Summary

Nobby the Aardvark is a platform game

Platform game

A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...

 taking place over multiple consecutive levels. The player takes the role of Nobby, an aardvark

Aardvark

The aardvark is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa...

 who is hungry for ant

Ant

Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

s. The game's plot involves Nobby trying to get to Antopia, a place where there are ants everywhere, so Nobby can eat his belly full.

In practice, most levels involve Nobby jumping from one platform to another in order to reach the exit. Various enemies inhabit the levels. Contact with an enemy is fatal to Nobby, but there are anthills scattered around the levels, and Nobby can take a quick nosh at an anthill, stuffing his cheeks full of ants. He can then spit the ants at an enemy to defeat it.

Later levels vary the gameplay by having Nobby fly in a hot air balloon

Hot air balloon

The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...

 or navigate a maze

Maze

A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...

-like mine shaft.

See also: The Ant and the Aardvark

The Ant and the Aardvark

The Ant and the Aardvark is a series of 17 theatrical short cartoons produced at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and released by United Artists from 1969 to 1971.-Production:...

, a cartoon series that inspired the game.