The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle

Cover to the Game Boy version

The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, known in Japan as Roger Rabbit (ロジャーラビット?) for the Family Computer Disk System is a 1989 action puzzle video game developed by Kemco for the NES. It was also released for the Game Boy in Japan as Mickey Mouse (ミッキーマウス?) and in North America as the same name as the North American NES release. It is the first game in Kemco's Crazy Castle series. Three different versions starred three different cartoon characters: Bugs Bunny, and Disney's Roger Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, and were first released in 1989. The object of the game is to guide Bugs through a series of rooms collecting carrots. However, four rascals are guarding the castle: Sylvester, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, and Wile E. Coyote. An early beta version of the game shows the working title as Bugs Bunny Fun House.

Gameplay

While presented in a side-scroller format, Crazy Castle differed from standard side-scrollers such as Super Mario Bros. in that Bugs Bunny did not have a jump function; therefore, only by taking different routes could Bugs avoid enemies. Some of the levels had boxing gloves, invincibility potions, safes, crates, flower pots, or ten-pound weights that could be used against the enemies in the game. As a result, the game had a "puzzle-solving" atmosphere.

Because most NES game cartridges lacked the ability to save, passwords can be used to start at a certain level in this game.

Development

The North American and European NES games were modified versions of the Japan-exclusive Family Computer Disk System title, Roger Rabbit. Roger Rabbit is the game's playable character, all the villains are all Who Framed Roger Rabbit-related, and hearts are collected. Due to Capcom owning the rights to develop and publish Disney film-based video games, Kemco decided to use Bugs Bunny, due to him and Roger Rabbit both being rabbits, making it easier for Kemco to modify the Roger Rabbit game and release it outside of Japan as The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle. For the Game Boy version, Kemco's license to develop and/or publish video games based on Who Framed Roger Rabbit became outdated; however, they still had the license to create Disney-based video games, which they used to create Mickey Mouse for Game Boy.