Bonk's Adventure

Bonk's Adventure PC Engine is a side-scrolling platform game released by Hudson Soft in Japan in 1989 as PC Genjin, then brought to North America for the TurboGrafx-16 by NEC in 1990. Developed with Red Company and Atlus, it introduces Bonk, a bald prehistoric hero whose outsized forehead is both his defining feature and his main weapon. This original HuCARD adventure is a one-player journey through a deliberately cartoonish ancient world, where dinosaurs, cliffs, flowers, and volcanic hazards turn a simple rescue mission into a brisk action game.

King Drool has taken Princess Za, leaving Bonk to cross deserts, tropical areas, and volcanoes in pursuit. Bonk moves with the directional pad, jumps with one button, and attacks with the other by thrusting his head forward. The move works while he is standing or swimming, while an airborne Bonk can spin and dive headfirst onto foes. Holding the jump button produces a higher leap, repeated taps let him climb when he catches a ledge, and spinning in midair extends his travel. Those small variations give the game its character: timing a dive can hit harder than a regular headbutt, while missed attacks can leave Bonk exposed.

The stages reward curiosity as much as forward motion. Bonk can enter hidden rooms by striking blocks and can find bonus areas built around climbing, spinning, bouncing across flowers, or batting away rocks thrown from a volcano. Flowers may reveal fruit, vegetables, health, springboard jumps, or other useful items, though some are traps. Collectibles add to the score and help sustain Bonk's vitality, while blue crystal hearts increase his potential health. Smiley faces collected along the way contribute to end-of-stage bonuses, and extra lives come from score thresholds or small Bonk figures.

Meat provides the game's most important temporary power system. A small piece increases the force of Bonk's headbutts and lets him pound the ground to freeze visible enemies; two small pieces or one large piece grant a short invincible state, allowing him to run through enemies. The effect gradually fades, so it becomes a matter of deciding when to use the stronger form aggressively and when to preserve it. Several enemies need repeated hits and some must simply be avoided, keeping the platforming from being only a race to the exit.

Bonk's Adventure contains five levels made from multiple playfields. At each level's end, Bonk confronts a character placed under King Drool's control and breaks the spell through combat. Reaching the conclusion sends him beyond the main prehistoric landscape for the final confrontation with Drool. The North American manual explicitly presents this version as a one-player TurboChip game, so features associated with the later arcade adaptation, NES conversion, Game Boy game, or 3D remake do not belong to this PC Engine original.

The Japanese title PC Genjin is a wordplay reference to the PC Engine and to a primitive human, fitting a character who began in PC Engine Monthly comic strips designed by Red Company's Kobuta Aoki. Outside Japan, the same debut was known as Bonk's Adventure in North America and as PC Kid or B.C. Kid in European releases. It became the first Bonk platformer and helped establish the character as a recognizable face for NEC's console line, followed on the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 by Bonk's Revenge and Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure. Its headbutt-based combat, bright prehistoric setting, and hidden challenges remain the core of the original game's identity.