Bob Wakelin: Imagination fuel

Bit of Shitty news: Bob Wakelin is dead... You can easily be forgiven for asking who Bob Wakelin is, but truth is he probably touched your life in some way without you realising.

Bob Wakelin was particularly famous for "Box Art" back when games were physical, you used to buy games in oversized cardboard boxes or in cassette tape and box form. And on these boxes was box art. And is was art, these guys were given the unenviable task of taking 8-bit sprites and re-imagining them. And imagining is the key word here the wonder of this box art is that is set a precedence for the game itself, no-one was under any false pretences that the box art would emulate the in-game graphics, but when you were playing it it would enhance the level of imagination you placed on it, especially when trying to decipher what some of those pixels were!

Bob's portfolio is extensive and I want to just showcase a few of our favourites:

The Newzealand Story:

The New Zealand (Newzealand?) Story, a game where a kiwi with a bow and arrow, must navigate the monster filled areas of New Zealand to save his girlfriend. This game holds a great place in any 80's child heart, that music is super nostalgic!

 I dare you to magnify this image, you can count the pixels on one hand!

Rainbow Islands:

You know Bubble Bobble, yeah the one with the blue and green dragons, that blow bubbles, capture enemies in the bubbles, then explode the bubbles to defeat them... the one with the repetitive and catchy theme tune, Yeah? Did you know that the dragons (bub and bob) were actually humans that had a spell places on them. Ever wondered what happened to them after those 100 levels of the same 45 seconds of repetitive music? Rainbow Islands happened, this time its not bubbles but rather rainbows, that you jump on, then the dropping rainbows can defeat enemies...

I believe the rainbows came from a pouch of "stardust"... That clears that up

Parasol Stars:

Parasol Stars, AKA Rainbow Islands 2, AKA Bubble Bobble 3. In this outing the down trodden duo, Bubby and Bobby have enlisted the power or an umbrella, which catches raindrops and can fire them to turn bad guys into edible treats.

Logic: the pink Piano is spitting out clockwork bivalves, best get my umbrella on it 

Love and Bubble Bobble Theme tune,

Richie X