Computer Gamer


Repton
By Superior
Acorn Electron

 
Published in Computer Gamer #5

Repton

This game is very 'Boulder Dashy' in that you have to run around caverns, collecting gems, and using or abusing the surrounding boulders as you see fit.

This is also one of those "win cash" games. In this case the completer of the game gets a modest £100. Not so much that everybody goes crazy about it, but it is an added bonus and incentive for finishing the game.

Each of the twelve levels has a password associated with it, and the inlay card has a special area thoughtfully reserved for writing them down for further use. This means that you can go direct to the screen that you are currently working on without all the preamble of going through the levels that you know that you can already do.

Repton

All the passwords are based on reptiles, but ethics prevent me from revealing what some of them are!

The screens are fiendishly laid out with a lot of problems that you have to work out to get at the diamonds.

Also in later levels you get lizard eggs. These can also drop on your head, but the real problem comes when you break an egg and a lizard emerges to chase you around the caves. A note in the inlay tells you that all the screens are solvable without losing a life. This I would find hard to believe, but I've got to take their word for it.

Repton

There is a help screen that gives you status information and your time remaining (yes, on top of everything you also have a time limit!), it can also show you a map of the caves, which comes in very useful at times, though this option is not available at the higher levels.

Music also plays, and the start up music is a very good rendition of a popular tune. Why can't BBC programming houses put volume controls into their software, it would only take a few bytes and would solve a lot of problems (like reviewing a game at 2am!).

On later levels there is also keys and safes, but I didn't get that far and can't comment on it, but I hate to think about the complexity of those levels...

In all, a very good game - not a great game - but one worthy of being played, and providing some real brain teasers.