Treasure Island is an arcade adventure based on the Robert Louis Stevenson's book. You play the role of Jim Hawkins who has to get to Treasure Island, defeat pirates and defeat Long John Silver.
Jim must get on to a ship and avoid the enemies before being whisked off to Treasure Island. On the island Jim must encounter and avoid various pirates. Scattered on the island are cutlasses which can be used to kill pirates blocking his path. Beware though, cutlasses are limited so Jim doesn't want to waste them on any old pirate. Get hit by a cutlass or touched by a pirate and you lose a live sending you back to the start of the screen.
Search the island, find Long John Silver and become rich beyond your wildest dreams.
The game is viewed from a side, top down view. The game doesn't scroll but flicks to the next screen as you explore this maze. Your score is shown as a percentage of the game completed.
Championship Baseball is one of the few TI games that requires the MBX Expansion System sold by TI and Milton Bradley. It uses voice recognition, the special MBX joysticks (which has three axis and multiple buttons), and the special MBX keypad peripheral to issue plays and instructions to your team. This is a two-player game. There is no one-player option against the computer.
The player at bat uses the joystick to control batting and running, and the fielding player uses voice recognition and the keypad to control the pitcher and fielders. Pitches vary by speed (fast, medium, or slow) and type (fastball or curveball). When fielding, the player speaks the name of the fielder or pitcher to indicate which position should try to catch and throw the ball.
Everyone's mothers always say "Don't make those faces! They'll stay like that!" But now you have the chance to make the silliest looking faces anyone's ever seen!
Choose from a wide assortment of eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. Then make your newly created faces blink, wiggle their ears, wink, or razz you. You can even play a "Simon Says.." type game where your face will do some kind of action and you have to follow along!
Hen Pecked is a take on the arcade game Joust, but instead of knights, ostriches, and buzzards, you are a rooster trying to rule the roost. Flap your wings with the joystick and try to stay on top of the hens. Landing on them transforms them into eggs, which must be collected before they hatch into a new chicken.
In Henhouse, you are trying to help a farmer collect his eggs. Eggs are laid in the hen house near the top of the screen, and then move to one of five chutes. When the chute is full, you can collect the eggs and take them to your truck. If the chute is full and another egg lands in it, you'll have a cracked egg. Six cracked eggs will end your game.
Of course, you're not the only one who wants those eggs. Bandits and coyotes appear from time to time. Bandits will steal an egg (earning you a cracked egg), but the coyotes will kill your chickens, ending the game. To stop them, you have to grab your shotgun from the left of the screen and shoot them. There are also two birds flying at the top of the screen. Although they don't harm you, you can shoot them for 50 points.
You must put your gun back when finished defending the hen house, as you cannot collect eggs while holding the gun.
Demon Attack is an arcade action game with gameplay similar to Space Invaders. You control a laser canon at the bottom of the screen, and need to destroy wave after wave of brightly colored demons. The demons bounce around the screen in bizarre patterns, and try to destroy your canon with bombs or lasers. When you shoot a demon, it will be replaced with another or will split into two smaller demons depending on which wave you are playing. When the required number of demons for the current round is finally destroyed, you can move on to the next, more difficult round.
The object of the game is to pick up patients from their homes and race them to the hospital. When a house flashes, that indicates a sick patient is present. Navigate to the house and press the fire button to pick the patient up. Then, drive through the city to get to the hospital. You have to avoid other cars on the road because they will not stop for you. On certain levels, there's a train that makes you sit and wait. You only have a limited amount of time to deliver your patients.
Driving Demon is a racing game played from a top down perspective on a single straight. The player has to race down a two-lane road to earn the high score. Other cars occupy the road and these have to be avoided or else the player will crash and lose a life. Crashes also occur when going off the road and hitting an oil slick. A scanner located to the right of the main view allows the player to spot cars down the road. The game uses manual transmission and it's necessary to shift gears at the appropriate time or else the engine might blow and the player will crash. The game ends when time runs out or after five crashes.
Honey Hunt is a simple game where you guide your bee from open flower to flower, collecting nectar and returning it to your hive. Bee assassins, dragonflies, and spider webs are all out to get you. Dragonflies fly around the screen. Bee assassins skip from flower to flower. Spider webs are static, but make navigating nearby very hazardous.
From time to time, a bear wanders by. If the speech synthesizer is attached, you'll hear it say, "Time to get the honey!" You must return to your hive to defend it. Simply being present in the hive is sufficient to ward off the bear.
Rotor Raiders is a game very similar to Pac-Man where instead of you are on cleanup. Your character is that of a drain cleaner where you must navigate through the sewers to clean out the mice and their trail as they navigate. Four mice are typically in the sewer per level and each will make capture difficult and unpredictable.
During gameplay there are brief periods of darkness where knowledge of the map design will come in handy to the user. After a brief outage lights are restored and the map can once again be seen.
Who knew sewer cleanup could be so much fun!
St. Nick was the first title Funware released after being bought out in the Summer of 1983 by Creative Software.
In 1983 there were as many as 3 companies interested in buying out Funware, those being Activision, Epyx, and Creative Software. As one might be able to tell from the box scan on this page, Funware was eventually sold to Creative Software. However, both Epyx and Activision would later give a go at marketing TI-99/4A games independently near the end of 1983.
According to Michael Brouthers, it only cost Funware $4 US to make each cartridge game!
Burger Builder is an action platform game similar to BurgerTime. You control a chef, and your goal is to make burgers! The screen consists of various platforms which contain the ingredients you'll need: buns, burgers, and lettuce. When your chef walks over an ingredient, it will fall to the level below. When all the ingredients in a column fall to the bottom of the screen, you'll have a complete hamburger; complete all of the hamburgers on the screen, and you can move on to the next level. Unlike BurgerTime, the ingredients won't cascade downward; there needs to be an open space below for an ingredient to fall into so you'll have to work your way from the bottom of the screen upwards. Of course, there are enemies (in the forms of burgers, pickles, cheese, and mushrooms) that wander about to make your task more difficult! Each platform has an enemy which wanders back and forth; although they can be crushed by falling ingredients (for bonus points), they will appear again and be faster than before! Your only defense
In "Rabbit Trail," you control the eponymous character, trying to collect all of the characters before other critters get you. You follow a static trail, using rabbit holes to climb from platform to platform. Jump to evade weasels and snag carrots. Later levels include hawks - and one badly timed jump could land you right in their claws.
Rabbit Trail is a Donkey Kong style clone.
This game was designed by both Beverly Starke (Milton Bradley graphics artist) and programmer Dave Landon. According to Dave, Sewermania was MB President Jim Shea's favorite game out of all the MBX titles that were in development.
According to early promotional material, the generator located in the upper left corner of the screen was intended to flood the sewer and kill all the rats. This would help the player in locating the bomb since there would be no rats to avoid for a few seconds (although the alligator would still be lurking around). In the released version of the game, however, the generator's functionality was removed making it impossible to flood the sewer. According to programmer Dave Landon the reason for the removal was because the game was initially developed for MB's own video game unit before being brought over the TI-99/4A (read the MBX development history by clicking the link in the above Trivia section). The TI-99/4A's cartridges were smaller in size apparently to what Milton Bradley had envisi
In Sneggit, you control a chicken trying to gather up eggs from the barnyard before the snakes get them! Pick up one egg at a time, bring it back to the nest, and repeat! But it's not just about quickly grabbing the eggs, you also have to make sure to defend the nests, or else a snake might clean it out completely! This is a pretty fun game for the TI-99/4A and deserves a look! Games back then had such clever concepts behind them. OK, games nowadays do too, sometimes.....
Space Bandits is quite possibly the most unique game out of all the MBX titles. You take control of a robot who must collect Earth's Energy Crystals that were stolen by "Computer Controlled Androids". The uniqueness of the game comes from the fact that not only can you walk up and down the corridors on the bottom of the screen, but also on the sides and top of the screen. Therefore, the game has a 3D aspect to it which makes your mission much harder to complete, especially considering that the controls change accordingly with the different sides of the screen (if you are controlling your robot on the bottom part of the screen all that is needed to move forward is a press "up" on the joystick. However, once on the top of the screen, a press "down" on the joystick moves you forward). This change of joystick movement helps create a more realistic feel that really helps the game out and makes it more fun to play, however frustrating it may be first. After you have the controls for the game down, which can prove to be v
Story Machine is a product aimed at children for teaching language skills.
The product contains animations assigned to key nouns, and verbs. By typing phrases such as "The Girl Jumps Over the Flower" will show the player an animation of a girl jumping over a flower. Through this method, players are able to create short "stories" of about 40 words long and have the computer animate them. These stories are also limited to having 4 "actors" (animated noun objects) in each.
Poor Topper, the lovable little turtle who tries to liven up his universe by painting his galactic tiles. But, the mysterious Dynomite and the Renegade Rabbits will stop him if they can. It's up to you. Can you help Topper, while keeping him from getting caught by the Regenade Rabbits? Can you save him from the mysterious Dynomite before his tile is demolished? Topper needs you!
Journey into the land of enhanced reality with TYPO II. This exciting educational game is by ROMOX, for your Texas Instruments 99/4A Home Computer. TYPO II is an educational and fun challenger for one player at a time.
In TYPO II you can learn and improve your typing skills while enjoying the high speed action of a real arcade game on your home computer. No more long hours at the keyboard for you, with nothing to do but type. In TYPO II you control the action! Arid while you play, you learn. TYPO II is a fun and challenging maze game where you, the player control the letter crunching jaws. As you eat your way through the realms of letters, you are chased and hounded at every bend by the Protectors of the Word. The Protectors, also known as boxing gloves, want but one thing: to knock you out! So beware, quick thinking and agile fingers will carry you through.
Ant Colony is a prototype game from Funware which was never released.
In the game you play the role of an exterminator who much navigate through the puzzled map and clear out ants as they emerge and spread out through the map. Be careful as there are also timed zones which appear to spawn additional ants.
Fun for the whole family!