| Home | Editorial | Maggie 25th | Demos | Games | Serious Stuff | Travel Reports | Multimedia | Humour |
by Orion
Just as we're getting ready to tidy up this special issue of Maggie, and that thinking people were saving everything up for STNICCC, along comes this surprising little extra from Orion. And after he'd sold his CT60 Falcon as well.
Here's a little bit of text going its way. It's not quite a preview, but not really a full review either. However, here are some facts and thoughts that I'd like to share on this nice December release.
This one is some classic 16 bit style Japanese console style platform action brought to a multitude of different hardware by Orion. It features three worlds with twenty-five levels and these can be loosely described by me, as follows.
1. 'Cutesy world'. A place where Alice starts, seemingly harmless, but with the local wildlife turned against her. Also beware of falling in the water.
2. A subterranean level with lava pools. It looks like Alice has to be really sure about where she is going.
3. Something that looks a little bit like Shadow of the Beast? Level one reworked, with more sinister looking backgrounds.
As stated before, this game is massively Multi-platform. It can be found on anything from the very mainstream Android and PeeCee Windows, through a release on the Sega Dreamcast. Lately it has even spawned Atari Jaguar and Falcon CT60 versions, with an executable for the Firebee compatible with the latter. (Orion has got a Firebee, I thought I'd mention it.)
The Jaguar version is on CD-ROM via Orion's website, and there has been a limited and very collectible Jaguar cartridge run sold as well. The CD-ROM goes for a reasonable $18.00 and does for both PeeCee and Jaguar at the same time
The Falcon CT60/Firebee version is available via download from Orion's site at a very pocket friendly $4.00, with whatever donation you want to make to top this up.
The game can be found at the Onirisoft Website.
It is properly a CT60 game, as it is a port of the original code, with tweaks to run on Atari hardware. An unexpanded Falcon 030 version would be possible, but this would require a complete recode of the game engine, which Orion currently does not have the motivation for. Testing even on heavily accelerated '030 Falcons has been judged 'too slow'.
There is a plot, but it has been kept very simple. We get to meet Alice, the titular hero. She looks a lot like Alice in Wonderland. Alice's mom has been captured by the evil Raven. A little rabbit offers to show Alice where the Raven lives, in order to rescue her. Unfortunately, the rabbit is relying on a cheap aftermarket satnav system. It does not select the quickest route. Various platform jumping and (cute) beastie adventures thus ensue.
Apart from this, there is a bit more to the game, as there are magic mushrooms that Alice jumps on to adjust her height (essential to get through some parts of the levels), keys to collect and open doors, and even boxes to push around on later parts. Being cute, she does not have any weapons or ninja kicks, and has to avoid too much contact with the local fauna, as this saps energy from her. Falling into water/lava guarantees an instant termination, as does coming into contact with jagged rocks.
The version tested was the CT60 version on an extremely imperfect Hatari emulation. This was a bit slower than native hardware, but not horribly so. It is playable, albeit without sound, as per the general situation with the Mac WinUAE core Hatari version. The fact this is still playable, even on such a compromised set-up bodes well for the overall quality of the game.
The levels are well intentioned and the actual gameplay and general responsiveness is on the forgiving side of things, at least for the early levels. Alice seems to have lots of margin for error when committing to leaps into the unknown and platform jumps. You get the impression that there are more collapsing platform perils later on.
The graphics are extremely cutesy and respectful of their Japanese gaming heritage. They are also clear, bright and well drawn, at a latter end 16-bit console game level of quality.
The soundtrack is made up of a fully realised and rich in-game tune for each of the worlds complemented by the right sort of sound effects.
In general, I'm thinking positive thoughts about this game. There aren't that many games of this style on the later Atari's. There are very few games made specifically for the CT60 or Firebee at all.
So it's a big "Well done!" to Orion, and more power to his coding fingers for 2016.
Ratings..
I'm not really going to go for a full set of these, as I've only had a quick look at this game so far under imperfect testing conditions., but other people have been positive about this game.
So it's an 80% all over, from me.
CiH - For Maggie 25th Anniversary issue - Dec 2015.