Reviews

The gameplay is quite simple, but squashing the rat and the blood underneath the elevator is still hilarious.

People who like their 8-bit games to be multi-screened, varied and with depth aren't going to be impressed by this little 16K effort from 1984. It has a single screen, no high-score table and plays more like a Game & Watch title than anything. And yet, like many of those old liquid crystal display games, it's fun to play with numerous things you need to keep your eye on. The colourful, cartoony graphics simply add to the appeal. It's not all thumbs-aloft, though: it inevitably gets bit repetitive and the jam and apples seem to appear at set, rather than random, intervals which makes it all a bit tedious after a while.

Despite the faults this is still worth wasting some, if not a lot, of time on and trying to beat your high score, even though you'll have to write it on a piece of paper.

1984 - DK'Tronics (UK)
by Ed Hickman

Funny and original ideas always appealed to me.
And eating as much jam and apples as you can without getting fat doesnt seem by any means the plot to any game. But indeed is the purpose behind the humourous Apple Jam.
In the game if you get too fat you loose one of your diet pills and have to run to the sauna to slim off. While you're competing with Cyndi Crawford, a nasty rat will eat all the jam and apples you miss. It will became large and big and will came after you to bite your fat ass to death!
No problem! You still have the elevator lift, and you can use it to smash the rat as it passes down.
But beware of the giant hornet with its might deadly sting!

The humour in this is what makes it so good.

This game is bizarre and quite unique , but in a positive sense ... it has got funny touches and it is complex enough to keep you busy for a while .

The smiley main character is very amusing , the plot is as strange and humorous as a Laurel & Hardy film , the ambulance sequence reminds me of another spectrum game : Horace goes Skiing ,,,

All in all , a colorful and funny little game for the Spectrum with plenty of innocence in it -if we forget about the smashed rat sequence- ,,, :(

3,5 of valoration .

A disturbing and violent game from DK'Tronics, which makes me wonder if it's really worth it at all. The trials and tribulations of our nameless protagonist seem somewhat fruitless, even though the idea of the game is obviously to gorge yourself on countless piles of fruit, and sugary fruit by-product. The odds are stacked against you even if you're succeeding, eat too much and you get too fat and suffer a seizure, have 3 seizures and you use all your pills and die. It's OK though if you end up being a right fat twat you can slim off in the sauna. But while you're in the sauna the greedy rat that lives under the screen will eat what you miss and according to the instructions will "Get big and bold" and come up to "Bite you dead", you should also watch out for the hornet who will "Sting you dead" Ho ho the sadism is rife. The hornet will fly over your head if you're standing next to the lift, but the only way to escape it otherwise is to jump in the sauna. Oh yes the lift! When our big and bold friend comes up to bite you dead you can squash the little shit with the lift. Squashing the rat leaves a large smear of blood under the lift, well at first it kind of goes tits up and has a question mark in it, yes the first rat you kill leaves a nice blood stained question mark behind. After that though if you continue to squash rats more and more blood builds up until it starts to look like you've been using the lift to get rid of your victims bodies! Hang on! What victims? What bodies? I've said too much!

Basically the game is more hassle than it's worth really if eating apples and apple jam meant I was going to be swarmed with vermin and stinging insects whilst I got seizure inducingly morbidly obese in a matter of seconds, I think I'll stick to rice cakes, soy beans, and granola thank you.

The insanity aside the game is strangely addictive, even though it is a little crap and considerably warped. I'd say by 1984's standards that it was an OK game (and by DK'Tronics standards it's a bloody good game since they seemed to be one of the mightiest purveyors of complete shite software wise) quite fun for a while if a little frustrating at times, considering you only get one life. It's a good pick up and play game and you can find yourself playing it for longer than you intended to.

I'll give it 3/5 I'd have gave it more a few years back, but I really don't like it as much as I used to.

Not a game liklely to get a 3D sandbox adaptation for the modern era (sadly? thank goodness?)
The plot, as noted so arrestingly in reviews by The Dean of Games and dm boozefreek, is more than a little bizarre but probably went virtually unnoticed in the blur of far out experimental games scenarios of 1984.
Worth a look if you have always dreamt of being a jam guzzling rat splatting fatty-slim OCD hornet hater.