Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy

Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy is a 1991 platformer for the Commodore 64, based on the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon of the same name. Augie the pup and his devoted father were staples of American animation, and the game translates their world into a colourful jump-and-run.

Mechanically it is a traditional platform game: moving through levels, dodging hazards and enemies, collecting items along the way. What makes it historically interesting is the timing. By 1991 the Commodore 64 was eleven years old and clearly past its commercial prime, yet licensed cartoon games kept appearing on it — 8-bit machines were cheap, widespread in children's bedrooms, and that was exactly the audience a title like this was aimed at.

Cartoon licence games were a category with rules of their own: simple controls, familiar faces, a gentle opening difficulty, and a bet that a name from television would sell the cartridge or tape regardless of reviews. Today they deliver a double dose of nostalgia — for the old cartoons and for 8-bit gaming at the same time.

Collectors of curiosities will also appreciate the late-C64 angle: early-90s releases had learned to squeeze respectable graphics and smoothness out of the ageing hardware.

Hanna-Barbera cartoons enjoyed a strong European audience through television, so the licence carried weight on this side of the ocean too. Games of this kind travelled on tapes and disks, and many veterans recognise them from screenshots sooner than from their titles.

You can judge that for yourself, because OldGame.cz lets this one run straight in the browser — no installation, just the two dogs and their level.