Teddy Boy Blues (
Sega, 1985) is a platform/run’n gun game that pits a ”
Teddy boy” character against hordes of bizarre creatures in short but intense stages. The main character, which I here call “Teddy Boy”, uses a machinegun to shoot down creatures popping out of giant dice-shaped containers. After being hit, the creatures transform into “chibi” versions of themselves, and should be collected for points. Failure to do so results in the chibi forms transforming into flies that move to the bottom of the screen and eat up the time bar, in Pac-Man style. Collecting one form starts a chain: players can collect several chibi forms in a row (and within 0.5 seconds) to increase their point value. The progression is from 100 points to 1000, then 10k and finally 50k points. Players can create dozens of chibi forms and score big points, provided that they can handle treacherous stages.
The game’s basic design idea apparently originates in a
City Pop song that was popular in 1984/1985 in Japan. The singer of this past mainstream hit, Yoko Ishino, features in the game’s attract mode while surrounded by an orchestra composed of the game’s enemy creatures. The song itself is the theme playing in each stage except for the bonus stages, which appear after stage 2 and every four stages (e.g. stage 6, 10). The game however features Teddy Boy on an undefined mission. The SMS port suggests that Teddy Boy must escape from an “Endless Nightmare Dimension”, but not much else is explained. The game features 43 unique stages. From stage 44, the player will face harder versions of these stages. The third loop starts at stage 43+43+1=87, and the game will stop counting stages after stage 100. The game appears endless: we can feel sorry for Teddy Boy, indeed.
Stages loop indefinitely, but players can extend only twice: at 100k and 400k points. The game thus cannot be 1-CC’ed in the strictest sense of the acronym. Nevertheless, players who can clear the first 43 stages may consider this achievement as a 1-ALL clear. Perhaps, the expression “Herculean labour” would be more appropriate, given the game’s mechanics and the overall difficulty. Let us start with some basic aspects of the game to frame this discussion, however. The game combines platform aspects with a run’n gun approach. The camera is always centred on Teddy Boy. The character thus always appaears at the centre of the screen, and stages scroll around him. The A button releases bullets from Teddy Boy’s machine-gun; The B button makes Teddy Boy jump in an inputted direction. Stages are mostly made of platforms, some of them being made of destructible horizontal tiles (i.e. just shoot them).
Teddy Boy can thus move around and shoot enemies and destructible tiles, and then collect chibi forms: once all forms are collected or turned into flies, a stage is over. Stages have an interesting design: they are delimited but not bounded areas. All stages are slightly bigger than the screen (i.e. stages are delimited). Reaching one edge of the stage will result in popping up on the other side of the stage (i.e. stages are not bounded). Since the camera is always fixed on Teddy Boy, the character appears to move across endlessly repeating stages. This entails that Teddy Boy can shoot in the back enemies chasing him, if he moves fast enough. Enemies can however attack him in the back by apparently fleeing Teddy Boy’s attack: the technique works both ways. The “endless” aspect of the game thus also involves endlessly repeating but constantly changing stages.
Crucially, the two mechanics that can make or break players’ appreciation of the game are revolve around movement and attacking patterns. First, Teddy Boy has a degree of inertial movement: even a single tap in one direction will result in two steps. Visually, this choice gives the impression that Teddy Boy constantly slips in one direction: precision movements are hard. Players can thus struggle to master precision jumps
and static positioning. As the game progresses, this makes stages increasingly difficult because precise jumps and positioning may determine life or death in many situations. Second, enemies are wickedly smart. There are seven types of enemies, each with distinctive attacking and evading patterns. Irrespective of the type, each single enemy can manipulate motion speed and trajectory to literally move between gaps in your machine-gun stream. Enemies can effectively change direction of motion and speed within frames, thus suddenly killing you upon contact.
My basic description of these two mechanics may be read as a suggestion that the game is brutally unfair when the CPU “decides” to kill Teddy Boy. The truth is a bit more nuanced: the programmers might have possibly tried to simulate
swarm behaviour. Enemies follow certain fixed motion patterns, as single entities or as “swarms” (e.g. the Dharma-like bouncing heads). When certain conditions are met, however, (e.g. the character is not moving and enemies are closing in from the “back”) enemies drop this behaviour and individually hit Teddy Boy in a few frames. Given this mechanic, players must always be aware of where enemies’ trajectories and conditions by which they can play their “sudden attack” card. Players must also shoot with precision. Again, fast-moving enemies can pass through gaps in the bullet stream, if players tap A aimlessly. Kill with ruthless pace, be fast and always on the move.
The truth about jumps and positioning is also very nuanced, to be fair. If Teddy Boy remains for more than three seconds in one spot, a floating fireball will land on the occupied platform and destruct it. Teddy Boy remains unscathed, but he will fall down to the next platform, or into an enemy. Micro-movements will usually avoid this problem, as in the case of sudden enemy attacks. It is undeniable that in many situations players require precise if temporary positioning and shooting, and inertia movement makes all of these actions harder. Chibi forms, however, bounce around a lot and enemies can literally swamp stages with their sheer numbers. As the attract movies show, “always on the move in the Endless Nightmare” seems the game’s main design philosophy. This is however easier said than done, as difficulty increases very quickly and stages are short (max one minute) and brutally difficult.
The game offers some breaks from this seizure-inducing action via the bonus stage. The bonus stage offers players a choice between polygon practice (choose Teddy Boy) and Treasure Hunt at Home (choose Yoko). If players can land a perfect score on the first polygon practice (20 hits), or collect at least 12 hidden items in the treasure hunt, they can “warp” stages by choosing to start again on either stage 3, 7, 11 or 17. Completing successfully stage 7, 11 or 15 after a warp results in a hefty bonus: stage 3 will not award one. If players can collect all 48 treasures in the treasure hunt, they will switch to polygon practice for the remainder of the game. If they choose polygon practice, they will stick to it until the “game over” screen. Polygon practice becomes extremely fast by the seventh iteration (i.e. after stage 30), anyway.
By this point, you may wonder if the game is actually fun to play. My answer is: yes, in some rather bizarre manner. Please remember that this game is from 1985, and thus it belongs to an era in which game designers were experimenting with ideas and mechanics. Many of this game’s mechanics appear to be one-time choices, indeed. Swarm-like behaviour and inertia movement are a deadly combination for anyone’s patience, but they only were apparently combined together in this game. It will take tons of practice to feel confident that you can handle them both, never mind mastering them. The game seems to introduce constant scoring chains via fast-paced action, which could be an attractive proposition. Scoring opportunities, however, pass through attracting dozens of enemies in one point and mowing them down with careful planning, exacting precision, and quickness. Simply put,
Teddy Boy Blues is an incredibly hard game.
By this point, you may also wonder if the game looks and sounds good. My answer is: yes, for a 1985 game. The game features a very simple palette with ultra-bright colours (16 of them?) and the same melody playing over and over again (except for the bonus stages). Enemies have…interesting and non-sensical designs, and for the times they also feature fluid animations. If you want to get a real feeling of retro 1980s design, this game is simply perfect. The core challenge to enjoyment, once more, is the possibly unique game system. The game is frenetically paced and can be played for points. Stages promote memorization with flexibility: learn which enemies to shoot down first (and from where), but don’t be a sitting duck and learn to make 1-frame decisions. I know that this may be a tall order, but 1980s arcade games revolved around such brutally short decisions.
The final point I wish to discuss is the game’s overall difficulty, which I analyse along the Shmup Wiki difficulty (quirky) criteria. I suggest that the game’s subjective difficulty might lie in three facets. First, the unique mechanics require time to master. Second, stage level design is tight, whether one plays for survival or for score: finding optimal routes and improvising on the spot might require considerable learning time. Third, even a “partial” 1-CC (up to level 43) requires around 50 minutes of gaming time and concedes no more than 4 deaths: the game leaves little room for error. I would assign 15 points of difficulty to the first facet, 12 to the second, and 13 to the third one. The game is a 40/50 for me, i.e. an “advanced difficulty” title for the truly dedicated players. At least, if we wish to stop at 43 levels (i.e. "one loop").
If we consider levels 44-86 (i.e. "the second loop") and beyond, difficulty becomes staggering. My experience is limited: players cannot continue, so I explored the game via cheat codes as I never went beyond stage 54 on one credit. My general impression, nevertheless, is that loop stages are considerably more difficult and require new strategies, as enemies become more aggressive and fast. Fatigue can become a determining factor for players, but the game will obviously proceed at its own relentless pace. From stage 87, a third loop starts, even if the game stops counting stages a 100. I would argue that a 2-loop 1-CC clear (and beyond) is a 50/50 difficulty, especially if players also wish to play for score. Time for some spoilers, to explain why:
The game's score system also includes an apparent Easter egg. When players approach the apparent maxed out score (i.e. 9,999,990 points), the game starts using a different scoring system. I did not figure out exactly how this "advanced" system works, but it suffices to say that at around 9,990,000 points, all scoring opportunities should reduced by a power of ten. Chibi forms that give 100 points when collected appear to instead give 10 points. This entails that even excellent score runs will require extraordinary endurance feats from players who wish to max out the score. Case in point, even via cheat codes it took me 4 loops and something in the region of four hours...and anyway, the game seems to loop endlessly after maxing out the score. This should not be surprising: it was the common design choice for 1980s' looping games. Nevertheless, it becomes supremely difficult, indeed.
Exceptionally tough? Of course, but also incredibly satisfying and with a past charm that might be mesmerising, terrorising, or both.
(1940 words total; the usual disclaimers apply;
Word Counter reports that it takes 7 minutes, 5 seconds to read including spoilers, and that the technical terms like "1-CC" make it a "college student" level reading. The AI says that there are grammar issues but it also marks "shmup" as a non-existent word, tsk!).
"The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines [...]: the urge not to feel useless."
I.M. Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (1988: 43).
