March 3, 2005

Mr. T, Breakdancing & BMX's

Time Bandit - Michtron 1983I have to say, the coolest thing from the 80's by far, was the acade game "Time Bandit" for the Sanyo. Back in the days when 3-bit colour was high-tech, and floppy disks where still actually floppy & took 50 minutes to format ;)

Written by Bill Dunlevy and with artwork by Harry Lafnear, Time Bandit was originally released for the TRS-80 and was heavily based on the arcade game Tutankham. The 1984 port to the Sanyo featured 8 colors, higher resolution graphics, four direction scrolling, and a two player option.

The game starts off at the Time-gates area, where you can choose one of 16 worlds to explore. In each world you must fight the Guardians in order escape to though the time-gate at the end of the labyrinth, gathering treasures along the way and recovering all the Artifacts. Each world features sixteen levels of increasing complexity, these were the same layout but flipped or mirrored. In these sub-levels items were in different places, including the timegates and the one-way doors were often reversed—which made things interesting.

The Guardians in each of the worlds consisted of: snakes, lions, trolls, spiders, worms, eyes, aliens, ghosts and bombs. You get points (cubits) for each monster destroyed with your missiles, for the treasures you collect, and also for finding keys, locks and solving puzzles. The game begins with 14 lives and you get an additional one with each 1000 cubits.

There are seven Artifacts in the game. Six of them found in the last level of the different worlds and the last one is visible when you complete all of the sixteen worlds. In the Sanyo version of the game one of the artifacts was Dr. Who's time-traveling vehicle, the Tardis.


Time Bandit – Worlds by Area

  • Old West
    • Old Bomb Factory
    • Ghost Town
    • Hotel California
  • Fantasy
    • Greymoon Castle
    • King's Crown
    • Underworld Arena
  • Deep Space
    • Darkside Dare
    • The Excalibur
    • Welkin Island
  • Future
    • Major Hazard
    • Gridville
    • Omega Complex
  • Ancient Egypt
    • The Sentinel
    • The Guardian
    • Cheops' Curse
  • Arcade
    • Shadowland

Original Packaging Blurb

 Fast-paced arcade action, full scale adventures, and endless variety is now only a disk's reach from your Sanyo.

Use the Timegates to explore the Worlds of Time: the medieval halls of FANTASY WORLD, the great frontiers of WEST WORLD, and the bizarre future in SPACE WORLD. Choose from more than twenty exciting adventuring areas throughout the game.

Battle the Evil Guardians: the Looking Lurker, Killer Smurfs, and lots more. Collect the Treasures of the Ages as you remove the locks blocking your escape. But hurry Bandit, your power is dwindling and the Techno-Bandits are hot on your trail!

Our old Sanyo MBC-555 (found under the stairs in my father's office building). Photo taken March 2005

Time Bandit's dual-player mode lets two player in on all the action at the same time—on their own playing windows! Work together, or battle it out for a bigger share of the loot!

Ultra-crisp Supergraphics, colorful scrolling landscapes, full animation of a multitude of characters, amazing sound, and literally hundreds of screens: it's all here! The conquest of Time and Space awaits you...

Posted by Matt at March 3, 2005 3:59 PM

Fraggle Chitter Chatter

Cool—fun to see flashbacks like this!

Posted by: Bill Dunlevy at June 13, 2006 8:23 AM

Amazing. I have looked the web over for screenshots of the unqiue and rare Sanyo 8-color version. I wonder if there is an MBC-550 emulator out there?

I have just scanned in the manual for Time Bandit and assembled it in an 8-page PDF. It can be found here:

http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000096.php

For those interested. Bill, if you need me to take this down, I will. Would love you to drop a comment in my blog either way. :-)

Posted by: blakespot at March 6, 2007 9:23 AM

As a teenager, I enjoyed playing Time Bandit on my Sanyo computer. An awesome game! I am now using a Mac and would love to play the game again if it were available!

Posted by: Darryl R. Toews at May 30, 2007 6:32 AM

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