Manufacturer: Bally Midway (Licensed from Data East)
Released: 1982
Designer: ?
Added to my collection: January, 2002
Cost to date : $525.95
Current Condition : Working 100%

Description:

Bump 'n' Jump is a cool little driving game that I used to play obsessively in college. It definitely falls into that category of "games Dave played that aren't terribly popular." I've always considered it a great game, but nobody else--even some of my fellow video game fanatics--seems to remember it.

The game play is simple. You control a car (a sort of souped-up Volkswagen Beetle) that has the ability to jump long distances. The object of the game is to proceed through each level smashing as many cars as you can without getting smashed yourself. Every car on the road is a potential target, and you can do away with them either by running them into a wall, running them off the road, or landing on top of them when you jump. There are a variety of enemy vehicles with varying point values, some of which are much harder to run off the road than others. The more cars you smash, the higher your bonus at the end of the level. (Alternatively, you can avoid smashing cars altogether. If you complete a level without smashing any cars, you get a 50,000-point bonus.)

The control system couldn't be much simpler. An eight-way joystick controls the car's speed and direction (forward is fast, backward is slow--the rest is self-explanatory). There's also a single button that makes the car jump.

Bump 'n' Jump was released in a couple of different versions--the licensed version released by Bally Midway, and a version made to fit the Deco cartridge system (a generic cabinet with interchangeable control panels and marquees that was designed to accept a variety of game cartridges, including Burger Time, among others). The game was apparently also released under the name of Burnin' Rubber.

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My Machine:

Bump 'n' Jump is my seventh game, and the third I've bought off of eBay. I wasn't seriously looking to pick up another game at the time, but this one was a bargain--only $199.99 when I first started watching the auction. Nobody placed a bid, so I got it for the opening price, which I considered quite fair. What makes it an even better deal is that the game was located in Bristol, Tennessee--a mere 250 miles from home. With a little help from my good friend Wayne and his pickup truck, I was able to dodge the shipping charges by picking the game up in person. To top it all off, the game came with its service manual--always a nice bonus.

This is the Bally Midway version of the game, the same version I was familiar with from my college days. As you can see from the pictures, the game is in pretty good physical shape. The control panel is the only thing that's pretty worn out, but I can live with that until I find a new overlay. Electronically, the game works fine (though the monitor is a little wavy for a few minutes until it warms up). The folks I bought the game from are professional coin-op operators who professionally refurbished and checked the machine prior to selling it, so I'm pretty confident it should continue to operate well for some time. (Of course, with a 20-year-old game, it's always a crap-shoot.) Recently, I've been having trouble with blown power supply boards. I replaced the original only to have the new one blow a few months later. I have two replacements on hand at the moment. I hope I won't go through them too quickly...

Power supply update: After blowing out three or four power supply boards, I gave up trying to acquire new ones. One person who is more knowledgeable than I am in such things, suggested that I install a switching power supply, but I had no idea how to do the wiring. In January, 2005, however, I noticed that ArcadeShop was selling switching power supplies with adaptor boards for $39 (plus shipping). I ordered it right away and installed it in a matter of about 15 minutes. The game works great now (knock wood). Hopefully whatever was blowing out the original power supplies won't do the same thing to the switcher.

Monitor update: screw used monitors. I bought a brand new one from ArcadeShop. I really, really, REALLY hope that this one will last. The old ones were going at a rate of one every few months.

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Bump 'n' Jump Technical Info:

DIP switch settings:

Bump 'n' Jump has two banks of DIP switches. The asterisks (*) indicate the factory default settings.

Bump 'n' Jump Links:

• The Killer List of Video Games has information on Bump 'n' Jump and pretty much every other game ever made.
• Classicgaming.com has a pretty good article on the game.
  

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