An arctic adventure in a cartridge

Bible Hill man amazed by the popularity of his NES game

When Thomas Guinan saw his Kickstarter campaign reach full funding within 16 hours, the Bible Hill man was momentarily at a loss for words.

Alfonzo’s Arctic Adventure, his newest game for the Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES), quickly reached the $10,000 goal and is now at more than $20,000.

“It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “It’s really great to see so much support.”

Eskimo Bob: Starring Alfonzo was successfully funded on Kickstarter within three days in 2017.

“A lot of the same people are supporting this one, but there are a lot of new backers as well,” said Guinan.

There are more than 200 backers so far, but not many of them are Canadians. Most are from the U.S., with many in the UK and Europe.

“The first game was really well received and I spent more time on this one,” said Guinan. “It was a lot of fun to work on.

“This is the type of media people my age grew up with and they really like it. If they don’t want a physical cartridge, there’s a digital version they can download.”

Guinan and his brother Alan created the characters in 2001, when he was 19. They made short cartoon videos with them.

In Alfonzo’s Arctic Adventure, players take the role of Alfonzo, and set out on a quest to find their missing best friend, Bob. Knowing that Bob’s favourite food is fish, players collect as many fish as possible, while travelling through 96 levels filled with puzzles, traps and enemies.

There are also new friends to meet, who have abilities to help with the search. These characters include the power-punching Magnus, the near-invulnerable Fenwood, and the sword-wielding Girl.

Programming for the game is complete, but the Kickstarter was set up to produce physical copies of the game on cartridge, and print boxes and manuals.

Alfonzo’s Arctic Adventure is self-published through Guinan’s business, Spoony Bard Productions. It’s target release date is in April

The game will remain on Kickstarter until Nov. 15.

More information can be found online at www.spoonybard.ca/alfonzo

LYNN CURWIN/TRURO NEWS Tomas Guinan has created a new NES game called Alfonzo’s Arctic Adventure. He set up a Kickstarter campaign and reached his goal in less than a day. The picture on the cartridge in the photo is not the one that will be on the completed games.

The artwork being used on the Alfonzo’s Arctic Adventure NES cartridges.