C&VG


Savage Pond
By Bug Byte
BBC/Electron

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #60

Savage Pond

The life of a tadpole is not a happy one. Never mind the Bronx, you want a savage place to live, go live in the pond.

A tadpole is born, whose aim, naturally enough, is to grow into a frog. To do so, he must eat, avoid the dreaded hydra with its lethal tentacles, dodge the hydra's equally nasty cousin, the jellyfish and catch the dragonfly's eggs before they turn into fearsome dragonfly nymphs. Dragonfly nymphs just love tasty tadpoles. There's also the water spider's web to watch out for.

The greatest enemy of all, needless to say, is man, who is prone to use the pond as a dump for radioactive waste.

If your tadpole survives, he eventually becomes a frog, when he must content with mutant bumble bees, protect his colony of eggs and tadpoles from water fleas and all those other predators, catch dragonflies with his tongue before they can fill the pond with any more of those vicious nymphs...

This recycled game is good fun. The graphics may not be very polished, but at least the pond creatures look like pond creatures, and they are extremely lively - I particularly liked the frenzied efforts of the savage-looking nymph as he plunges wildly about in the pond foliage, hunting for the cowering tadpole.