I must be a masochist. I've opted to review another bloody platformer. What the Hell is wrong with me? Haven't I learned my lesson yet? Haven't I had enough? Will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions?
There's lovely.
Questy is an offering from Trevor 'Smila' Storey by way of Retro Remakes. I was drawn to this game because, despite being offered by remake sites, it's actually an original game; an attempt to replicate the look and feel of the games of the 8-bit age, rather than simply remake one of the old games we know. Questy takes a lot of cues from the classic Creatures, in that you have to guide a red-nosed green blobby thing called Questy (Mr Questy? Dr Questy?) around a hostile landscape, rescuing his herd, who've all escaped from Herd School. As all non-player character do, they dash back and forth across their platforms awaiting recapture. Naturally your path is not strewn with roses, unless of course they're the really nasty thorny ones that cause instant horrible death as soon as your pixels make contact with theirs.
Still, it's offered as a piece of retro gaming, but how successful is it on that front? Well, Smila starts off promisingly. He gives us a loading screen-style opening animation, and we have to damn well wait for it to appear. Couldn't be more faithful to the spirit of the thing if we had an R Tape Loading Error or whatever the C64 equivalent was. It's a nice bit of artwork too.
It's a nice starter, but we're more interested in the entrée, really. On with the actual game.
Save the kiddies
. Shame I hate kids, really.
Let's have a quick look at the, er, look of the thing, shall we? The game certainly looks old-fashioned. The palette's limited, and every attempt to simulate the graphics guy's attempt to get as much as he can out of that palette has been made: the sky's a gradient with lots of dithering; three shades of green are used in various combinations to give the illusion of depth… it certainly looks authentic. Questy would not look out of place on a C64. But at what price authenticity? Smila ran into a problem that's plagued countless others before him: when you've only got one or two shades of each colour, you're going to end up with enemies that blend into the backdrop so well that you couldn't get more efficient killers if Questy had to run a gauntlet of Royal Marine snipers in ghillie suits. I've lost count of the number of times I've run into a gape-mouthed blobby thing (or 'nasty pasty' as the blurb calls them) just because both he and my character were behind a fence and thus I couldn't see a bloody thing. Joy.
Staying faithful to the 80s is a bit of double-edged sword, and I find I nicked my fingers on it quite a few times while playing. Moving across the screen soon became uncomfortable. As soon as the screen started to scroll, all that lovely colour-dithered graphical goodness started to flicker. Again, it's something we used to get back then, but I miss that about as much as I miss attribute clash. After a few moments' nostalgia as the screen flickered like a candle, frankly it began to get on my wick.
Aurally, the game's as 8-bit as it gets. SID tunes as far as the ear can hear, starting with Martin Galway's mighty Ocean Loader on the loading screen, and a load of others I can't name because Mr Smila doesn't either (naughty!). One treat I noticed was the death noise. Exactly the same as Miner Willy's death noise. Terrific. Just great. If the trauma of being crap at yet another runny-jumpy game wasn't enough, I get Jet Set Willy rubbed in my face too (oo-er).
Gravity. Annoying.
Onto the gameplay, then. God, it's annoying. Really. It is. If we were to take an atlas and chart the exact location of Questy's gameplay, its precise whereabouts would be On Phil's Tits. The main reason for this is the way the character moves. As soon as the character begins to move downwards, whether that's after hitting the highest point of a leap, or falling down between platforms, the player has no control over his movement whatsoever. You can't nudge the character to the left or right, and if you're near the top of the screen and a set of spikes is directly below you, you have an inescapable journey to the Land of Shish Kebabs. You may have gathered from my tone that this may have happened once or twice. Did I forget to mention that I'm crap at platformers? I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies, though. At least the level just resets rather than ending the game. A save point or even just a way of preserving the number of kiddies rescued would have been appreciated, especially by other talent-challenged gamers like me!
According to the readme.txt file, Smila turned this out in a week. I'm rather afraid it shows. A few more features might have really made this game special: a bit of control over the way Questy falls; perhaps some way of defending himself too. I'd like that. I mean, in Creatures you could spit fire, and even Mario could jump on the heads of his enemies. As it is, I think it depends rather too much on its nostalgia. There are seeds of greatness in this game, but I fear they didn't get the chance to germinate. If you're at a loose end for a month or so, Smila, I'd love to see you sort this bugger out.
| Author | Trevor 'Smila' Storey | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Windows | |
| Reviewers | Phil Smith | |