Festive teaser - most difficult leveller you've played

[fuzzle]

"Leveller" is the best word I can think of.<br>
<br>
What's the most difficult game you've played? Criteria would be:<br>
the game is split into separate levels<br>
each level is self-contained on a single screen i.e. no scrolling<br>
<br>
Typical candidates would be platformers and shoot-em ups.<br>
I've always had difficulty with Acornsoft's Moon Mission - getting past the fourth screen has always been beyond me.

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[melchett]

That's a fairly restrictive set of criteria I think? There can only be 10-20 games (well, that I can think of) that match that criteria (especially if you exclude scrolling). Based on that, I'm not sure what I'd suggest? Maybe, it'd be Ghouls - only four screens as far as I could tell but could never get past the second one... Too much pixel perfect jumping for my liking, although I liked the idea of PacMan on legs.<br>
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I have recollections that Blagger was quite hard - it was the only equivalent of Manic Miner on the Beeb for a while though. Neverworld (is that right?) was just plain weird and some of those Peter Scott early platformers where frustrating.<br>
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If you extended this to "must frustrating or hardest to complete games" I think Jet Set Willy I / II would have to be included - I can't believe anyone could complete that without cheating?!?! Also, Psycastria - never managed to get past the first level on that one before losing interest. Rocket Raid also annoyed me - couldn't get past the maze level (tertiary phase).<br>
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There were quite a few level games I liked too; things like Crystal Castles, Chuckie Egg and especially the Boffin games - in fact the animation of the spiders was superb. Hmmm, wonder who wrote Boffin? Did (s)he do anything else? LOVED LodeRunner too, a much under-rated game in my opinion...<br>
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Strangest game I ever played has to be FreeFall - one of those games, that I just lost interest in almost immediately. Not sure why, maybe I'd like it now?<br>
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Ah well, that's my ten pence's worth<br>
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[Moist Mog]

The hardest has to be Manic Miner. I never really got what all the fuss was about - it was an OK game but as I recall I never got past about the fourth level (and usually didn't get past the second). It was just too hard. Plus if you left it on the title screen, it showed you all the different levels you never had a chance to get to...<br>
<br>
Galactic Commander was pretty tough as well. I'm sure the second half of it was impossible.<br>
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I would say Frak but that scrolled so I guess it doesn't count - I'd also say Repton 2 and Elite (more specifically, docking in Elite) and maybe a few of the text adventures.

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[Jeremy Grayson]

Hi Melchett,<br>
<br>
Boffin was written by a chap called John Groom. I am not aware of any other games by him before or since.<br>
<br>
Freefall rewards patience (I must be about the only person who prefers this Ian Bell release to some big, space trading game I believe he co-wrote <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :D --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> ), but is admittedly a fearsome test. Once gravity gets to 96 rotations and the small airlock is stuffed full of time bombs and space wasps that can carry them, I really struggle.<br>
<br>
Jeremy<br>
(graysonscolumn)<br>


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[melchett]

That's a fairly impressive first commercial game (Boffin) to write then! Shame he didn't write some more - I also thought the same about the guy who wrote Twin Kingdom Valley as I'm sure he could have used the same engine for other similar text adventures with graphics.<br>
<br>
I don't think I ever read the instructions for FreeFall which might have been part of the problem... Also, reading Ian Bell's website this morning he seems to be fairly disappointed with the version that was finally realised in that he had to compromise some of the difficulty in the game on the request of the publishers. Wonder if he still has a copy of the game with its original gameplay?

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[melchett]

realised=released...

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[Jeremy Grayson]

Hiya Melchett,<br>
<br>
Twin Kingdom Valley was the last in a list of games for the BBC which Trevor Hall wrote between 1982 and 1983. Many of the label's alien zappers or simple screen games up to then had been written by him - Space Invaders, Galaxy Wars, Oblivion and Sea Lord, to name but four. I presume TKV was his first attempt at doing something a bit more "grown up", after which he appeared to disappear from the scene completely, unless anyone knows any differently.<br>
<br>
Hall was not responsible for the graphics in TKV, just the text - one P Skinner did the visual stuff. Again, I am not aware of him having cropped up anywhere else before or since. Pity.<br>
<br>
As regards Free Fall, yeah, I've seen that on Ian Bell's site as well, although lord knows the game is hard enough as it is with the modifications. Methinks Bell is being a bit disingenuous in implying that even less of a fair learning curve should have existed in the game. I'd love to see the original, un-modified version of it just to see how much harder it is / was. Being smeared all over the walls by a space wasp inside of thirty seconds rather than sixty does have a certain masochistic appeal to it, I suppose.<br>
<br>
Jeremy<br>
(graysonscolumn)<br>


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[melchett]

I'm intrigued Jeremy - what does the "(graysonscolumn)" footer signify? Is it just an easier way to stalk you via your posts on Google?

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