Games that remind me of my childhood Number 25 : Dorks Dilemma (Commodore Plus 4)

Dorks Dilemma is a fun one player game that was released by Gremlin Graphics in 1985.  You control "Dork", an alien who awakens after crashing his space ship on an alien planet inhabited by Zobwats.  The Zobwats have dismantled your ship and have scattered the parts across 25 different rooms.  As Dork, you must explore each room, destroying the Zobwats with your bombs and reconstruct your ship so that you can escape.

Each room is a small maze consisting of various walls, with a spaceship part located in the middle.  In order to collect the ship part, you must destroy a set number of Zobwats using an infinite supply of bombs.  It sounds simple, but when you drop a bomb you only have a few seconds to get as far from it as possible.  If you're too close, you'll be killed too.  Once the Zobwats have been destroyed, move on to the next room, and the spaceship part appears in a jigsaw on the right of the screen.

Once you have collected all 25 pieces, you have to rearrange the jigsaw pieces to properly display a picture of your ship taking off from the planet.

The finished jigsaw

You're free to enter/exit the rooms as you please and although the 25 rooms are always the same, they are re-arranged in to a different order with each game, adding a bit of variety.  However, if you destroy some Zobwats and leave the room before destroying the required amount, you have to do it all over again when you re-enter the room.

One good way to kill the Zobwats is to let them come to you, then drop a bomb and run! (or roll)

Just let a bomb go off.

Each room has four respawning Zobwats that appear in each corner of the screen.  They gradually follow you, moving closer and although they can touch you, you must be careful not to move in to them.  It is possible for them to trap you in a corner or surround you, so be very careful, especially when planting a bomb.  Once you drop a bomb,  you have a few seconds to get away before it goes off.  You then have to wait several seconds for another bomb to regenerate

Don't get trapped.

If you enter a room where the ship part has already been collected, you get this.

AND should you finish the game and escape the planet...  You get to do it all over again from the beginning!  The only difference is you have more Zobwats to destroy in each room, and they move faster too.

All that hard work, and all you get is this message when you finish the game.

 

The box - part of a double tape compilation.

 

The tape

 

The full box cover, featuring all four games - Dorks Dilemma, Petals of Doom, Xargon Wars and Tycoon Tex

 

What's frightening about this game is that it's nearly 30 years old - Talk about making me feel old.

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 24 : Treasure Island Dizzy (Commodore 64)

Treasure Island Dizzy is a flip screen, platform, puzzle and adventure game written by Philip and Andrew Oliver (aka The Oliver Twins) and was published by Codemasters in 1988 for a bargain price of £2.99.  As with all Dizzy games, it was pretty much ported to every available system of the time.  It was the second game in the famous Dizzy series and is my personal favourite - simply because it was the only Dizzy game I ever completed!

Strange that this game has often been called the worst of the series because of the high difficulty level - you only have one life whereas the other games in the series give you multiple lives.  This means that you could potentially be almost at the end of the game, and if you make one simple mistake like dropping the snorkel (required so that you can breathe under water) whilst under water, you'll die and will have to start the game from the beginning.  There's no save game option!

...and so the adventure begins!

The aim of the game is to simply escape the island.  This involves you playing the titular character Dizzy (who is essentially an egg with feet and hands), picking up various objects scattered around and using them in the correct places.  You're ultimate goal is to get a boat, an engine, petrol and an ignition key that will enable you to leave the island and head off for freedom.  Sounds simple enough, but to do this you will also need to collect 30 gold coins.  Some coins are easy to find, others are hidden behind various background objects like plants, boulders, windows etc.  Collecting the coins is a bit like a side quest to the main adventure, but ultimately even though you can build the boat and leave, you still need to have the 30 coins to actually complete the game.

The game is a classic example of the excellent quality of some of the 'cheapo' games available to computer users in the late 1980's.  It's fair to say I got more enjoyment out of this game than a lot of the full priced releases of the time by some of the larger software houses like US Gold and Ocean.  Despite the poor graphics that were obviously ported directly from a Spectrum (complete with monochrome hi-res graphics with colour clash), the game is wonderful, and I still think the Commodore 64 version has one of the best theme tunes ever to grace a computer game.

You'll be needing a Woodcutters Axe to drop under the bridge
 

 A snorkel...  Possibly the most important item in the game.  Just don't drop it when you're in water.
 

 To get the gold, you'll need the Infrared Detonator and some dynamite
 

 Exploring a ship wreck!
 

 An underwater cavern....
 

 A pirates secret cavern.
 

 This guy will sell you the boat and parts you need to escape.
 

 The boat.  Still need an engine, and petrol to escape.
 

The cover (click to enlarge) 

The tape (click to enlarge)

The Map (Click to enlarge).  Author T2 at maps.speccy.cz)

Maybe one day I'll get to actually finish the other Dizzy games!  What's scary is that I was 11 years old when this game came out....  I'm now 37!

For now, have a listen to one of the jolliest pieces of music that has ever come out of the SID chip in a Commodore 64.

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 23 : Buggy Boy (Commodore 64)

It's been too long since my last "Game that reminds me of my childhood".  So, let me begin by saying my next game is......

BUGGY BOY!

The Commodore 64 had some stand-out driving games, but one of my fondest racing gaming memories is from Elite System’s conversion of the arcade hit Buggy Boy by Taito. The game was a near perfect replica of the original arcade (minus the big fancy buggy graphics), and featured 5 courses containing all sorts of obstacles. The aim of the game was to complete each course before the timer reached zero. You could gain extra time by passing under “Time” gates, and increase your score by collecting different coloured flags, and going under various score gates. If you collect the coloured flags in a particular order (as shown at the top of the screen), you could also gain additional bonus points.

Buggy Boys 5 tracks

Along each route were numerous obstacles – some could help you in your goal to reach the end of the track, or ultimately cause you to crash, losing valuable time.

Logs - These made you jump and were quite useful for jumping over obstacles.  However, they could also cause you to crash if you timed the jump badly.

Stones – Running over these caused your buggy to drive on only two wheels. You had to be careful when hitting these because if your buggy ran over a log, it would crash!

Brick walls and Boulders, fences and trees - These were obstacles to miss at all times.

The game also featured water (avoid at all times), banked roads, narrow crossings over water, and tunnels.

I feel sorry for the current generation of youngsters – Show them a game like this, and they’ll just turn away and go back to their Playstations and Xboxes…. I could spend hours playing this. Graphics were simple but very good and colourful for the time the game came out (1987).  Sound was minimal as was the music, but overall the game was and still is fun to play.

The cover art

The tape

Mastertronic - What if? (Part 4) - Star Trek

Mastertronic brings you "Star Trek" for £1.99, only for the Playstation 3 - Available from all good newsagents, chemists and game shops!

If only..... :o)

Because I have WAY too much time on my hands, I thought I'd mess around with putting together some fake Mastertronic covers for modern computer games.

In case you are not aware (or can not remember), Mastertronic were big in the mid to late 1980s and were a major budget software label in the United Kingdom and produced a large number of cheapo games and re-releases for the Commodore/Spectrum/Amstrad/Atari 8-bit computers (and some 16-bit too) - most at a pocket-money-friendly £1.99!

Just a bit of fun really, but what would modern games look like if Mastertronic still released games like the good ol' days? Well, here you can find out!

 

 

 

 

You can view more of my fake Mastertronic covers by clicking here

Mastertronic - What if? (Part 2) - Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

Mastertronic brings you "Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3" for £1.99, only for the Playstation 3 - Available from all good newsagents, chemists and game shops!

If only..... :o)

Because I have WAY too much time on my hands, I thought I'd mess around with putting together some fake Mastertronic covers for modern computer games.

Incase you are not aware (or can not remember), Mastertronic were big in the mid to late 1980s and were a major budget software label in the United Kingdom and produced a large number of cheapo games and re-releases for the Commodore/Spectrum/Amstrad/Atari 8-bit computers (and some 16-bit too) - most at a pocket-money-friendly £1.99!

Just a bit of fun really, but what would modern games look like if Mastertronic still released games like the good ol' days? Well, here you can find out!

 

Click to enlarge

 

To see more of my user-created Mastertronic covers, click here.