A
video game released in 1991 from
Hudson Soft starring the
prehistoric caveman Bonk unleased the
TurboGrafx-16's mascot on the world. As
Bonk you traveled around the prehistoric land fighting baddies by
bonking them with a fierce
headbutt. The
headbutt grew stronger if
Bonk ate pieces of
meat that were found inside of
flowers. Some
flowers also contained
smiley faces, and collecting them yielded
bonus points. Other
flowers enabled
Bonk to
super junp, but others contained hidden baddies and moreover, some
flowers were just empty. The plot of the game follows
Bonk as he tracks down
King Drool who has kidnapped
Princess Za, the
moon princess.
The series began on the TG16 console (and spawned two sequels that had more of the same type of gameplay) and eventually crossed over to the Super NES, NES, and Game Boy. The Game Boy version, while fun for all ages, seemed aimed at the kiddie market as the dialogue scrolled by obscenely slow and was not capable of being sped up. Furthermore, said dialogue was written in short, simple sentences with no complex words. Then again, this could be a fault of the translators when the game was ported from Japan.
A spin-off series starring a futuristic robotic Bonk, named Zonk, didn't last very long. In fact, the only game in the series was Air Zonk, a side-scrolling shoot-em-up based on Gradius. It was released solely for the TurboGrafx-16.