This is a series of assets for an unreleased Game Boy Color version of Crazy Climber developed in late 2000. These were complied from a hard drive by the game’s artist, Kostandin Igor Ruiz, who sent us these files along with the full permission to release them online for future generations.

Crazy Climber and its assets can be downloaded here.

Game Details

Crazy Climber was an arcade title produced by Nichibutsu in 1980. Designed by Shigeki Fujiwara, Crazy Climber is best known today for its unique controller set-up. Two joysticks are used to simulate both hands going up and down – left joystick for the left hand, right joystick for the right.

Given this odd setup, very few ports would be created as they did not have the materials for a proper conversion. A magazine-exclusive 2600 port by Atari had somehow managed it using only one joystick and a button. The fact that a version was being developed on a limited system like the Game Boy is impressive on its own.

In September of 2000, Spanish coders Manuel Pazos and Igor Ruiz designed and completed their own Crazy Climber port within the span of two months. Manuel and Pazos had previously worked with each other under the name Toyonaka Studio, mainly doing freelance work on J2ME titles.

It can be argued that this pitch demo was Toyonaka’s first delve into the console market.

Ramiro Arrarte, a friend of the two who worked as a producer, had contact with Nichibutsu to publish the game alongside their own in-house PS1 remake. Ramiro visited Nichibutsu’s office, but the flash-cart they had provided him did not work and the game couldn’t be shown off. This (alongside the GBC becoming obsolete by late 2000) cancelled the project, but Nichibutsu still have them permission to work with them for future consoles.

GBA and Xbox versions were briefly considered but quickly scrapped. A DS version was also considered and was actually planned to put into a collection series with other Nichibutsu titles like Moon Cresta. It’s unknown how far in development this version got.