The Easter Bunny’s Eggcellent Games!

Bunny – Sinclair ZX Spectrum

This obscure game was released for the good old Speccy in 1983 by Automata, who are perhaps most famous for their Piman games. It was programmed by one Jas Austin, who would go on to pretty big things in the video game industry, and is the one game on this list with an actual Easter theme.

In the game you have to guide the Easter Bunny around the levels collecting Easter eggs and avoiding the hazards. To move to the next level the player must enter the exit game that appears randomly for a short time. At the end of each level you are awarded points based on the eggs you collected with minus points given for any that were broken (bad eggs). Every few levels there’s a bonus stage where the player must deliver the eggs collected to houses in a strict time limit. You then complete another maze to get to the bountiful Easter basket.

Ok, Bunny is a bit clunky by today’s standards and certainly isn’t much to look at either. But it is quirky, original and quite charming. If you have young kids around then this is the perfect game to play between chomping down on chocolate.

Rabbit Pie – Commodore 64

One day, a proud owner of a vegetable garden was so sick of rabbits digging up the garden and eating his crops that he finally decided to hire a hunter to take care of them. How dare he! What a horrific thing to do, thankfully you get to help my fluffy tailed companion get his own back.

You must guide the aforementioned rabbit through a maze tracking down her four babies and saving them from the farmer’s hitman. You must also be very careful not to get hit by the hunter’s shots yourself. The assassin moves around constantly trying to get a so clear shot of you so you must keep moving at all times. Once you’ve rescued your offspring, you must then get through a creature infested burrow into the garden to feast on the carrots. But be careful of the bird trying to poo on your head!

Illusion Software’s Rabbit Pie was only released for the Commodore 64 so remains a system exclusive. It’s well worth hunting down this Easter however as it presents a good challenge and is also a great deal of fun!

Wabbit – Atari 2600

The first thing I noticed about this fairly obscure title by Apollo Games is that the graphics are gorgeous! With the vibrant range of colours, well-defined sprites and attractive backdrop Wabbit gets off to a great start.

Sadly the actual game doesn’t quite live up to the initial promise but that’s not to say that Wabbit is a complete write off. In the game you play as a farmer’s daughter who is trying to stop some very hungry bunnies from stealing all the carrots in the field. According to the instructions you are throwing rotten eggs at these rabbits to stop them, I’m not sure that’s going to improve the taste of the carrots! When you hit a bunny you stun it for a moment before it runs back to its hole. But they don’t stay there long, these rabbits are relentless. You score points for hitting rabbits and the game keeps going until your fluffy bummed friends have stolen 100 carrots.

While Wabbit is a pretty simple game, it’s on the Atari 2600 after all, it is quite fun in short blasts and will definitely appeal to the younger generation with its cute and colourful presentation. Another excellent Easter experience for you!

Bunny Bricks – Atari ST

This fairly obscure game was published by French adventure game experts Silmarils and is a real change from their usual fare. Released for the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and PC DOS in 1992 all versions follow an identical theme.

The name might have given it away slightly but Bunny Bricks is in fact a blatant clone of Atari’s classic arcade game Breakout and its more modern update Arkanoid. Like Taito’s later game, as well as bashing the bricks above you can also collect various power-ups to aid you on your destructive mission. What gives this game a big point of difference over other titles of its ilk is that you don’t simply deflect the ball at the bricks, you have to physically hit it with your baseball bat! This certainly adds a bit more skill and makes the game a bit more challenging too.

While the bunny is the undoubted hero here (of course!) lots of other different animals appear too, most of which are doing their best to ruin your fun. There aren’t any other games like this on my list so that alone makes it worth checking out this Easter.

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