Boppin'

Boppin’ is a video game released in early 90’. It has a connection with Supaplex because both games share few graphical assets, most notably the design of base-X.

Boppin’s in-game story involves a massive multiverse. Some of the universes are derived from video games. The game’s protagonists Yeet and Boik traverse the universe of the antagonist Sweety Hunnybunz, to free the villains he imprisoned to purge video games of evil. It references many video games, one of which might be Supaplex.

Boppin’-Supaplex connection

There is an uncanny similarity between some graphical assets in Supaplex and Boppin’. The most notable similarity is the design of Base-X, as it is the most unique and yet it appears in both games. It can be seen in the tile set used in chapter 3 level 8, and in chapter 4 level 28.
Boppin’ has an unusually large library of graphical assets and references many video games in the tile designs, including games like Pacman and Dig Dug. The graphical variety is there because of Boppin’s in-game multiverse story.

The person credited with graphical design in Boppin’ is Jennifer Diane Reitz.

The similarity was noticed by Gregot and documented on 9 August 2019. He contacted Reitz and asked about the circuit designs. On 11 August 2019 he received the following response:

I did all the graphics and game design for Boppin'. I've never heard of Superplex, at least that I know. Anymore, anyway. The circuit blocks were recycled art - I was trying to design a sort of strategy shooter game. The concept was that you had a sidescrolling space environment, and a ship - like Gradius or something - only everything moved very slowly. The ship could manufacture weapons holographically as needed, and the weapons would be defined by arranging modules - circuit blocks - that affected what the weapons were and did. The art for that failed game got recycled into Boppin' because I really liked my circuit-board art.

That said, no artist lives in a vacuum. For all I know, I may have seen art for the game you mention somehow - maybe in a magazine or something? If Superplex came out the very same year as Boppin', then... maybe they published pre-production art or something? If so, then, maybe? I have no idea. I see the similarities in the images below, but I can't remember what was happening those decades ago. I would have started work - and done those blocks - in 1990, maybe 1989 or so? I did collect Amiga magazines at the time. I assume Superplex was an Amiga game too?

If so, then that works, since the plot of Boppin' was about other games and the characters inside them. I wish I could claim I did a reference deliberately - I certainly referenced many other games. If nothing else, maybe I saw an article or something about Superplex and indirectly referenced it? That seems reasonable. Wow, that was sooo long ago.

It is not clear if Base-X design was first created by Michael Stopp or Reitz, nor how the design ended up in both games.