I thought I'd add a fun section as recently I opted to take time to recreate a number of my games from the 1980’s and 1990’s. I've built a few levels of my platform game, Horace the Explorer so that I can share just how much fun, and how basic the games were back then.
The games I chose to redesign are shown below:
Horace the Explorer
A platform-based maze game where the user had to navigate around the various levels finding the coins, avoiding the various static and moving obstacles building up a treasure chest. Horace was released in 1993 for the PC.
Jamie and the Magic Torch
Jamie and the Magic Torch was an early franchise game where the user, a student navigated around a lost kingdom solving a range of educational challenges based on curriculum aligned mathematics and grammar puzzles. Jamie was released in 1984 for the Spectrum 16k/ 48k.
Helicopter Rescue
Helicopter Rescue was my first commercial release in 1982 appearing as a 1k game in Sinclair Programs, the early 1980’s listings magazine before undergoing further development and release in 1984 for the 16k Spectrum through Chequer Games.
The Fun Stuff
I have included a couple of sample levels from Horace the Explorer (Now called Gizz the Explorer) below. Please feel free to play along, it should be fairly easy as it replicates the simplistic game play of the 1980’s.
The objective is to find all ten coins and then walk through the magic door (it's Green, remember Shakin Stevens?) to move to the next level. If you're stuck then picking up a lantern will take you to another location. If you try and jump at a wall you will bounce off. Make sure you can jump up first.
As you find a coin, a message is displayed as the concept now is to use gaming to deliver social, charitable or training information. I've attempted to build all the 'features' or what others would call bugs into the game as they existed in the 1980's.
Can you complete all three levels?
Keys:
M = Mute R = Restart ← = Move Left → = Move Right Space = Jump/ Climb P = Pickup Lantern
Note....The game is in development and very much a work in progress, there will be a few bugs but you can complete each level.
Click on the game if your browser disables the keys on loading.
