1987 · Port · Nichibutsu · Action · Puzzle

Booby Kids

Nintendo exclusivePort

During the prehistoric era of humanity, cavemen and dinosaurs compete for ultimate supremacy. A young boy has to collect important treasure without being killed by the rampaging dinosaurs. All he can do is attempt to temporarily paralyze them with a specialized dinosaur trap. All treasures must be collected before admittance to the next level is possible. One hit from either a dinosaur, caveman, or other type of enemy instantly kills the player.

Released: 10 July 1987
Platforms: NES Game Boy Nintendo Switch
Genres: Action Puzzle
Developers: Nichibutsu
Publishers: Nichibutsu
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action Science fiction
Country: Japan

About

Kid's Horehore Daisakusen is a 1987 action video game developed and published by Nichibutsu for arcades. A port for the Family Computer was released under the name Booby Kids. A port to the TurboGrafx-16 developed by Hudson Soft was released as Cratermaze, which was released outside Japan unlike the other versions.

A sequel named Booby Boys was released by Nichibutsu for the Game Boy in 1993.

Keywords

dinosaurs
steampunk
really unfortunate game name

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Booby Kids is a game played from an overhead perspective, with the player taking on the role of one of the titular Booby Kids, named for their ability to instantly dig booby traps in front of where they stand and bury hostile enemies that attempt to seek out and ultimately destroy the Booby Kids. Compared to Kid no Hore Hore Daisakusen, the levels in Booby Kids feature more of a reliance on puzzle-solving in addition to the maze like structures of the original game.

Levels range from the conventional prehistory setting of the first four levels to feudal Japan and even some futuristic levels inspired by science fiction. There are 21 levels in this game with five different bonus levels to gain extra points in. Objects to acquire in the other time zones include coconuts (in the prehistoric era), ancient Japanese scrolls (in feudal Japan), radios (in the World War II era), bags of money (in the modern era), and computer monitors (retrieved in the future era).