rainbowgames | Entries tagged with lenar

Bird Week is a game that completely fascinated me the first time I played it, and I still think about it every now and then because there's not much else out there like it. Developed by Lenar, a company who also made quirky games like Mercenary Force (Game Boy) and Deadly Towers (NES), Bird Week is a simple arcade-style Famicom game released only in Japan in 1986. As a mama bird, you have to look after your chicks by feeding them butterflies you grab with your mouth, all the while avoiding other wildlife including flying squirrels, woodpeckers and hawks.

What makes the game fairly unique is you'll mostly be avoiding enemies rather than fighting them- you have a mushroom to grab and hit enemies with, but moving about is much more efficient. It's most certainly flawed- the one in-game song is very short, it gets pretty hard/frustrating quickly and it's tough to even grab butterflies at times- but it's such an unusual idea for a game (I really can't think of any games where you play as a bird looking after her young beyond Flicky and arcade ultra-obscurity Birdiy) and it's kinda cute in its own way.

Anyway, each round changes the season, so here's the first six, plus a fish-catching bonus stage.