It's just occurred to me: I've not reviewed a platformer yet! Let's put that right and dig out a copy of Treasure Tower, an offering from David Newton that's approaching its second birthday (the game, that is, not Mr Newton himself).
Bugger. Missed them all.
Treasure Tower is a a pretty straightforward little game: run and jump around a succession of screens, collect the goodies and avoid the hazards, all while attempting to beat the clock. As far as premises go, it's one of the tried and tested; a mainstay of the 8- and 16-bit eras. Why rewrite a hit, to coin a phrase.
It's a shame I'm crap at platformers, really, isn't it? Sonic, Mario, Jet Set Willy, you name it, if the star of a platformer hadn't died by falling down a pit, he expired from shame. I'm sure the lead character of Treasure Tower has experienced similar pangs by now. The fact that the poor little bastard has to croak to the tune of various ragtime standards really can't help.
More galling still is that bloody timer. As time begins to run out, the sound of a heart beat starts up; always good for heightening tension. I expected no less from Newton either, the bastard. Like me, he's a fan of Knightmare, and there are plenty of traces of that long-lamented game show here. The flickering skull-shaped ghosts; the occasional food items to restore the rapidly depleting timer; the adventurer's dissolution into a skeleton when time finally runs out. But then again, Knightmare got a load of that from Atic Atac, originally…
There's a lot about this game that'll strike a chord with gamers of a certain age. The character you control moves like and resembles Magic Knight from the old Spellbound games. Or at least his normal-head-sized cousin. Who happened to be a spaceman. Okay, it's a bad comparison but don't worry, it's over now. There are resonances of past gaming experiences littered throughout the whole game. Some of the rooms are even decorated with pictures depicting moments from past platform games, all of which I was unmitigatedly bad at playing.
It's quite a jolly little game, all told; it harks back to the Public Domain games one could get for the Amiga, years ago. I've always had a soft spot for the cheaper games; the stuff that was available only by mail order, or Mastertronic's M.A.D. range. What games like that may have lacked in development budget, they more than made up for with spirit, which Treasure Tower has. Some of the levels are fiendishly hard; not impossible, but certainly nasty enough to give the player a glimmer at the designer's twisted, evil, sadistic side, which is no bad thing.
Springs and Things
As you progress through the game, things tend to get more complex. Once you complete the first tower and get your score up, you unlock more advanced levels and different styles of play, featuring more moving hazards, spikes, springs, conveyor belts, ice and worse. Be prepared to gape in horror as these features and more contrive to catapult your little bloke uncontrollably across the screen, straight into the chasm, draining more precious seconds from your all-too-brief game clock. And if that wasn't hard enough, food becomes scarcer and scarcer, and one wrong move can make all the difference between making it up to the next level of the tower or ending the game there and then!
Although the basic gameplay mechanic is the same throughout, dividing the game up into different sections, each with different objectives or difficulties, means Treasure Tower has a bit more longevity than other cheap-'n'-cheerful runny-jumpy-collecty-games of its ilk. I don't often enjoy platformers (being rubbish at them has discouraged me somewhat over the years) but I've found myself wanting to stick at this one, just to see what each new mode of play entails. But then, unlockable sections will do that to a man; they offer a bit more of a target than just getting to the end.
Replayability and longevity seem to be two of Treasure Tower's aims: no two games are alike, especially because the screens in each game are picked at random.
Dead again. I seem to end up like this a lot.
That's the one point about the game that I just can't like, no matter how hard I try. While having no two games the same does give the game more replay value, It makes it more difficult to plot optimal courses through each level: all the more important since the game is on a timer. On a couple of instances I've had the time run out just as I've started a level, with a morsel of food a mere handful of pixels away. The option to toggle that randomness on or off would have been nice. Then again, I'm biased; one of the principles I like to see in action is the idea of a game rewarding mastery. Even if that's just the opportunity to get through screens quicker because you know them like the back of your hand.
As off-putting as I found that feature, though, it wasn't enough to make me stop playing!
| Author | David Newton | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Windows | |
| Reviewers | Phil Smith | |