The controls are extremely simple- the stuff of truly great games, I might hear somebody saying (and truly old games I hear somebody else saying). It is essentially a platform jumping game, where the player has to guide a short squat mustachioed man in red overalls presumably named Aldo (okay, so he looks like Mario and he jumps as high too) from his drop-off point to a treasure chest placed in various locations on each level. But he has to watch out for- wait for it- the rolling barrels that drop out of a hatch and roll along the platforms (no angry ape here) among various others dead-ends and terrible traps.
And he has to hurry, for the clock is ticking!
Basically, don’t die or get stuck, jump and climb your way to find the treasure before time runs out. The settings and the graphics themselves are very simple and easy to discern. Given the game was made pre-90’s (if I recall correctly) it’s not surprisingly a non-scrolling platformer. This means that all the action takes place on the one screen, so it would have been a good thing that everything was so easily discernible. I have to comment though that it did certainly detract from any kind of “immersive” experience that one may typically come to expect from any game.
I don’t suppose this is an entirely fair assessment though there were
many possible reasons that I felt the game to be a little distant, or the game-play to be flawed, so I’ll just go through each aspect one by one and see if the general impression emerges:
Apart from the starkness of the graphics, I remember the animation struck me as being somewhat disjointed. What I mean is that Aldo’s sprightly mincing steps animated with such fluidity starkly contrasted with other aspects of his, and other objects’ animation (which would be the barrels, as they were the only other moving object). Aldo’s jumping was unmistakably like Mario’s, and his climbing animation was excellent, but when he walked off the edge of a cliff, he would float downwards with this hilarious look of horror plastered across his face as if he had been unexpectedly cryogenically frozen. I would have thought it would make sense to at least have him flailing about to match his walking, but the feature did grow on me after a while.
Part of the reason for this was the control system and what little could be mentioned of a ‘physics engine’. The game was not coded with reality in mind; obviously, it is after all a primitive platformer. Hence there is no concept of acceleration, except when Mario…I mean Aldo jumps (otherwise that would have looked very strange indeed). When he falls, he drifts, and so too do the barrels. Not only this, but they fall vertically and there is nothing one can do about it. Once you’ve committed you’re in it for the duration!
This obviously has implications on the game-play itself. One could argue that this was a good thing as the game then became one of wits and strategy under pressure- as in “if I fall down onto this platform will I have time to jump out of the way before the barrel flattens me”. I suppose this was one of the aspects that made the game so addictive - progressing certainly seemed like a matter of skill and timing…and maybe a little bit of luck.
However, what marred the game the most was the other deadly obstacle. Apart from the barrels, there was this pink grassy sticky substance that Aldo would become lodged in if he touched it, terminating his progress. Well, that is, it might- if he became lodged in it too far. Landing on it directly would certainly kill you…but perhaps brushing past it mightn’t. Sometimes it was a bit of a lottery and I remember banging my head on the keyboard in frustration as time and time again I lost because I couldn’t quite squeeze past this seemingly arbitrary gap. Upon reflection, however, this feature cannot really be looked so much as a flaw in code so much as a vital aspect of the game.
No game with such a premise would really be complete without those risky unnecessary temptations - and these come in the form of various treasures scattered about in dangerous locations. They’re worth a lot of points…but what good are points if you die? In later levels, multiple treasure boxes are scattered in various locations, offering the player a choice between the risk of running out of time taking a safe, long path, or a risk of becoming stuck on the grass but finding a treasure just beyond. Speaking of levels, the progression of difficulty of levels was actually pretty well done, and I must say that the balance of risk and difficulty, and the allocation of lives was fairly balanced.
