Released by Indescomp in 1983, La Pulga is the ZX81 prototype of the classic ZX Spectrum game, Bugaboo (The Flea), aka Boogaboo, aka La Pulga in Spain.

In La Pulga you play as a flea that must jump out of various platform-based caverns that it has become trapped in, and you do that by jumping using a simple button-press mechanic. The longer you hold down the jump button, the further the flea jumps. It always jumps at a 45-degree angle, and gravity affects the parabola as it flies through the air.

The game has five different courses, all of which are bigger than a single screen and therefore scroll around as you move and jump. You can preview each course before starting a game, so you’re at least not trying to beat them completely blind. You can even modify each course, using a rudimentary editor. Which is pretty neat.

The game counts how many jumps it took you to complete a course, and the idea is to escape each cave in a few jumps as possible. The game also sets a time limit, which depends on which of the three difficulty levels you choose to play at.

The graphics are monochrome; there’s no sound, and the flea itself is an asterisk character, but La Pulga is playable and fun, and obviously proved to its programmer – Paco Suárez – that there was something good about this idea that was worth expanding. And that came with Bugaboo on the Spectrum, and later: a second sequel on the PC, called Poogaboo.

More: La Pulga on archive.org