Nobby the Aardvark was the final Commodore 64 release for Thalamus – a company that made its name on the system – way back in 1993. It’s a fun platform/maze game with an energetic lead character and was developed by Genesis Software, with Thalamus producing.

You play an Aardvark who eats ants and is looking for “Antopia”, where he can eat ants to his heart’s content. To get there Nobby must negotiate a series of scrolling sometimes platform-based levels but sometimes scrolling maze levels, while avoiding contact with enemies at all times (as it’s instantly fatal), and using ants from anthills to ‘shoot’ at enemies to defeat them.

Nobby the Aardvark definitely has a Mario and a NewZealand Story feel to it. The controls, physics and mechanics were all about as good as you could get on the Commodore 64 at the time. It’s a ‘push-up-on-the-joystick-to-jump’ style platform game (although I guess you could assign ‘up’ to another button if you wanted to), and the joystick fire button shoots ants out of Nobby‘s snout – if he’s holding any. Shooting ants at enemies allows him to clear the way of dangers a little.

It’s a never-ending barrage of traps and hazards and can get a little overwhelming at times, but Nobby the Aardvark does look great and feels good to play as well, which makes it interesting. The presentation throughout is immaculate and the game is varied enough to provide some serious fun. A late 20th Century Commodore 64 8-bit masterpiece that’s well worth re-visiting.

More: Nobby the Aardvark on Wikipedia
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