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Lady Bug was first released by Universal Co., Ltd in 1981. It came in both standup cabinet and sit-down cocktail table forms. The “E-X-T-R-A” collectible mechanic from the game was inspired by pinball machine functions and was later used in Universal’s Mr. Do! and it’s many sequels.

Home ports of the game were made for the Intellivision, ColecoVision, as “Fighting Bug” on the Casio PV-1000. Clones came out under the title “Doodle Bug” for the TRS-80 Color Computer, under Bumble Bee (replaced character with a bumblebee) for the BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, and Commodore 64. A number of homebrew versions for the Atari 2600 (an official release for that console was announced but never came out) have been made. A couple of different Amiga versions also exist. And, of course, this Pico-8 version joins the unofficial ranks as well.

Lady Bug was the first video game with a female protagonist. The arcade cabinets in the U.S. featured various illustrations of women dressed up in fairy-like insect costumes. Presumably, that may imply an all-female cast of villains as well. Cabinets elsewhere may have only shown cartoon ladybugs.

The Lady Bug depicted in the game appears to have been styled after an herbivore ladybug of the Epilachninae subfamily. They are known to feed on the leaves, grain, and seeds of various crops, including most of the vegetables featured in the game - it appears their types weren’t just picked at random!

Completing SPECIAL on the original arcade version won you a free game and featured the Lady Bug character attending a human wedding - likely a reference to the song used in the game (see below). The Vegetable Harvest bonus stage was first included in the Colecovision home port in 1982 to replace the free game reward.

The tune which plays at the beginning of a level is a snippet of a folk song called Tentoumushi no Samba, or The Ladybug Samba, originally by Cherish, released in as a single in 1973 in Japan. The song features a dream wedding at a little church in a forest that was attended by a bunch of ladybugs in red, blue, and yellow costumes dancing the samba. The song was popular in Japan and was even played at some weddings in the years after the song’s release.

Universal Co., Ltd., the original Japanese company that made the Ladybug arcade game, as well as 80’s arcade hits like Mr. Do!, and many others, is still around today and continues to make cabinets and games for casinos and for entertainment.

This Pico-8 de-make was made by an amateur enthusiast (and his son!) just for fun and out of a fondness for the original arcade game and because doing so posed a challenge for the programmer’s coding skills (or lack thereof). It is the programmer’s second completed video game. The original arcade game has all but faded into obscurity and it was the programmers intention to shine a light on the original creation both for its excellent gameplay, innovation, and its historical significance in the realm of video games. Please buy the original game or any of it’s official ports!

The programmer of this de-make does not claim copyright over the game’s original material or ported material in any way and does not wish to take credit for another’s original ideas and hard work. I have not uploaded this cart as a Creative Commons license in order to help prevent its use/reuse elsewhere. If this de-make upsets the current copyright holder of the original game in any way (the programmer has attempted to track this information down but even Univeral themselves replied that it was unclear in this instance), please contact me and I will promptly delete this post. I do not wish to harm anyone’s business or career nor make any profit from this hobby de-make. I will not be posting this on any other site or platform nor do I give permission for the cart to be posted elsewhere (save for what permissions were necessary to post this cart on this site - I hold the site owners blameless in this matter). I am unclear on what portions of this game would and would not count towards making such a claim (no line of the original code nor the code of any port was used, nor even seen) and so I’m just trying to be as clear of my intentions (and lack of clarity on these matters) as possible. Thank you for understanding and my sincere apologies ahead of time should there be a problem with how I have handled this - I’m very, very new at this.

Compromises/Changes to the Original: The resolution and colors were changed to Pico-8’s resolution and available colors. The pixel art is not from the original game and the sprite graphics were created entirely from scratch by the programmer. The music of the original was recreated by ear and may not be an exact match to the original. The “flowers” (dots) in the original were replaced with smaller “seeds” in order to have them still appear centered properly in the course’s passages and intersections. The wrap-around timer bar surrounding the course was reduced to a bar across the top due to the limited space available for other UI. Turnstiles change instantly from one position to the other as animating them to show a diagonal transition frame proved too difficult. The Vegetable Harvest board originally had no dots on the board, only vegetables, but it proved easier to leave them in. Pathfinding to try and mimic the seeking behaviors of the enemy bugs in the original game ran into problems and so far has not been implemented. Behaviors of the enemy bugs were made up from scratch and likely do not match the original at all. For a more challenging and authentic gameplay experience, I, again, highly encourage you to purchase the original game or one of its many official ports.

EDIT: I should also give credit to both LazyDevs and Nerdy Teachers as, again, I found versions of their tutorial functions helpful in building this game. If you haven't checked out their respective YouTube channels, please do so!