I remember finding this game in black and white on a 386 "laptop" that ran windows 3.1, bought for $5 at a thrift shop on a curious whim, back in 2006. Thing was more of a lugtop, easily 15lbs.
Not sure how but I accidentally found myself in this game.
I'm not sure what the most original version was, but the one the screenshot is from is called Gorillas, and it was included with Mircosoft Qbasic, on DOS. It was intended as an example program, to show what QBasic could do. I modded the crap out of it, to make the explosions bigger and weird colors, etc. Changed the gorillas to be all mutated and fucked up, etc. Good times.
The funny thing is for me is I never knew about this hidden game at the time. I was also like 6 at the time. I started on MSDOS 5 and wasn’t this in Win3.1? Wild this era of computing was. So many dip switch’s
I remember playing it on DOS-only machines. I think it started being included with QBasic in MSDOS 5. This is now unlocking a memory, for me. I remember, back in that era, I made a QBasic program that was literally the DVD screensaver, with the logo bouncing around...except it was just a circle with a gradient in it. I think I eventually upgraded it to being a smiley face. Anyway, that was long before the meme about screensavers like that, and the whole "OMG IT'S ABOUT TO HIT THE CORNER, SO SATISFYING" thing.
But the thing is, I distinctly remember having that "oooh, it's gonna hit the corner" feeling. And it was extra satisfying, because I had coded the collision physics for myself, including offsets for the origin point of the circle, so it would bounce off the edges, rather than slide halfway off the screen. It was a really awesome feeling.
I loved this game so much! For all the years between DOS and the internet being navigable enough to find this again, I thought maybe it was a false memory.