed by Paul Butler and Rick Banks. The name of the game is a play on the title of the contemporaneous film, Quest for Fire.

Story

The player takes the role of the caveman Thor, who has to rescue his girlfriend, "Cute Chick", who has been kidnapped by a dinosaur. To do this, he must travel on his stone unicycle through several levels. Each level has Thor moving from the left to the right, avoiding various dangers.

Gameplay

B.C.'s Quest for Tires is an action game taking place on several consecutive levels. The levels start out simple, with Thor having to jump over potholes or duck under tree branches. Later levels become more complex, for example requiring Thor to jump on turtles in order to cross a lake, or to be carried over a lava pit by a "Dooky Bird".^[1] Other B.C. characters, such as the Fat Broad, also appear on some levels.

Reception

Softline stated that, given the conventional gameplay ("it's that get-from-point-A-to-point-B kind of game"), the use of the familiar comic characters made "the player feel like finishing the game is worthwhile ... [Otherwise] it's just not the same". The magazine concluded that "B.C.'s Quest for Tires isn't so much a computer game as it is an interactive cartoon. This cartoon has its limits, but it does provide some challenge".^[2] Compute! praised the game's "excellent graphics" and animation, which "approach cartoon standards".^[3]

The game won numerous awards,^[1] including:

Critic's Choice Awards - Best Game For Youngsters (awarded by Family Computing).
Arkie Award - Most Humorous Video/Computer Game (awarded by Electronic Games).
Colecovision Game of the Year - (awarded by Video Game Update).
Best use of Graphics and Sound in a Video Game - (awarded by Billboard Magazine).

Sequels

A sequel, Grog's Revenge, was released in 1984.

References