Game Identification

[Tab]

Hi all,

There is only one game that I played as a child that I don't remember the name of, and that I have not been able to find in the (many) years of random searching. I have attached a drawing of it and will try and give a detailed description.



You played a ball or a marble, and an isometric floor of panels/squares scrolled under you, as if you were walking down a hall way in the first person. I think you and the floor were floating in space. Some tiles were missing and you had to jump left and right as the floor passed under you to avoid the gaps. Some squares did special things, like causing you to jump to the ceiling where the controls for left and right were reversed, and then another tile would make you jump back to the floor. Some would speed you up etc...

In my mind I remember it being amazing and would spend hours playing it. If anyone knows what is called I would be forever grateful.

Thanks
Tab

[Alessandro]

Trailblazer and Plexar are those that spring to my mind from your description.

[Tab]

Trailblazer and Plexar are those that spring to my mind from your description.

Ah wow, both of those look really familiar. It must be my memory because neither of them seem 'quite" right. Trailblazer doesn't have the jumping to the ceiling element, but has the automatic scrolling floor. Plexar has the ceiling element and to be honest really looks like what I remember, but you seem to walk yourself through the floor, it doesn't move automatically which is what I recall?? I also don't recall any other game elements like the top down view in Plexar. I think it could be my memory though as Plexar seems like it is probably it.

Plexar it is!!

Thanks so much.
Tab

Edit: Just watched a walk-through again and yep, it is definitely Plexar!

[schneil]

There's also Eliminator on Hewson.

[Morkin]

...Reversing control keys was always a right evil b*stard thing to do to a player IMO (like those orchids in Sabre Wulf).

For me it's the text adventure equivalent of "You are thirsty", "You are hungry", "You have died of thirst..."

[Joefish]

Yep. Plexar has both modes. There's a floor + ceiling maze/puzzle mode where you have full control of moving in or out of the screen.
Then there's a race mode where the scrolling is continuous. But control over your character is slow and these stages are nowhere near as playable as Trailblazer. And you really need to play Trailblazer on a machine with better control of its colours than the Speccy has, as stippled tiles just don't have the same impact!

Now here's a challenge for a multicolour game engine: do a Trailblazer road with 8x1 multicolour in the upper, narrow part, switching to 8x2 multicolour as the road widens...