PrinceWatercress plays Astyanax - Part 1 of 6

Didn't think I would play and beat this one, but after seeing a Let's Play of this game while moving house yet again last year, I had to give this one a shot.

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"Astyanax...Astyanax...I'm waiting..."

That same dream again...strange.

I'm Astyanax. The name comes from Greek mythology, I think. I'm a freshman here at Greenview High.

I don't understand what the dream means.....and who is that girl??..

The other day I was walking to school.....

"Astyanax. Astyanax."

What the heck....

And from here, we get teleported to another world, and the game begins.

Interestingly, the name is from Greek mythology; Astyanax is the son of Hector of Troy and Queen Andromache from The Iliad.

Round 1-1: Remlia

As soon as the game begins, Astyanax finds himself in Remlia, and he meets a fairy named Cutie. Cutie brought Astyanax to Remlia to rescue Princess Rosebud, who has been captured by the evil wizard Blackhorn and has been appearing in Astyanax's recurring dreams, as he possess "the miracle power." Cutie also reveals that only Rosebud has the power to return him home. Cutie gives Astyanax the magic axe known as Bash, which will be his weapon for the adventure, and Astyanax is soon on his way.

Left and Right move Astyanax left and right, Down ducks, A jumps, and B attacks. Start pauses the game, and while the game is paused, you can switch between one of a few magic spells with the Control Pad. I stick to the default magic throughout the game. Magic spells are cast by holding up and pressing A. You have three spells: Bind, which freezes enemies for several second (represented by a circle); Blast, which damages all enemies on-screen (represented by a flame); and Bolt, which kills all-on screen enemies and can severely damage bosses yet uses more magic than Blast does (represented by a lightning bolt).

At the bottom of the screen is all of the important information. From the left, you have your current score, the current amount of lives that you have left, the current round that you are on, and the current spell that you have equipped. To the right of all that is your power gauge, your life meter and your spell meter. The power gauge empties and slowly refills after you strike with the B button, and the more it is filled up, the more your next attack will be. The life meter shows how much health you have. The spell gauge decreases when you use your magic.

You'll meet your first enemies here. The flying enemies will just fly past you, and unless they are directly in your way, you won't need to attack them. The jellyfish drop projectiles that won't damage you, but if you hit them, you'll be stunned for a few moments before you can move again. You'll want to attack only the jellyfish with the most powerful strikes that you can. The skeletons will pop out of the floor; you'll want to let them come to you, then strike them when they are in range of your weapon.

The statues contain power-ups. The glass container will increase the maximum power of your power gauge, allowing you to strike more powerfully with your weapon. Keep in mind that the more of these you pick up, the more time you'll need to wait before it slowly fills all the way up. This is a good thing, as you actually don't want to rush your way through the rounds. You'll want to move through this game slowly and carefully. Unless you're on the exact point that a flying enemy will spawn, you can easily stay in place and wait for your power gauge to fully refill so you can get past some of the enemies that will be in your way more easily.

Be careful when jumping over pits; you never know when you might run into a plant enemy that will sprout out and spit projectiles upwards. You'll want to fight them from a short distaance with your weapon or with your magic. If you can do it with your weapon, do so; it saves magic for the boss battles.

Grabbing the axe item lets you change the axe into a sword. The sword not only makes your physical strikes more powerful without adding to the power meter, but it also powers up your magic at the expense of using more of the spell meter. It is possible to get a spear, but it is less powerful.

The red potions give you three hearts for your health, but the blue potions refill all of the health meter.

The mini-boss is a bouncing boulder enemy. Grab the power-up at the end before the boss battle is over, then keep your distance as you strike while the boss bounces around. You'll want to keep your distance from the mini-boss and walk past him when the opportunity allows for it. When he opens up and stands still, get close to him and keep striking him with powerful physical attacks while ducking down.

The power-up that looks like a shield is really a pair of wings, which allows you to attack more quickly with your physical weapon.

The boss is a knight on a giant creature. You'll need to attack the head of the giant creature first. Jump over the head when it flies around in a circle, and watch out for the projectiles that it spits out, which won't be much of a problem as long as you stay close to the boss and duck. Once the creature is defeated, you have the knight left. Attack with your physical weapon and trap the knight against the wall, then duck and keep striking repeatedly from a short distance when the knight is backed to the wall.

After the boss battle, Thorndog will tell Blackhorn that Caesar, the boss we just defeated, has been killed. Blackhorn will soon notice that Cutie has brought Astyanax here, and demands Astyanax be destroyed.

PrinceWatercress plays Venture for Atari 2600 - The Longplay

...and now, Venture for the Atari 2600, minus commentary! Enjoy!

Let's Play

Venture is a game by Exidy in which you go through a world with several buildings that you need to enter, get the treasure out of and then get out of in one piece. The game was ported to a good amount of systems back in 1982, with the Atari 2600 being one of them.

You start out in front of a bunch of purple buildings. The single lone purple pixel that looks like it is out of place is you. Yes, you actually control this pixel. This pixel is you. By going into the gaps in the walls of the buildings, you can enter the buildings proper. Here, you can move around, but you can also press the fire button to fire arrows at enemies - something you can't do in the overworld where you're one small, tiny pixel. The arrows have limited range, but you have an unlimited amount of arrows and you can never run out. The dot near the happy face that represents your character indicates where you will fire, and that dot will change position every time you move in a different direction, and the direction that you last went will be where you fire your arrow. Enemies hurt you not only when they are alive, but also when their corpses are still on the screen; if you touch the enemies' corpses before they disappear off the screen, that will cost you a life. As mentioned before, you'll want to get the treasure in the building, then get back out through any of the gaps in the building walls, which counts as both entrances and exits. If you take too long, an indestructible demon that can travel through walls and will always take the shortest path towards you will show up, and if it touches you, you're losing a life.

At the top of the screen, you have your current amount of points in the center, and your lives will be the squares in the upper-right corner. Lose all your lives and the game is over. Sadly, you cannot get points out of extra lives in this game.

The hardest part of the purple buildings is the building in the upper-left part of the map. Here, there are moving red walls, and if any of them touch you, you will lose a life. You'll need to line yourself up with the gaps and make your moves quickly in order to get in the center, grab the treasure and get out before the indestructible demon shows up and ruins your day.

Once you collect all of the treasures in the purple buildings, you'll move on to the blue buildings. This is more of the same, and sadly, there isn't any moment on the blue map that matches the building with the moving walls on the purple map. Once you collect everything in the blue buildings, you'll have completed one loop of the game, and you'll go back to the purple map, but this time, the enemies will be faster and will move around more randomly. The second loop is also much more difficult compared to the first one.

The game does not seem like much, but it does make history as one of the first, if not the first, popular adventure-style games (other than Rogue) to be played from a top-down perspective, and even predates the very first Zelda game by a few years. The graphics are very simple and very identifiable, and gameplay is pretty simple, and while the first loop of the game is easy enough to get through, the second loop and every loop after that is a lot harder to clear. While this port is much more scaled down compared to the arcade original (there are two maps instead of three, graphics are more rudimentary, far less treasures are available to collect, and no music plays at all), it is still a decent effort and well worth putting in your Atari 2600 library.

PrinceWatercress plays Venture for Atari 2600

Welp, time to play yet another game from the pre-Nintendo Entertainment System days of yore. Interestingly, this one is a little more up my alley.

Longplay

Venture is a game by Exidy in which you go through a world with several buildings that you need to enter, get the treasure out of and then get out of in one piece. The game was ported to a good amount of systems back in 1982, with the Atari 2600 being one of them.

You start out in front of a bunch of purple buildings. The single lone purple pixel that looks like it is out of place is you. Yes, you actually control this pixel. This pixel is you. By going into the gaps in the walls of the buildings, you can enter the buildings proper. Here, you can move around, but you can also press the fire button to fire arrows at enemies - something you can't do in the overworld where you're one small, tiny pixel. The arrows have limited range, but you have an unlimited amount of arrows and you can never run out. The dot near the happy face that represents your character indicates where you will fire, and that dot will change position every time you move in a different direction, and the direction that you last went will be where you fire your arrow. Enemies hurt you not only when they are alive, but also when their corpses are still on the screen; if you touch the enemies' corpses before they disappear off the screen, that will cost you a life. As mentioned before, you'll want to get the treasure in the building, then get back out through any of the gaps in the building walls, which counts as both entrances and exits. If you take too long, an indestructible demon that can travel through walls and will always take the shortest path towards you will show up, and if it touches you, you're losing a life.

At the top of the screen, you have your current amount of points in the center, and your lives will be the squares in the upper-right corner. Lose all your lives and the game is over. Sadly, you cannot get points out of extra lives in this game.

The hardest part of the purple buildings is the building in the upper-left part of the map. Here, there are moving red walls, and if any of them touch you, you will lose a life. You'll need to line yourself up with the gaps and make your moves quickly in order to get in the center, grab the treasure and get out before the indestructible demon shows up and ruins your day.

Once you collect all of the treasures in the purple buildings, you'll move on to the blue buildings. This is more of the same, and sadly, there isn't any moment on the blue map that matches the building with the moving walls on the purple map. Once you collect everything in the blue buildings, you'll have completed one loop of the game, and you'll go back to the purple map, but this time, the enemies will be faster and will move around more randomly. The second loop is also much more difficult compared to the first one.

The game does not seem like much, but it does make history as one of the first, if not the first, popular adventure-style games (other than Rogue) to be played from a top-down perspective, and even predates the very first Zelda game by a few years. The graphics are very simple and very identifiable, and gameplay is pretty simple, and while the first loop of the game is easy enough to get through, the second loop and every loop after that is a lot harder to clear. While this port is much more scaled down compared to the arcade original (there are two maps instead of three, graphics are more rudimentary, far less treasures are available to collect, and no music plays at all), it is still a decent effort and well worth putting in your Atari 2600 library.

PrinceWatercress plays Coconuts for Atari 2600 - The Longplay

...and now for a longplay of this game, minus commentary! Enjoy!

Let's Play

Coconuts is a really simple one-screen game for the Atari 2600 from 1982. You play as jungle explorer Stanley I. Presume, and you have to move around to avoid coconuts thrown by a monkey at the top of the trees. That's it. That's the game. You move left and right with Left and Right on the joystick, and those are your only controls. By holding the stick in a direction, you move faster. The fire button is used to start the game and is used to start playing again when the monkey takes a break from throwing coconuts, which also allows you to take a breather for as long as you need. Stanley moves more quickly on B/Novice than he does on A/Expert. You have three points of protection: the umbrella on top of your hat, the hat on your head and your head itself. If you get hit on the head without any head protection, the game is over. If you reach 500 points, you'll recover the last piece of head protection that you lost, and you'll be able to do it again if you reach 1500 points, which can be pretty difficult to do. Points are awarded by dodging coconuts. You'll get five points at first, and that will slowly increase in five-point increments all the way up to twenty points.

It's a simple and fun game and there's not much to it, and what you see is what you get. This could have been considered a classic if it were released a couple of years earlier, but by 1982, there were much more complex games around, and by this point, you had a lot of the Atari classics such as Centipede and Missile Command, and even Nintendo's own Donkey Kong kicking around in the arcades. Still, if you're looking for a simple game for the Atari 2600, this one is a good place to start.

PrinceWatercress plays Coconuts for Atari 2600

Time to play another simple arcade-style game on the Atari 2600, and Coconuts is about as simple as it gets.

Longplay

Coconuts is a really simple one-screen game for the Atari 2600 from 1982. You play as jungle explorer Stanley I. Presume, and you have to move around to avoid coconuts thrown by a monkey at the top of the trees. That's it. That's the game. You move left and right with Left and Right on the joystick, and those are your only controls. By holding the stick in a direction, you move faster. The fire button is used to start the game and is used to start playing again when the monkey takes a break from throwing coconuts, which also allows you to take a breather for as long as you need. Stanley moves more quickly on B/Novice than he does on A/Expert. You have three points of protection: the umbrella on top of your hat, the hat on your head and your head itself. If you get hit on the head without any head protection, the game is over. If you reach 500 points, you'll recover the last piece of head protection that you lost, and you'll be able to do it again if you reach 1500 points, which can be pretty difficult to do. Points are awarded by dodging coconuts. You'll get five points at first, and that will slowly increase in five-point increments all the way up to twenty points.

It's a simple and fun game and there's not much to it, and what you see is what you get. This could have been considered a classic if it were released a couple of years earlier, but by 1982, there were much more complex games around, and by this point, you had a lot of the Atari classics such as Centipede and Missile Command, and even Nintendo's own Donkey Kong kicking around in the arcades. Still, if you're looking for a simple game for the Atari 2600, this one is a good place to start.

PrinceWatercress plays Whoopsy - The Longplay

Now for the game, minus commentary! Enjoy!

Let's Play

Whoopsy is a game for the BBC Micro from 1985 where you're playing as a baby who was to avoid his mum and collect his toys, all the while taking a dump on the floor in order to keep as much distance between yourself and your mum as possible. Collecting all the toys takes you to the next level. As you're doing all this, you'll only have a limited amount of "whoopsies" that you can make (read: taking a dump on the floor), and you'll also have to avoid the moving toilets, as touching the toilets causes you to lose one of your whoopsies. If you get caught by your mum, you lose a life and you also receive some slightly annoying red and blue flashing. Lose all your lives, and the game is over.

: moves up, / moves down, Z moves left and X moves right. Space lets you take dump on a floor aka "make a whoopsy." Escape lets you back out to the main menu. Joysticks can also be plugged in and used; just switch to joystick control on the main menu. You can change those keys at any time in the main menu, which I gratefully welcome. 

When you leave a whoopsy on the floor, your mum will not be able to harm you; instead, she will go right for the whoopsy and clean it up. As soon as she gets to the whoopsy, however, the whoopsy disappears and she will immediately get back to chasing you. No cleaning animation or anything of the sort occurs; the crap is gone and she gets right back on you immediately. The placement of your whoopsies is absolutely crucial because of this.

Bonus lives are awarded at 50,000 and 100,000 points, assuming you can make it that far.

On the main menu, you'll see the top nine scores, you can start the game, change the difficulty level from 1 to 9 with the number keys, switch the music on and off, and switch between keyboard and joystick controls. Space Bar starts the game.

As soon as the game starts, you have to make a whoopsy in order to move. I'm not making the rules here; you actually have to use one of your whoopsies to get everything moving. At least you can plot your course before you take a dump on the floor, so that's a plus. Also, I'm beginning to wonder if what I'm typing is what it will sound like if Aqualung from Aqualung's Game Reviews ever sat down and reviewed this game for YouTube.

At the top of the screen, you'll see your high score, your current level, your current score and the amount of bonus points you'll earn - which slowly ticks down as you play the level - when you clear the level. To the right of that is your amount of whoopsies, and to the right of your whoopsies is your current amount of lives. You'll start in the lower right, while mum starts in the upper left. The toys will be randomly strewn about, and when you collect them, they will re-appear in the crib on the lower left. The whoopsies you have will help with that, but there's a catch: you cannot collect any toys while you have a whoopsy on the floor and your mum is rushing to clean it up. If you try, you'll just move straight through them. You'll have to take a dump, get to a toy, get moving once you collect the toy that you've grabbed, grab a few more toys and make a whoopsy at the right time, and you'll need to do this in such a way that you'll always have a few whoopsies on hand in order to keep distance between yourself and your mum. Not only that, you'll also have to move around in such a way that your mum cannot catch up with you, as she moves faster than you do.

When you complete a level, you and your mum will be back to their original starting positions, and you'll gain three more whoopsies for the next level. You'll also have to collect more toys to get to the next level. In case you lose a life from colliding with your mum in any way, you'll go back to the lower right, but at least you'll get three more whoopsies to make up for it. 

I like this game, although a few things could have made it more fair. You could have had a little animation of mum cleaning the whoopsy up that could have bought you just a little more time. Also, not being able to collect toys while a whoopsy is in play can be a bit irritating. While it gives the game a stop-start motion that you at first get used to before eventually mastering and manipulating in order to get through each level with as few headaches as possible, it can also be a bit of a burden even when you get a grip on how the game wants you to play it. It really feels like the game wants you to play it in a certain way if you want to get a high score and succeed.

As for the rest of the game itself, the game controls wonderfully, and I didn't run into any errors of any kind. The graphics, being the basic things that they are for any BBC Micro game, as identifiable, so they work in that regard. The fact that there is always music playing is a nice touch, but you may still find yourself turning it off, as it can get annoying fast. This is a fun and mischievous game for the venerable Beeb, but while it is easy to play, it is challenging to master, and it is definitely a game to get a grip on if you want a challenge for an arcade-style game.

PrinceWatercress plays Whoopsy

Well, this is an interesting game. I don't know what else to put here, to be frank.

Longplay

Whoopsy is a game for the BBC Micro from 1985 where you're playing as a baby who was to avoid his mum and collect his toys, all the while taking a dump on the floor in order to keep as much distance between yourself and your mum as possible. Collecting all the toys takes you to the next level. As you're doing all this, you'll only have a limited amount of "whoopsies" that you can make (read: taking a dump on the floor), and you'll also have to avoid the moving toilets, as touching the toilets causes you to lose one of your whoopsies. If you get caught by your mum, you lose a life and you also receive some slightly annoying red and blue flashing. Lose all your lives, and the game is over.

: moves up, / moves down, Z moves left and X moves right. Space lets you take dump on a floor aka "make a whoopsy." Escape lets you back out to the main menu. Joysticks can also be plugged in and used; just switch to joystick control on the main menu. You can change those keys at any time in the main menu, which I gratefully welcome. 

When you leave a whoopsy on the floor, your mum will not be able to harm you; instead, she will go right for the whoopsy and clean it up. As soon as she gets to the whoopsy, however, the whoopsy disappears and she will immediately get back to chasing you. No cleaning animation or anything of the sort occurs; the crap is gone and she gets right back on you immediately. The placement of your whoopsies is absolutely crucial because of this.

Bonus lives are awarded at 50,000 and 100,000 points, assuming you can make it that far.

On the main menu, you'll see the top nine scores, you can start the game, change the difficulty level from 1 to 9 with the number keys, switch the music on and off, and switch between keyboard and joystick controls. Space Bar starts the game.

As soon as the game starts, you have to make a whoopsy in order to move. I'm not making the rules here; you actually have to use one of your whoopsies to get everything moving. At least you can plot your course before you take a dump on the floor, so that's a plus. Also, I'm beginning to wonder if what I'm typing is what it will sound like if Aqualung from Aqualung's Game Reviews ever sat down and reviewed this game for YouTube.

At the top of the screen, you'll see your high score, your current level, your current score and the amount of bonus points you'll earn - which slowly ticks down as you play the level - when you clear the level. To the right of that is your amount of whoopsies, and to the right of your whoopsies is your current amount of lives. You'll start in the lower right, while mum starts in the upper left. The toys will be randomly strewn about, and when you collect them, they will re-appear in the crib on the lower left. The whoopsies you have will help with that, but there's a catch: you cannot collect any toys while you have a whoopsy on the floor and your mum is rushing to clean it up. If you try, you'll just move straight through them. You'll have to take a dump, get to a toy, get moving once you collect the toy that you've grabbed, grab a few more toys and make a whoopsy at the right time, and you'll need to do this in such a way that you'll always have a few whoopsies on hand in order to keep distance between yourself and your mum. Not only that, you'll also have to move around in such a way that your mum cannot catch up with you, as she moves faster than you do.

When you complete a level, you and your mum will be back to their original starting positions, and you'll gain three more whoopsies for the next level. You'll also have to collect more toys to get to the next level. In case you lose a life from colliding with your mum in any way, you'll go back to the lower right, but at least you'll get three more whoopsies to make up for it. 

I like this game, although a few things could have made it more fair. You could have had a little animation of mum cleaning the whoopsy up that could have bought you just a little more time. Also, not being able to collect toys while a whoopsy is in play can be a bit irritating. While it gives the game a stop-start motion that you at first get used to before eventually mastering and manipulating in order to get through each level with as few headaches as possible, it can also be a bit of a burden even when you get a grip on how the game wants you to play it. It really feels like the game wants you to play it in a certain way if you want to get a high score and succeed.

As for the rest of the game itself, the game controls wonderfully, and I didn't run into any errors of any kind. The graphics, being the basic things that they are for any BBC Micro game, as identifiable, so they work in that regard. The fact that there is always music playing is a nice touch, but you may still find yourself turning it off, as it can get annoying fast. This is a fun and mischievous game for the venerable Beeb, but while it is easy to play, it is challenging to master, and it is definitely a game to get a grip on if you want a challenge for an arcade-style game.