Reviews

Higgledy Piggledy was the first game I bought when I returned to the Spectrum scene a few years ago. I found it on the Cronosoft site and duly placed my order and waited excitedly for the cassette to arrive in the post!

Upon loading, I couldn't believe my eyes. The colour-clash problems I was expecting failed to materialise and there is smooth scrolling and impressive animation of sprites such as the tumbling effect applied to Earwig once he encounters a porcine friend. The pig's head life meter is an amusing touch - until it turns into a can of spam!

I personally took a while to figure out what it was that you are supposed to do, but that is half the fun! The first level is simple enough once you realise that you can pick up and drop blocks, and that the pigs you are herding take a ninety degree turn once they hit a block or wall. After the first few levels the difficulty gradually increases as you must plan more carefully the route(s) the herd will take to the teleport. Later levels raise the difficulty further as the miniature black hole randomly rearranges your hard work...

Sounds effects are limited but include sounds for when you are hit by a moving pig or when your pick up or drop blocks.

Overall though, well worth the money and highly recommended.

I like Jonathan Cauldwell's games a lot, but unfortunately this one is probably my least favourite of all of them.

The game combines good old platform jumping with plenty of mental arithmetic. An interesting combination of ideas to say the least, with smooth animation and good use of bright/non-bright blocks for shading but not a great deal in the way of sound.

However, I found that I spent too much time waiting for the right combination of truck carts to appear and they would often be stuck too close to walls for me to get behind them to nudge them into position which tends to reduce the urge to try again. When that urge does decide to take me again, I'll see if I can ever get past level 4...

Worth a go if you like platform games and are up for a challenge but if you've not seen one of JC's Egghead or Izzy games then you might want to try those first.

[EDIT: After many attempts, I gave up on level 4 and instead worked out an infinite time POKE - see The TipShop for details. After level 4, things get much easier again!]

I discovered a pre-release demo of this game on my divIDE card at the weekend and subsequently downloaded the release version from WoS. I proceeded to spend all my free time for the entire weekend on it!

The game reminds me of Tetris but to describe it as a clone is an injustice. There is no look-ahead feature for the next block but instead there is a sound effect to notify you of the titular Buzzsaw that gratuitously and messily (!) removes "creatures" from the play area. The first few levels are slow enough that you have plenty of time to set up a chain of creatures for the buzzsaw to rip through (!) but by the time you get to level 8 or 9 there is not much time to think at all!

There are subtleties to work out too with ton(ne) weights appearing and working out which direction the buzzsaw will take off in but I'm still trying to figure out how to make the starburst appear at will!

All that text and I still haven't mentioned the glorious multi-colour graphics that would have made the author a fortune if released in the Spectrum's heyday! An excellent game.

This game is denienced but that's not a problem for me as I've bought all the Cronosoft-published stuff!

I can't remember which arcade game this is based on but I think I remember JC saying he wrote this game because he wanted his own version.

It's a vertically scrolling game with your cowboy shooting at enemies who appear from the top of the screen and at windows in buildings to the sides. It starts off slowly and builds up pace. I like this game because you can dip in and out playing a level at a time, using emulator saves for next time!

I bought this game from Cronosoft years ago and remember at first always running out of money. Then I got into it and couldn't put it down!

I've come back to it tonight after many years away and while the game looks basic with its UDGs, there is something really quite gripping about laying out the park and balancing your budget... Recommended!