Gambys is video game history. Learn about this video game design story.

Looking for old video games ?
Back in 1993, a couple years before the
Internet really took off as we know it, in a
time where 486 PCs at 66MHZ where the rule,
the first PC Portuguese Video game was
planned by a little group of people who
didn´t knew any better.
Click here to first read how this
video game design story begun.

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Back in 1993, a couple years before the Internet really took off as we know it, in an age where 486 PCs at 66MHZ where the rule inside the few houses that actualy had bought a computer, the first PC Portuguese computer videogame was planned by a little group of people who didn´t knew better.

Windows 95 was yet to be, the DOS operating system drove people crazy with all those written commands that most no one had any clue about what they meant and 3D-STUDIO was just released and was heading for version 2.0, in DOS of course.
No videos online, Photoshop was less known than Deluxe Paint, no MSN, no Facebook, no World of Warcraft and not even a third wheel on the pc mouse yet. In short...pre-history.

These were the times, when Portuguese programmers Carlos Leote and Rui Tito, wich had played and created ZX Spectrum computer video games with good video game reviews back in the 80´s started to experiment with game programming for the Pc.
I joined the team only upon the Gambys project, but i had played many of these games without ever knowing they had been made not only in Portugal but in my own hometown. Mainly, games like Krall and Alien Evolution.

But in 1993/94, ZX Spectrum had been dead for a while, PCs were starting to emerge as game machines and Lemmings the videogame was the latest craze.
2D puzzle games was about what the PCs could technicaly handle and so the natural idea was to try and create something like that for the first Portuguese PC Videogame.

So ©Gambys was the first serious and 100% professional attempt by friends who invented video games in Portugal, to create computer video games that could compare to the best that was coming from England in the PC Puzzle area at the time, mainly from Psygnosis and Virgin Games and the idea was to make the most professional game we could do with the little resources we had and not a great amount of money from the producer company to work with.It was also a technical challenge because, at the time it became the first or one of the first games to display 65.000 colors on screen, as the norm was still the old 256 colors. Remember these were pre-historic times, part of the video game history where DOS rulled and high resolution was the amazing 640x480 or 800x600 if you could get it.
Go back a couple of years and people where still playing tic-tac-toe
and pong on green screens, wich today is almost unbelievable considering this happened about (only) 18 years ago.

©GAMBYS, looks like a puzzle video game at first glance, but it´s really an arcade game where the puzzle bit is just what makes things move in its gameplay.
A gameplay unique up to this day.
Many puzzle games have appeared before and after but personaly, I never found anything similar to what we´ve achieved here with GAMBYS on the many years of gaming around.
Also by reading the many emails i get about this
project still to this day, it seems the opinion remains
a generalized one among those who have played and to this day people still blog about it (Pt).

It´s dificult to explain what´s this game about.
If you never eard of it and you look at still pictures
most surely you´ll get the idea that GAMBYS must
be a really dull puzzle game. Well think again.
View: Video 1 - Video 2 - Video 3 - Video Game Tutorial

You´ll be hooked.
If you haven´t played it or never got
at least past the intro levels which are just there to help you understand what each character does, you probably won´t believe GAMBYS is trully an addictive arcade video game lost in video game history.

Despite the excelent video game reviews it got in its 1995 release, it´s not one of those games that is reflected well on a video. You have to play it to grasp it.
Watching videos of this unknown classic videogames example without having played GAMBYS probably will leave you confused and believing this to have some sort of random empty gameplay.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

As the many people who have played
it can testify, you have to really play it past the first few tutorial levels to get hooked, but once you´re caught you´re doomed and you find yourself having to play just one more level of this insane unknown classic arcade video game.

Every person is diferent, but i can almost guarantee that a good percentage of you guys and girls who have read the excelent video game reviews it received at the time and played it back then 15 years ago, still remember and miss ©GAMBYS. In fact, over the years, i´ve been getting emails by people who asked me how could they run this old DOS game on their new Windows machines. Well, if you´re looking to download videogames, how about giving a test run to this old one ? You might be surprised because...Gambys is back!

Myself and the game programmers, we were
convinced that GAMBYS was technicaly a dead
old DOS used video game and was never to be
seen moving on the screen ever again. But then...

In this little "secluded Gambys fan club" that
generated spontaneously over the years, there
were people wich actualy have put togheter "new" old 486 just to play ©GAMBYS again if you can believe that because up untill now no DOS Box (or similar video game emulators) could run GAMBYS on modern computers. Among those, there were a couple of computer video games Gamby fans who didn´t gave up on trying to bring the game back to life on new machines and so now, thanks to "Haruka Tavares", with the use of "Virtual Machine" I can announce that today GAMBYS, this piece of video game history, can be played on your laptop if you´re searching to download video games.
Many thanks also to Nelson/"Chaos" (designed the game levels), for providing me with all the stuff to be able to also run the video game in an alternate way, based on the technical original info sent to us by Haruka.

We hope to correct this and in the future be able to run the video game with the great original music intact, but for now at least it´s the only thing that this new emulation of GAMBYS fails to achieve properly if you´re looking to download video games.

At the moment, you´ll also only be able
to play the game in low resolution (256 colors), and not in the 65.000 color mode, wich is unfortunely but this does not affect the gameplay in any way whatsoever.
That remains as frantic, crazy, addictive, infuriating and fun as it always was.
On a good note, the funny in-game cartoon sound effects work perfectly at 100% so, if you remember the game for those audible cartoon moments, you´ll be able to experience it once again in all their computer video games glory coming out of your speakers to annoy the neighbours again.

What can you expect.
Altough, the emulation is not perfect, it´s good enough for us to play all the 100 levels right up to the final 3D animation without any major glitches.
Unfortunely, at least up until the moment i´m writing this, the music of the game does not play well at all yet.
It gets distorted and the cute cartoon tunes sound more like dull distorted soundtracks, altough it´s not problematic and it won´t affect the gameplay or the enjoyment of playing the game. Just low down the music.

Get a first look on how you can use each character when you play this title wich still remains in the top ten videogames on the puzzle-arcade category for many people after all these years in their video game ratings and best video games personal memory list. In my name, and speaking for all the group who invented video games back then in Portugal, thank you for keeping the memory of Gambys alive all these years when they were asleep. ;)

Gamby Wizard (watch video)
It can be considered the leader of the Gambys as its the character wich can give you the most effective help when you need to uncover all the puzzle pieces in the game.

Depending on the color combination of magic potions you can grab with your mouse and give to him, this Gamby Wizard will cast a different spell wich will help you to complete each stage.

Gamby Mover (watch video)
This guy is probably the Gamby you want to keep around all the time.

Once you get a piece of a puzzle by clicking on your right mouse button, you can click on Gamby Mover with the left one and he will take your puzzle piece and he´ll place it at the exact right spot for you.

Gamby Finder (watch video)
This one is very useful because once you click on him after getting a piece of the puzzle keep your eyes on his path because Gamby Finder will point to the exact location of where each piece of the puzzle is located.
It´s not as easy as it seems because, remember you still have to deal with all the other stuff that happens in the same time in the game, but it helps.

Gamby Defuser (watch video)
Some evil creatures sometimes leave lots of bombs around wich when they explode, will cover all the pieces of the puzzle you´ve worked so hard to clear in the
first place.
So this Gamby, defuses these bombs when point him to one of those.

Gamby Knight (watch video)
The first of the warrior Gambys.
There are three Gamby fighters that will help you to remove the evil characters out of screen.

Each warrior Gamby has its own strenght and fighting skill.
Gamby Knight is the strong one and the one who causes more damage on the evil dudes.
You use this Gambys to defend the life of the ones who help you to solve the puzzle.

Gamby Rocky (watch video)
Probably my favorite fighting Gamby.
Not too strong but enough to prevent the evil dudes from attacking the other Gambys that are there to help you with the puzzle pieces.

Click on Gamby Rocky and then click on a bad guy and this dude will punch it away.

Gamby Robin (watch video)
Not much to say about this one. Another of the little Gamby warriors wich will help you scare away the evil guys.

Each warrior everytime it fights looses a bit of its strenght so don´t forget to feed all your Gambys with all the nice juicy fruits or candy you can find on screen to replenish their energy.

Gamby Girl (watch video)
This gamby female is considered a sort of a neutral character in the game.

It won´t help you in solving the puzzles or attack the evil character, but each time she passes by and a male Gamby sees her, he might forget what he was doing for you in the first place and go crazy for a couple of seconds wich ususaly ends up in him forgeting the last command.