Everygamegoing


Bun Fun
By Squirrel
Acorn Electron

 
Published in EGG #013: Acorn Electron

Bun Fun

Thus far, you've probably been reading about a lot of games that, although they're no longer cutting edge, have existed in quite a lot of versions for numerous machines. You're likely to have been silently nodding along thinking "Oh yes, that game sounds like the game I played for a while x years ago". Well, you've likely never met anything like Bun Fun, quite possibly one of the most bizarre games in the Electron's entire library.

Bun Fun is, if it can be compared to anything modern, a "rhythm game", i.e. one of those where the aim is to tap certain keys on the keyboard in rhythm. Specific only to Bun Fun however, one key drops a dollop of icing sugar and another a handful of walnuts. It's set on a blocky-looking production line and that's handy, because it's about as much fun as working on one.

You've seen everything this so-called game has to offer you within the first half-minute of playing it; all that happens is that a column of identical blobs (one-colour filled in m's) sit on a conveyor belt which moves, jerkily, under the icing nozzle and then the walnut one. You tap the keys in perfect time to produce a "good bun" (or gudbun, as the "fun" game calls it).

Bun Fun

It looks like something your dad would have knocked up in an afternoon with the Electron's Introduction To Basic book. The graphics are so bad as to virtually non-existent, sound is a discordant, reasonless jangle of space invaders noises and you'd probably have more "fun" drowning yourself in a bowl of icing sugar than enduring this game.

Bun Fun came from mail order only publisher Squirrel, who brought out a variety of questionable titles very early in the Electron's life before disappearing into the ether as soon as software buyers became in any way discerning. Why did A&B Computing give it a bafflingly high mark of 75%? Probably only because it was one of the very first Electron games; it's hard to see it gaining anything like that once games like Repton had come along. As you can see, the cover itself gives absolutely no indication as to the horror that lies within; instead it conjures up visions of a variant of Diner Dash or the coin-op Tapper. If only...!

Not altogether unsurprisingly, Bun Fun is very, very rare; only two copies of it have ever been spotted (although it can of course be "enjoyed" for free via emulation). It's so bad that Everygamegoing currently only values it at around £15. And yet, despite its lack of any quality whatsoever, I have a sneaky suspicion that if a copy of it was ever auctioned, there would be quite a few collectors competing for this one.

Dave E

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