Buggy Boy Cheats & Cheat Codes for Commodore 64, Amiga, and More

Buggy Boy is a classic arcade racing game, also known as Speed Buggy in North America. The game was released by Tatsumi in 1985, bringing intense off-road racing action to both arcade machines and home systems. The game used a three-screen cockpit cabinet on the arcade, which delivered more immersive gameplay than many contemporaries. Here we’ll take a look at what Buggy Boy is all about and what sort of cheats are served for different versions of the game.

Buggy Boy Premise

Buggy Boy is an arcade racing game where players navigate through five distinct courses. Courses included in the game are Offroad, North, East, South, and West. Each course is designed with distinct obstacles like boulders and brick walls, and players aim to complete these in the shortest possible time. The game comes with classic racing gameplay mechanics, such as driving through gates for points and collecting flags for extra scores. The Offroad track is a closed circuit requiring five laps to complete, while the other tracks are point-to-point challenges. Players can also perform stunts like jumping over obstacles and driving on two wheels for additional points, adding a skill that can be perfected for better scores, impressing friends, and added excitement.

Each track offers customized landscapes and obstacles, including tunnels, steep curves, and crossover bridges, adding challenge and a refreshing change of scenery. The game’s design features a 3D top-view perspective, with the upper third of the screen displaying race information like the track name, an overview of the track, time left, leg number, score, speed, flag order, and gear. Buggy Boy doesn’t have music, only delivering sound effects for point scoring, obstacles, and cars. 

Buggy Boy Characters

As an arcade game, Buggy Boy does not feature distinct characters in the traditional sense. The primary focus is on the player’s buggy, a small, maneuverable off-road vehicle, which is perfect for high-speed races and stunts. The game centers around the player’s ability to control this buggy effectively through various challenging tracks. Depending on the version of the game, players also need to race against other vehicles, which are mostly just obstacles to be overtaken. In fact, the obstacles are the main characteristic of the game, so let’s take a look at them.

• Gates: These are color-coded scoring opportunities on the track. Yellow gates award 100 points, blue gates 250 points, and red gates 500 points. Passing through these gates is essential for boosting the score.
• Time Gates: Marked with a TIME label and flashing, these gates are used to extend the race duration. Driving through a Time Gate adds two seconds to the timer, providing extra time for completing the track. If the timer runs out, the race ends.
• Small Stones: Encountering these stones causes the buggy to briefly drive on two wheels, adding a challenge to navigation. It also increases the points gained by distance tremendously. The buggy returns to its standard four-wheel stance shortly after the trick.
• Flags: Scattered across the track, each flag grants points when driven over. The score varies depending on the flag. Collecting flags in the sequence displayed on the screen’s upper part rewards extra points, up to as much as 2000.
• Footballs: Positioned on the track, footballs (or soccer balls) also offer an opportunity for extra points. Each football kicked off the track adds 2000 points to the player’s score.
• Branches: These act as natural ramps on the track. Driving over a branch propels the buggy into a jump, offering more points and potentially allowing the player to jump over obstacles. However, the buggy cannot be maneuvered during the jump.

Games in the Series

Buggy Boy is a standalone title in the racing game genre. The game did get various ports, spawning versions on a variety of home gaming systems, including Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, and others. While it was popular in the 1980s, it did not evolve into a game series. The game undoubtedly had a lasting effect on gamers and likely influenced many companies to pursue similar titles.

• Buggy Boy (1985)

Buggy Boy Cheats

Being a classic arcade game, Buggy Boy does not feature an in-game cheat code system. However, with the help of custom commands inserted before launching the game on some platforms, players can access cheats. At least on Commodore 64 and Amiga, the game can be programmed to give a lot of extra time to players to complete the circuits. 

Action Cheat Code for Commodore 64

Action Cheat Code for Amiga

FAQ

What is the easiest track in Buggy Boy?

Players generally consider the Offroad track as the easiest in Buggy Boy. This closed-circuit course is more straightforward than the point-to-point tracks. While the Offroad track requires five laps to complete, it has fewer complex obstacles and challenges compared to the other courses.

What are the flags on the top of the screen?

The flags displayed at the top of the screen in the info area represent a color order that players should aim to follow when collecting flags on the track. Each flag collected in the order shown grants the player additional points. Players collecting the flags in the right order can gain thousands of points, while a singular flag only gives 30 points.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Screenshot from Buggy Boy.