Crash
12th December 2017
Author: Graeme Mason
Publisher: Bum Fun
Machine: Spectrum 128K
Published in Crash Annual 2018
Foggy's Quest
The eponymous hero of this game - subtitled To Narg And Back Again! - is an inter-dimensional holiday-maker, and one who looks somewhat ghostly in appearance (he could certainly do with topping up his tan). Thus, on a suitably summery day, Foggy decided to take a trip to the unexplored Dimension 52b.
Predictably, a load of envious, unpleasant beings inhabit the place. They are the nasty NARGs and they want the power of Foggy's spaceship, particularly the Tri-Crystal Prismatic Phase engine.
They ransack the ship and make off with all the valuable bits, including the essential Dimension Splicer. The game begins as Foggy escapes from the NARG thieving frenzy into the caves beneath the surface and it's up to our amorphous hero to explore the strange world and get his engine parts back.
Foggy's Quest is a flick-screen platform game that has been designed using Jonathan Cauldwell's Arcade Game Designer. The player guides Foggy around the screens, collecting items, solving puzzles and avoiding the nasty NARGs.He can store several items in his inventory, simply picked up by walking over them. However they are only of use on encountering one of the Object Pads dotted around the caves. Touch one and a blue particle patch rises up displaying any items Foggy's collected and he can select an item from the menu. Using the item in the right place provides a piece of the puzzle.
A typical tourist, Foggy went on his travels unarmed, and as contact with a NARG is fatal, it's best he avoids them; equally so, dropping into a lava pit causes instant death.
Graeme
Chris
This ain't bad looking for a game made with Jonathan Cauldwell's Arcade Game Designer software... oh and it's playable as well. The graphics are bright, colourful and very pleasing on the eye with a lot of variety in each screen as Foggy traverses through them. Against these pleasing aspects it does become run of the mill. It's the type of game that we've seen many times before in the Spectrum's back catalogue - a dodge the moving enemy, flip screen, collect the items and solve the puzzles adventure. Saying that, it has been done very well here.
Comments
Control keys: Q, A, O, P, SPACE, I
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair
Use of colour: Makes each screen jump out at you
Graphics: Detailed backdrops and great attention to detail like hanging vines; enemies influenced from games like Jet Set Willy
Sound: In-game tune can get a little annoying
General rating: Run of the mill platformer built using AGD, with very nice graphics
