Sometimes games that were never let out of the Promised Land had a good reason to stay put. Case in point…
Bird Week (1986, EMI, Toshiba, Lenar)
The Game:
Wow. I don’t really know where to start with this one. Oh wait, yes I do: It’s a bird life simulator. I know to start there, because that’s where you can end, too. There’s nothing more to the game. Really, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a bird life simulator; more like a bird feeding simulator. I think a bird’s life would encompass more than feeding babies. For example, the game could’ve included brief minigames, where you become confrontational with humans who don’t provide you with bread, or shit on statues of Napoleon, or terrorize the English countryside, or something, fuck, I don’t know. But no, you just fly around, catching butterflies. It’s like a rumination on the futility of living. Surviving murderous predators, darting around just desperately trying to catch just enough butterflies to survive, going nowhere. And if you quit and just fly around, enjoying the beautiful day? Your children starve to death. Fucking Bird Week. Now I’m a nihilist.
Why was it never released in America?
I’m not going to waste your time telling you why a bird-feeding sim was never released in competition with Contra and Battletoads. Instead, I’m going to focus on Lenar, one of the 3 companies responsible for this game. Lenar, in cooperation with megacorps Toshiba and EMI, released Bird Week, their first game ever, in July, 1986. They followed it up 6 months later with Deadly Towers, widely reputed to be one of the worst and most confusing games made for the NES, which is really saying something.
So where is the Lenar Corportation now?
They make tractors. No, really.
(Will I actually finish something I start? Read in the next few days to see if I update again! Or, read part 1.)
