Net Yaroze Month: Blitter Boy

In Net Yaroze Month, we are playing every Net Yaroze game featured on the UK Official Playstation Magazine, and ranking them all in the order we liked them. You may have other opinions as to the ranking, which is awesome.

To learn more about Net Yaroze, read our introductory article here.

Game: Blitter Boy: Operation Monster Mall
By: Chris Chadwick
Genre: Multidirectional Shooter
Available on Euro Demos: 40, 42, 89, 92, 108
Dev time: developed over 12 months

Imagine a cross-between Robotron and Flicky, where you not only have to rescue the last family on earth, but you also have to guide them to an exit. Well you don’t need to imagine no longer as this is basically the idea behind Blitter Boy.

Coder Chris Chadwick was inspired to create a Robotron inspired game, though adjusted it slightly as the Playstation’s twin-stick controllers wasn’t widely adopted yet. The collecting babies element he thinks may have come from Flicky or Zombies ate my Neighbors.

Blitter Boy is a fun game to play – go around the arena shooting Pac-Man ghosts and guide the babies to the exit in the centre of the screen. When you touch a baby, a little heart comes out and starts following you. Like Flicky, if an enemy touches a baby, it doesn’t harm it, but it does stop following you.

Power-ups include a rainbow gun, and one that drops massive fruits from the sky. The whole thing is a joy. It’s a shame that Chadwick was unable to finish the game as he would have liked – all the enemies were supposed to have escaped from arcade games and a boss would have been the centipede from Centipede.

Despite apparently not being finished, Blitter Boy is highly recommended.

Legacy​

The game went on to win a competition in Edge magazine as well as winner of the 1998 Game Developer UK Competition.

Net Yaroze Month rankings:​

As big fan of Flicky and top-down shooters, then Blitter Boy takes the number one spot from Haunted Maze!

  1. Blitter Boy
  2. Haunted Maze

Still to play:

  • Super Bub Contest
  • Katapila
  • Decaying Orbit
  • Bouncer 2
  • Terra Incognita
  • Blockz
  • Psychon
  • Yaroze Rally
  • Tanx
  • Gravitation
  • Roller
  • Robot Ron
  • Adventure Game
  • Between the Eyes
  • INVS
  • Video Arcade Poker
  • Opera of Destruction
  • Sphere
  • Surf Game
  • Rocks n Gems
  • Yarozians
  • PingPing
  • Game Involving Triangles
  • Pssst
  • Squeak
  • Shroud
  • Total Soccer Yaroze
  • Time Slip
  • Sam the Boulderman
  • Technical Demo
  • Pushy IIb
  • Pandora’s Box
  • Down
  • Snowball Fight
  • Arena
  • A Dog Tale
  • Mah Jongg
  • Samsaric Asymptotes
  • Hover Car Racing
  • Clone

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