Feature "We Live In An Age Where Even Bubsy Can Make A Comeback" - Meet The Developers Trying To Resurrect The Barcode Battler

It's the year 2025, and we have not one, but two new Barcode Battler decks. What a time to be alive!

Created by industry veteran Keith Webb of Tanukii Studios, who Nintendo Life interviewed about his DSi title Go! Go! Kokopolo, this new deck is a serious attempt to create a fun and engaging game which leverages the unique aspects of the hardware.

With a price of £15 and a release scheduled for late November, we tested a prototype of Riot Gunheads - Hyper World Injustice Fighters. We've also a lengthy Q&A explaining its origins as an unreleased Dreamcast game, and how the Barcode Battler logic was reverse-engineered.

Before we dive in, it's worth going over the Barcode Battler itself. The machine is usually negatively compared to other handhelds such as Game Boy, with fellow site contributor Ashley Day amusingly describing it as "glorified Top Trumps". However, despite its negative image, we're rather fond of it at Time Extension.

Would you believe some of the negativity is a misconception, due in part to bad marketing and woeful documentation? Please allow us to explain...

Instead of seeing it as a games machine with the barcodes being "software", as suggested by Peter Brown of Tomy UK, it's better to think of Barcode Battler as akin to a traditional board game or tabletop game, maybe like Dungeons & Dragons, with the unit itself just being a sort of digital Dungeon Master. It rolls the dice and tracks the numbers for you, but much of the enjoyment is the peripheral objects, using your imagination, and community spirit.

Unfortunately, this is immediately hamstrung by poor documentation. The unit comes with two manuals, totalling 28 pages, covering general use and an enemy list. Both fail to explain anything sufficiently. Even worse, there's an egregious error: in the list of spells, it says F1 and F2 increase your Attack Power; this is wrong, they are, in fact, weak and strong offensive spells that damage the enemy's HP. Only spell F8 increases Attack Power. How such a blunder made it to retail is baffling, and one has to wonder how many kids were confused by it.

To highlight how poorly conveyed things are: did you know, when you first open the box, you're not actually supposed to swipe any monster cards? Those are for the advanced C2 Mode, only to be played after finishing C1 Mode, and defeating the 120 pre-programmed enemies. The idea is that each victory boosts your stats, just like gaining EXP in an RPG. Also, did you know you can actually save your progress in this mode, via literal battery backup, and resume days later? Or that both C1 and C2 Modes also have a password feature?

For succinctness, let's quote Jacob Quisenberry's guide which explains the C1 Mode:

"This is a player versus CPU mode, and the main game mode. It consists of four epochs, each of which contains six levels, each of which contains five stages. This equates to 120 built-in computer opponents. Three random stages in levels L1 to L5 hide a key. Completing these levels unlocks level LH. Completing stage LH-HH completes the epoch. After completing an epoch, a P-code becomes available and may be used to enhance heroes in C2 Mode. Completing epoch E-4, level LH-HH is considered beating the game."

However, even when playing as intended, critical information is obfuscated. Characters, items, and enemies have secret interactions which produce buffs, debuffs, and special effects – some can reduce enemy attacks or defence by as much as 80%. None of these are ever explained; the manual advocates trial and error, while the 120 enemy write-ups are mindless waffle.

Since nothing is explained, this ingenious mechanic is unusable – if you don't have reference points, the logical conclusion is that it's all just random. Thankfully, the programming has been reverse-engineered, and the Barcode Battler Museum has a detailed page explaining the character races, job classes, secret interactions, and more!

This was a failure of Epoch and Tomy. These interactions, which create unique effects, should have been transparent. They elevate the unit to something as complex as a tabletop or video game RPG. The internal system is not Demons' Souls; heck, it's not even quite the original Dragon Quest – but it is a full-feature RPG with stat growth, ten magic spells, healing potions, items, weapons, armour, races, job classes, and most significantly: special attributes.

Think of any time you've equipped a fire weapon in a game to battle an ice monster more efficiently. That sort of mechanic is integrated into the barcode data, the problem is the English and Japanese decks all hid this information.

This brings us to Riot Gunheads, which addresses the above issues.

It's a Riot to play

Comprising 36 cards, made up of heroes, enemies, and various beneficial support cards, the deck is actually two games in one: Dice Mode and C2 Mode (requiring the BCB).

The art is nicely stylised, being reminiscent of Webb's previous Go! Go! Kokopolo game; to our eye, it also has a touch of Capcom's Mega Man series, in how characters are anthropomorphic blends of robots and creatures.

Webb shared some of his preliminary artwork, including the rough pencil sketch for Meeow Johnson, through to the digital line version, a prototype card design, and then the final version. He also revealed in our Q&A that almost all the character designs are actually from a Dreamcast game that was never finished, also providing a comic from that.

The easy thing would be just swapping in the phonetic Katakana script, but not here. There's something delightfully eccentric about choosing a maligned system to make a game for, and then still hiding Japanese wordplay in it which most players won't ever notice. It's the sort of creative energy we'd like to see more of.

The Dice Mode can be played without the BCB unit: you shuffle the cards, lay them out as a "battlefield" of 4x5 cards, and then complete each horizontal row before moving up one. You can warp between each far end and jump over defeated cards, allowing you to ascend strategically (aim for item cards first before tackling enemies). Battling enemies requires a single six-sided die, and you're able to augment your hero's power through separate Armoury and Support cards.

During play-testing, we found this mode quite challenging. If your hero loses, they're discarded and you use the next, out of four. Occasionally, we hit a wall when facing a very tough boss, so we suggested a spare hero could lend their power, then be discarded. Webb tested it and found it integrated nicely, and we played several more games with this "sacrifice attack" implemented. It adds another risk/reward layer, since your hero pile is finite, and surviving heroes add to the final score.

The Dice Mode was nice, reminiscent of other modern card / board games which have hit the market in recent years. However, C2 Mode is the main attraction, since this can only be played using the Barcode Battler.

As mentioned earlier, Riot Gunheads also makes use of the system's secret barcode interactions, revealing them through flavour text and hint boxes on the back of each card. Thus, it allows you to pick the correct hero and supplements to swipe, based on your preferred strategy. For example, the Rock Moonzub enemy is described as clumsy and good for punching practice.

And what are some of the items available? Crash Gloves are described as giving a flurry of punches and doing 3x damage against some enemies. As another example, the hero Lord Bingo can team up with support card Humpty Z, who is described as having insect repellent. Obviously, these two cards will be strong against the four insect enemies in the deck.

The above examples might seem so obvious as to be silly – but please keep in mind that the original retail deck had absolutely nothing like this. Now playing C2 Mode actually offers a strategic game of contemplation, as you analyse dwindling resources, chart upcoming adversaries, and weigh up which specific combinations to use.

Compared to using the pack-in deck, your choices now feel meaningful. Importantly, when you lose, it's more apparent how and why you went wrong. By lessening the "random" aspect, players feel like they're actually honing their skills. The only thing which is random is the dice rolls done internally by the Barcode Battler, but a good strategy can mitigate this.

A player versus player option (C0 Mode) was also available; however, the rules are still being refined. Webb suggests it will likely follow the simple PvP battles that the original cards allowed for – with players able to choose between heroes, support, enemies, and bosses as their main character, to fight against a friend. The exact wording for the rules was still being pinned down to make sure all necessary information is included in the instructions.

When we say that playing Riot Gunheads on an actual Barcode Battler is fun, we say it as someone who tried very hard to enjoy the original retail package and failed. Using trial and error, and losing countless times, was just not fun. This deck, by being transparent, shows what the untapped possibilities of the Barcode Battler are, and frankly, it's baffling that it's taken until 2025 for someone to explore this.

Would such a deck in 1993 have changed the fortunes of the Barcode Battler outside Japan? It's difficult to say, but new worthwhile cards and making the mechanics intuitive would certainly have helped its reputation. As it is, in 2025, this deck feels like an essential addition for anyone with a working unit.

While our praise of the game is sincere, there's a feeling that Webb held back slightly, perhaps given the uncertainty of player reactions. But in pulling back the curtain and showing us how things function, Riot Gunheads opens up intriguing possibilities.

Imagine larger campaigns, or perhaps an integrated fold-out board to go alongside. There's a robust logic system hidden within the BCB, which should be regarded as a gameplay tool, it just needs someone clever and enterprising to unlock it. In our Q&A, Webb describes his future plans and other ideas, which we look forward to seeing more of.

Given our involvement in play-testing Riot Gunheads, and suggesting adjustments, we lack the impartiality to do a proper review. But we're sincerely planning on buying a finalised copy when released.

The Big Interview

(Q&A with Keith WEBB of Tanukii Studios, and Tony BLACK of the Barcode Battler Museum)

Time Extension: It's 2025, and you've created a new Barcode Battler deck! It's a surprising move. Please describe the start.

WEBB: Yep, I agree - it's quite surprising to see a Barcode Battler product in 2025! I remember hearing about the "craze" back in the early 1990s, very possibly from an episode of Bad Influence, and it was also featured in the mainstream news back then - touted as an upcoming mega-fad due to its popularity in Japan. However, in terms of my own experience, I didn't pick one up until much later, possibly the early 2000s when eBay arrived. I was always intrigued by it though, and I was specifically drawn to the visual appeal of the Sunsoft cards.

It wasn't until a year or so back when I thought: hmm, I wonder if we could somehow create an official set, as physical retro products were something we were pushing within Tanukii Studios. New games for old niche systems was my thinking - and what's more niche than the Barcode Battler? Even though technically it’s not a console, it's still a fascinating example of retro gaming!

TE: Who has been involved in the project?

WEBB: In terms of development, it's been mostly myself (Keith Webb) who originally devised the Riot Gunheads concept, characters, and character art, with a huge amount of support from Tony Black (aka: Combat King 0), who runs the Barcode Battler Museum project. He's been gathering information on the Barcode Battler since 2005. He mainly worked on the stats and effects for each card, as well as suggesting how enemies are organised into tiers, each with a separate boss. His knowledge of encoding all the stats into barcode form was tremendously valuable. We also had art support from Lewis Cross, who provided extra shading on some of the character artwork to make it pop!

TE: When do you plan to launch? Please share all the details.

WEBB: The current plan is for late November 2025, with a price point of around £15. Distribution-wise, we are exploring worldwide options, but initially, the UK would be first to order online, and we will also stock it in various retro-themed stores that have expressed interest. America is an option, and we've been discussing possibilities with a distributor. Japan would be great too - that's a market I've got my eye on, but it'll need more research to make it viable.

In terms of the packaging, we are trying to mimic the retro-style of the original Japanese card sets, which came in a cassette-tape style case. Interesting fact: the original cases were the same as Epoch's Cassette Vision game cases. So Riot Gunheads will be released in similar style cases, with additional plastic outer shells, plus an instruction flyer inside.

The cards themselves are also a slightly larger “deluxe size” than the standard cards from the '90s, and a slightly higher quality, so they should withstand the test of time. They're much more robust than the originals!

TE: From the initial pencil sketch to this interview, how long have you spent on it?

WEBB: The set has been in some form of development or another, in the background, over the past couple of years. A large majority of the development time was figuring out the complexity of the rules and stats, as well as ensuring the correct card stock and coating options for scanning. This took a fair bit of back and forth. Certain coating options, such as Spot UV coating, rendered the cards unreadable by the Barcode Battler, so that was something to figure out - but the quality turned out great in the end! Artwork was fairly straightforward, as was the decision regarding which types of characters to include - but the stat distribution took a lot of time to refine and nail down.

It's been more of a side-project for Tanukii Studios - just dipping in from time to time, but my games development background helped with ironing out certain aspects of the rules. Retro games are a strong passion of mine, and a great influence growing up. My entry into the games industry was working on Crash Twinsanity - a Crash Bandicoot game from the PS2 and Xbox, which is probably classed as retro now. Later I set up Tanukii Studios where I developed the Kokopolo series - which ended up being two of the very last physical Nintendo 3DS releases a few years back. I also have a number of in-development titles, which I can't talk about yet, that still have that retro feel!

TE: The game has a C2 Mode and a Dice Mode, similar to the Japanese decks. You've created two distinct games - tell us about the dichotomy of this.

BLACK: The C2 Mode is mainly inspired by the Conveni Wars expansion packs for the Barcode Battler II. Some of them have tiers of Enemy Cards, and given that none of the official expansions were given a Western adaptation, few people outside of Japan ever saw this gameplay variation. But rather than use the stats from an official card set as a starting point, we looked at how the game treats levelled-up Hero Cards and how their stats grow.

With an understanding of stat progression, we were able to tailor the strength of the Enemy Cards to fit. There's scope to build a whole RPG game around this system, so we're only scratching the surface of what can be done.

WEBB: Yep, the main focus was always the C2 Mode - which is the Barcode Battler's mode for allowing a single player to face-off against a series of cards in a sort of campaign progression. The original UK release was an odd one in that they essentially just took cards from a later Japanese release, not really intended for beginners, and packaged them with the device, hence why they are not intuitive to use.

Once we'd worked out what types were needed in order to make a balanced game, the next challenge was how to make it more understandable for new players. Tony came up with the tier system, and the sensible distribution of cards which contained pass-codes. He helped determine which rewards players received after each battle to allow levelling up at specific points.

The Dice Mode was an additional feature we put in as a late idea, just in case anyone didn't have access to a Barcode Battler - unlikely, I know! <laughs> So the Dice Mode can be played with a single 6-sided die and the deck of cards, without the need for the device. Some of the licensed Barcode Battler sets from the '90s, such as Zelda, also included a Dice Mode. We used that as a base, in terms of a grid-type layout, but I also wanted to test some new mechanics that allowed for a randomised battlefield, adding a sense of replayability as you aimed for a higher score. So we worked out a unique mode for that.

We also needed to make sure any Dice Mode info could fit on the cards, as the rest was chock full of C2 Mode information.

TE: Let's talk about the transparency of information for C2 Mode. The original retail deck, and the Japanese supplementary decks, had a lot of mechanics obscured from players, with the instructions encouraging players to just figure it out. But Riot Gunheads makes all of the interactions transparent, via hints or descriptions.

WEBB: Yes, this was something we felt was really important from the get-go. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to pick up a Barcode Battler without the instructions would have been completely lost on how to play! We wanted to present something that could help players familiarise themselves, even if they had never used one before. We factored in the possibility that some decks might be sold alongside Barcode Battler units which no longer have the original instructions. So we wanted them to serve as a good on-ramp for new players.

Tony helped out tremendously with a lot of the stats and barcode encodings; we had quite a few tables and charts drawn up to figure out how this would all work. It was then a case of presenting that data in a humorous and accessible way, which is why the hints are on the cards themselves, either overtly or cryptically. This adds some much-needed "quality of life" improvements.

BLACK: In C2 Mode, besides each card having unique stats, we can encode each with an effect, such as dealing triple damage against certain opponents or increasing the player's stats when an Enemy Card is defeated. In these cases, the Barcode Battler handles the calculations automatically, and there's no direct indication to the player that the extra damage is dealt this way.

To aid the player, we've added hints in the descriptions on the back of each card. For example, some of the enemies have insect-like appearances, with Humpty Z's description mentioning "INSECT repellent". This aspect, present in the coding of the Barcode Battler since its release in the 1990s, went completely unmentioned in the localised manuals.

We felt it would improve the experience if we used these features in the barcode data and also clued the player into their existence, albeit subtly. We hope players will feel rewarded for discovering these mechanics with a little nudge in the right direction, rather than feeling frustration from trial and error, with little to no clue on how to progress. Indeed, there are some interactions not described in the text, as we didn't want to give everything away. It's like a good movie trailer, which gives the audience a taste of what to expect without giving away the best scenes or the ending.

WEBB: Yes, we wanted to keep the information easy for players to understand, but at the same time, didn't want to reveal too many of the secrets that Tony uncovered with his deep dives into how the system works. So we had to find a good balance. There may still be some things that even we don't know, which could happen if certain cards were used at certain times!

There's a hidden Easter Egg we put in there. I wanted to make sure the two Mini-Boss characters, Beezle Bubby and Lucifer Beat, had the value 666 in their stats somewhere as a reference to their demonic-sounding names. So we squeezed that in - which meant playing around with the stats of a few Enemy Cards either side of them in the tier progression, so there was still a consistent ramp of difficulty!

TE: How was the Barcode Battler reverse-engineered? The official instructions do not have an explanation for the attributes or interactions hidden within. It just vaguely says certain combinations might make stuff happen. Is the internal computational logic of the system now fully understood? Could it be emulated in MAME or replicated on Analogue Pocket? Is there any aspect of the internal coding that is not yet understood?

BLACK: It was very much an international effort. Final Fighter, who is based in Japan, spearheaded the reverse engineering process, using the ROM of Barcode World on the Famicom to work out many of the underlying mechanics, since many of the battle damage calculations line up between the Barcode Battler II and Barcode World.

My work was independent and largely overlapped with Final Fighter's in other respects, but my main contribution was reverse-engineering how the Barcode Battler calculates changes to Hero Card stats when they level up. There are still a few gaps in our collective knowledge, such as how the RNG works and how player input timing affects critical hits, but we've identified the 4-bit CPU at the heart of the Barcode Battler and Barcode Battler II.

Unfortunately, we can't easily dump the ROM as this is manufactured into the same silicon as the CPU itself. We could hire a company to decap the chips, but this would effectively destroy the chips involved. Once that's done, writing an emulator would be a piece of cake - but without that, the closest we'll get is a simulator rather than an emulator.

TE: Have you considered official endorsement by any of the companies which marketed Barcode Battler, or sales in Japan?

WEBB: I actually had a meeting with the chaps over at Epoch Japan several months back. Essentially, it was quite a short back-and-forth chat with them online, and they really liked the set and the designs, but it turns out Epoch has a new policy in place restricting them from licensing their legacy brands at this point.

Whether that means they are considering some official Barcode Battler merch in the future, who knows - just my speculation - but it could be!

TE: Amazing. Did you speak with its original creator?

WEBB: Unfortunately, we didn't manage to speak with the original inventor, and it actually did take a while to track down even which department was the correct one to talk to, due to Epoch having branches in Europe, America and Japan. Plus, the Barcode Battler was originally released by different companies, such as Tomy and Irwin, in different territories.

I know Epoch are still fond of the Barcode Battler, and how successful it was in Japan, as they had it front and centre on their product history section on their website. So it wouldn’t be out of the question that they may intend to revisit it officially someday, for some sort of anniversary, but that’s just my pure speculation!

TE: The hardware has an unfavourable reputation outside Japan. But Riot Gunheads itself is really fun. Weren't you nervous about trying to overcome the public's preconceived notions?

WEBB: Actually, the fact that it has such a poor reputation in the West was one of the reasons we were so excited to create a set.

Like you mentioned, in Japan, it did phenomenally well. The thinking back then was that such a success would translate well to the overseas markets - obviously, it didn't, and instead it sort of backfired. This lead to the machine being misunderstood.

That fact combined with the often confusing nature of its mechanics, meant this was a good opportunity to try to fix that. Also, we live in an age where even good old Bubsy the Bobcat can make a comeback after having such a negative reputation, so I think there's some charm in revisiting these old properties in a new light.

Even just as a fun gimmick, this new set is enjoyable as a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the Barcode Battler’s failure in the West!

TE: Looking at the Japanese text, it doesn't match the English. Meeow Johnson is called "Nyaa Johnson" in Katakana. And "nyaa" is onomatopoeia for a cat meowing... Wait, did you... Did you actually include Japanese puns in this?!

WEBB: Yeah, good spot! The translations were originally just done phonetically, so originally it was "Meeow" Johnson, but Tony was in contact with a great translator that he used for translating manuals, so we ran them by him and he provided much more accurate translations - hence the "Nyaa" translation, and so on. I've sent a quick example of the original version, so you can see the change. Nice small tid-bit there!

TE: Can you describe some of the stylistic influences for the art? It seems to have a sort of Capcom-styled Mega Man vibe to it... How much art was left on the cutting room floor - any unused designs? Did you first conceive of the character art and then conceptualise their abilities, or did you design the interactions and then make the art to fit?

WEBB: Many of the characters, and in fact the entire concept of "Riot Gunheads - Hyper World Injustice Fighters", actually came from an idea we had for a Dreamcast game, circa the late 1990s to early 2000s that never came to fruition (so far!).

You’re totally spot-on about the Mega Man / Capcom influence, but also there's some Power Stone and even Burning Rangers influence, left over from the Saturn / Dreamcast era of gaming, from the original Riot Gunheads idea.

From that large batch of characters which were conceptualised back then, the ones featured in the card set were just the first to be chosen. Meaning that technically there are none left on the cutting room floor, but there are many which could still be featured in a future expansion set. Actually, the only "brand new" character created specifically for the cards was the "Arcade Barricade" - which is a new favourite of mine. The rest of the characters were thought up many years ago!

The artwork was, of course, all brand new, but based on the original designs, and created specifically for this set, but the characters and ideas go way back. From the original designs, I went through and pulled out a range of specific enemies and bosses that would fit across the various tiers in terms of strengths, and the four main heroes were chosen from a larger team of eight.

Several colleagues created a couple of additional heroes for the Riot Gunheads line back in the day, who haven't been included in this set. I'd like to try to get them included in a future expansion pack if possible.

TE: How many hours have been spent on play-testing? How did you balance the two modes, and were there any weird surprises during testing?

BLACK: Play testing for C2 Mode involved printing out barcodes and sticking them onto plain pieces of card. As long as the stats and effects worked as predicted, that was phase 1 of the testing done. Phase 2 involved trying to beat the game from beginning to end, and that took a few hours to get the balancing down. By accident, we made one of the Tier 2 Enemy Cards far too strong - almost as strong as the Final Boss - so he had to get nerfed just enough to maintain the challenge without putting players off completely. Thankfully, changes made to C2 Mode and Dice Mode were independent of each other, so changing an aspect of one wouldn't break the other.

WEBB: Yes, both Tony and I play-tested the C2 Mode thoroughly, then reconvened and compared notes, and then went back and refined in an iterative process. In terms of major changes, just refining a few rules in the Dice Mode.

Thankfully, the two modes act completely independently as they both have their own unique stats and rewards, meaning that refining one mode doesn’t have an impact on the other. If they did, that would be a nightmare to fix.

TE: Do you have any future barcode plans? More games using decks of cards, or perhaps a board game that incorporates the unit? Now that you deeply understand the internal logic, can you comment on the theoretical potential of the device? Obviously, one is limited to the baked-in functionality - for example, there are only 10 spells and their actions are fixed. But it feels like there's a lot of untapped potential.

WEBB: Hmmm, a board game that worked alongside the Barcode Battler could certainly be an interesting idea to ponder - I hadn’t thought of that! In fact, Tony has pointed out that there exists an official Barcode Battler II board game, so that’s potentially a starting point!

I think with some clever thinking, there are numerous possibilities for unique and interesting games, using the Barcode Battler as a central component. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of reaction this new set gets, and build from there by slowly introducing more gameplay options, with additional card sets that could follow. It’ll always be nice for any expansion ideas to allow the originals to be used, so there is a wide range of options. But that would require some brainstorming! I think the upcoming new set will reveal if there is any appetite for more.

We do have another card set in the works, Woggle Ball ‘94 SuperSports Cards. This is a much simpler game, not related to the Barcode Battler, but it could potentially be repurposed with Barcode Battler support. The only slight downside with Woggle Ball is that technically, there aren’t any enemy or boss characters, but that could be refined if needed. There are lots of exciting possibilities and potential opportunities!

BLACK: There's definitely been a surge in interest in the Barcode Battler in recent years. I've had interest from people writing books, creating new electronics, and requesting translations for Japanese exclusive cards. Here's to Riot Gunheads shining a light on an often overlooked corner of gaming history.

As Keith said, the Barcode Battler itself isn't a video game system as such, but it can serve as a peripheral to the Famicom and Super Famicom, as well as being an electronic card-game interface in its own right. So its place in the hallowed halls of gaming history is deserved.

What could we see next for Riot Gunheads? That's for Keith and his team to decide, of course. On my wish list is a SNES game, perhaps with Barcode Battler support? I'm just speculating, but that'd be a fun challenge to create! I'll have to learn 6502 programming...