Producer: Bug-Byte
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Albert Ball

You are in low spirits - no, really you are, because your archenemy the dreaded and ugly Rapscallion the Rogue has seized your crown and castle and thrown you in the dungeon to rot. Aren't you feeling low?

So starts Bug-Byte's new arcade adventure. Fortunately, there are a lot of friends around to help including the fairy princess who comes to you in the dungeon and turns you into a bird so that you can escape and begin your counter-attack. From here on in you are into a large maze type game which requires nimble fingers, quick thinking and has overtones of an adventure.

Rapscallion isn't just a maze game. It certainly contains small mazes, many of them, but each of the many screens is interlinked to form a larger maze. In each screen something different happens. There's the dining room with two gigantic faces, their mouths opening and closing, ready to catch the unwary entrant from the door of another room, there's the fiery furnace, the snake pit, the danger maze, arsenal and so on. Basically the labyrinth is split into three 'domains', the Wilderness, the Magic Labyrinth and finally the Castle. In the wilderness your quest is to find the key to the magic labyrinth. To do this you will need the power to see it and the magic shield to protect you from the sleepy guard. In the labyrinth you must find the pixie with magic eye which will enable you to see the three wizards who guard the castle entrance. You get into the castle when the drawbridge is lowered, but that will alert Rapscallion who knows you have escaped and is on the rampage.

Throughout the quest you make take the form of a bird or a fly. Each has its own advantages and drawbacks. Flies have little trouble with cats but are in danger of spiders and frogs, whereas birds are in trouble with cats and falling spikes but aren't too worried about frogs and spiders. Changing from one to another costs you a life. On your route you will encounter pixies who may be helpful if they're in a good mood, and give you valuable information. Here and there you will see gems, which when touched may also offer up information or an extra life.

Rapscallion is hard to explain adequately, because it contains many inter-linked complications, which is what adds the adventure element. But the tape contains an insert with quite comprehensive instructions as to what to expect and how to play Rapscallion.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q or P/A or ENTER up/down, CAPS or SYM/SPACE or Z left/right, 1 or 0 to change
Joystick: ZX 2, Kempston, Fuller, Protek, AGF
Keyboard play: good positions, very responsive
Use of colour: very good and varied
Graphics: large, chunky, varied and smooth moving
Sound: excellent
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 6 at outset
Originality: very original

This is an exploring/adventure game. It has many locations which are very varied, which means the game has enough changes in it to make it exciting. The graphics are of a 'teletext' type, ie. chunky. This seems to work rather well. They call it an animated cartoon adventure. It's definitely a great animated explore but not a true adventure. I enjoyed it, think it will be a hit, and want to come back for more.

What surprised me at first with this game was the use of 'teletext' type graphics, which move in blocks! Despite this you have the advantage of moving smoothly. Several things in the game impressed me and surprised me - running into an electric force field allows you to move around the rooms at a much faster rate for a considerable time. Pixies seem to be very happy and informative and these add a nice touch to the otherwise aggressive game. I think that this game has many adventure qualities where several items must be found before finding your way into the next stage. Sound and colour have been well used. A game that is enjoyable with long lasting appeal.

A neat touch occurs when you lose a life. You turn into a ghost. No you're not exactly dead, in fact you carry on wandering around the place without getting harmed by anything. On the other hand you can't do anything towards finishing the game either, so it's back to your body, press the change key, and hey presto, you're back again, bird, fly whichever. The graphics loot more like the blown up drawings of Spectrum graphics you see on a designer's pad than the ones we are used to - a bit like those used on Oracle or Ceefax on TV. Very clever, but all quite well animated and detailed. Rapscallion has a lot going for it with all the locations and does require a bit of forward thinking to make best use of your lives/ changes to get through. Original and playable with quite a lot of addictivity. I would recommend it as a good game, although overall I wasn't sure whether to be impressed by the graphics or disappointed - not that they spoil the game anyway.

JAIL BIRD ESCAPES

Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95
Joystick: Kempston, Fuller, Protek, Interface 2

Described as an animated cartoon adventure Rapacallion from Bug-Byte is more a series of hazardous arcade screens interlinked and controlled by a central theme. The villain Rapscallion has stolen the title deeds to your castle and hurled you into the dungeon. A fairy princess turns you into a bird which enables you to escape.

From the dungeon you move through an assortment of rooms each of which contains various human, animal or physical dangers. Your aim is to find gems and informative pixies.

In the first section, the Wilderness, the task is to find a key to the Magic Labyrinth and a shield which will protect you from the guard. Once that is achieved the wizards who protect the castle gate must be approached, again after many dangers. If you avoid Rapscallion and enter the castle you will then need a magic wand to defeat him and win the deeds.

In all the sections you must trace and enlist the aid of friendly magical creatures. Losing a life turns you into a ghost. That lets you explore the screens of the current section unharmed but to continue the exploration properly your ghost must be reunited with your body. Making a map is recommended. In each new game the helpers and gems which give help are relocated.

Although the graphics seem rather blocky, the range of obstacles is enormous. There is also a save-game option. The graphics are not as sophisticated as Atic-Atac or Manic Miner but Rapscallion is still a difficult and complex game.

PASS THE FLIT

MAKER:
FORMAT: cassette
PRICE: £x.95

Decidedly lightweight 'animated adventure' from the home of Boris the Bee. Rapscallion, the ugly rogue, has usurped your kingdom and incarcerated you within his dungeons. All seems lost until a passing fairy princess bestows the gift of transmutation upon you (as is their wont). Suddenly strange powers course through your veins. With barely a thought you can become an eagle or a fly. Revenge will be yours! With a dull pop you take the guise of a bluebottle and, er, fly.

There are three areas of play, the Wilderness, the Magic Labyrinth and the Castle, and each comprises several screens. However this large pitch seems to have been turfed at the expense of such old fashioned values as sound 'n' vision. The graphics in particular are exceptionally crude. Real Legoland stuff. Obstacles are equally limp (fogs to eat the fly!) It's possible they grow in stature once you penetrate the castle but who wants to stick around that long? Not many, I suspect.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Sinc, Curs, Fuller
FROM: Bug-Byte, £6.95

'You are in low spirits.' And it's not surprising, considering that nasty Rapscallion has pinched your crown and castle and thrown you into the dungeon. Not even landlords behave like that.

So the object of this 'fully animated cartoon adventure' is to get back what's yours. A Fairy Princess enters your dungeon, releases you from the ball and chain and grants you six lives as either bird or fly.

To get back your title deeds you will have to travel through three different areas full of peculiar perils: the Wilderness, the Magic Labyrinth and the Castle. These are made up of well over 50 locations.

In the Wilderness your task is to find the key to the Magic Labyrinth - you can't get in without it. Since there are 20 locations in the Wilderness it's no easy job.

In the Dining Room entrance and exit are guarded by gigantic, chomping jaws. Crazy tennis players await you in Anyone For Tennis. In Cat Alley there's a big cat who likes nothing better than a tasty bird for a snack. And so on each of the rooms has its own wacky dangers. In some, then, you will be better off as a bird while in others it's worth losing a life by changing into a fly. Lying around here and there are gems and charming pixies. Touching them will get you a bonus or some useful information.

Making a map is essential in Rapscallion - without it you'll never retrace your steps to the Labyrinth entrance. Once you've got the key and entered the Labyrinth you encounter a series of miniature arcade obstacles, including rampaging pacmen, aggressive brooms and a nasty minefield.

Rapscallion's graphics and animation are good, but not quite up to the standard of games such as Jet Set Willy and Sabre Wulf.

Maybe there's not as much to it as these games but at least it's not as bugged as JSW. The variety of dangers involved should keep you keep you happy for quite some time.

Bug Byte Ltd
Mulberry House
Canning Place
Liverpool
£6.95

A year ago this would have been hailed as a masterpiece. Now it is only a very good, clever game.

A multi-screen arcade adventure along the Atic Atac lines, the graphics are well done but not outstanding. Sound is good and animation is effective but sometimes a bit jerky.

Actually it's quite addictive. You can get started easily then discover the subtleties as you progress. I found myself trying again and again, perhaps that's the secret of an addictive game, make it look so easy that you KNOW you can do better next time.

The plot is very devious. Rapscallion the Rogue is your enemy and he's nicked your castle and left you chained up in the dungeon. The good fairy (J. Inman?) turns you into a bird of feathered variety and has given you six lives. By sacrificing a life you may transform yourself into a fly. This is needed if you get caught up in the net for instance, and changing back also costs a life. This is a superb touch.

Another ingenious idea is that when you die - a frequent happening at first - you are changed into a ghost and in this form can explore your surroundings with immunity. To continue your quest properly you have to get back to your body and press the character change key.

The game can, and often does, take a long time to play and so, unusual for this type of game, a "Save game" option is provided. However there is a penalty, if you play for a saved game then should you win you only get a leasehold to the castle and not the full deeds!

As I said, a devious game with many facets and I congratulate Bug Byte for the thought which has gone into this game. Although perhaps not as graphically exciting as some other games, the many variations in play and the planning a player has to do makes it one which will last for many many sessions.

The usual keyboard or selection of joystick options (including one usually forgotten Fuller) is provided, and I found that using a joystick helped to play this game.

Highly recommended!

RAPSCALLION RAP

New from Bug-Byte and tipped for the top comes Rapscallion - a multu-screen graphic adventure. Ross Holman finds out whether it lives up to the claims of being "the next Manic Minder"...

First impressions of games can easily be misleading, and this was certainly the case with Rapscallion. Described by Bug-Byte as a "fully animated cartoon adventure", you play the part of a usurped king who has had his crown and castle stolen by Rapscallion the Rogue - and as if this wasn't humiliation enough, he's then incarcerated in his own dungeon.

But help is at hand in the shape of a handy Fairy Princess. Not only does she set him free, she also turns him into a bird - giving him the ability to transform at will into a fly, while suffering only the loss of one of his six lives. Once in this bugged state you, the player, can control the character, moving around the forty-plus rooms of the castle (actually, I found 41 altogether) attempting to re-capture his rightful inheritance.

GRIPPING GRAPHICS?

The loading screen, now practically an art form for some companies, is not particularly gripping, but in its favour it does show some of the graphics used in the game. In fact, one unusual feature of much of the Rapscallion graphics is that they're drawn at half resolution - giving a similar chunky look as found on Commodore machines but without, of course, the multi-colour. It's hard to say whether this was done to create an individual style, or just used as a device to save memory; perhaps it was laziness! Anyway, after a long load, you're greeted by a page of instructions, followed by more and more. Sensibly, you have the option of skipping past them to the control options.

Wading through the instructions, you'll find all you need to know about the game. You discover there are three distinct sections, called The Wilderness, The Magic labyrinth and finally, The Castle itself. To progress on to the next level, you need to complete a set task; for example, to leave The Wilderness, you have to collect the key to The Magic Labyrinth. Some rooms contain large diamonds which, when touched, impart useful information; others have pixies jumping up and down on toadstools, who generously give you gifts.

You're offered a comprehensive list of joystick options - additionally, there are two keyboard control layouts. A nice touch is that you can SAVE your current status at any time during a game, then LOAD it in again to continue from where it left off. The trouble then is if you carry on to complete the game, you're only going to get a lease rather than full freehold of The Castle. One thing, though - you're only given the option to LOAD the SAVEd details once; just before the first game. If you want to play from the same point again, you'll have to reLOAD the whole game, which is very tedious.

IN THE WILDERNESS

Off we go, and the first thing we see is the Dungeon, complete with skeleton and Rapscallion the Rogue placing the king in chains. Up comes the Fairy Princess who turns him into a bird and then buzzes off (to coin a phrase). At the top of the screen, there's an indicator of lives left, current sector, and any objects you've collected or powers you possess; at the bottom is the name of the current room. Moving around, you soon realise that all the graphics move by cursor block stages and any animation only takes place over two frames - which is rather disappointing. With many of the timing and manipulative skills removed, Rapscallion is no Atic Atac or Jet Set Willy, even so, interest is maintained by the degree of complexity and variation - not to mention the large, colourful graphics.

Each room contains a number of large fixed graphics and sometimes large moving graphics. Cats, for example, are six by six cursors, and smaller Hi-res graphics (spiders, for instance) are two by two cursors. Gaps in a room's border signify doors to other rooms. Most graphics are harmless and you can move through them without damage; some (usually those falling from above) will slow you down... touching flames or sparks will speed you up. There's subtlety too, because some graphics will kill or affect you, depending on the guise you're in at the time; for instance, cats kill the bird but not the fly - flies on the other hand, get trapped in spider's webs and the only way out is to transform into a bird, losing a life in the process.

If you're killed you turn into a ghost, a condition that allows you to explore to your heart's content (and in the knowledge that no further harm can come to you). The trouble is, touching the gems or pixies will do you no good at all. To continue with the game proper, you just have to return to your physical form, via a press of the 'transform' key.

WHERE TO NOW?

Two things struck me in particular. First is the annoying, illogical way you leap from room to room. In The Wilderness sector there are 20 rooms to move through, each with a number of exits. But leaving (for example) the top left of one doesn't mean you'll appear in the top right of the room that should theoretically be next to it. You could appear on the bottom right of the room below it! These jumps from room to room are always the same, so mapping can be done (Thank goodness. Ed); it's just difficult to do graphically. The best approach is probably to make a list of rooms, their exits and where they lead to.

Then there's the humour... well, I suppose it has a 'silly' appeal. If you liked the idea of chomping toilets in Manic Miner then I'm sure elements of Rapscallion will go down well. One of my favourites is the Concorde's nest, showing two baby Concorde planes hatching from eggs and then growing in size as they zig-zag up the screen; then there are rooms where you find yourself in a game of blow football, or snakes and ladders.

Fast reactions and good co-ordination are not exactly de rigeur here, but that said you can't allow yourself to relax completely. Losing lives early on in the game must be avoided because some transformations between characters are unavoidable and it's very annoying to find further progress blocked for want of a couple more. You can, however, gain extra lives by finding and touching one of the pixies; the trouble is he won't always be in the same room. In fact, there are 16 different layouts for the gems and pixies, which supposedly mean 16 different adventures. In practice, though, the variation didn't seem to make much difference; as long as you seek out all the pixies on each level, there's no reason why you shouldn't progress fairly easily

MOVING ON...

Collect your key in The Wilderness and you'll gain instant access to The Magic Labyrinth - where your quest is to gain the power of the Magic Eye. Get that and you'll make three wizards visible, ticklish gents who have to be approached while resting. The rooms in this sector are more difficult to negotiate but there are fewer in number (just 14). Only when all three wizards have been enlisted to your cause can you enter The Castle.

That's when things really get confusing. Not only does each of the seven rooms have a number of standard exits, there are also secret passages which lead to different parts of the other rooms, many of which are partitioned off into small and restricting areas. And to make life even tougher, Rapscallion the Rogue has a habit of appearing in some rooms, should you hang around too long. He doesn't directly attack you - after all, why should he care if a bird or fly is roaming around his castle? Anyway, things like that definitely make the going tough once you start investigating The Castle itself.

The object you're after here is a Magic Wand and to help, first you'll need to dig out two genies. That may seem difficult as you jump randomly through the passages, but try taking it systematically and you'll soon learn the routes needed. Once you've gained the Magic Wand, all you have to do is find Rapscallion the Rogue and touch him. Do that and (assuming you didn't LOAD a SAVEd game) you'll have the freehold of your castle back and be restored to the throne. As permanent proof of your wondrous achievements, you can enter your name on the title deeds and SAVE it off as a SCREEN$.

SO WHAT?

Rapscallion may not have the wonderful graphics routines of so many of its contemporaries, but it's still fun to play. I managed to finish it after a few goes, so I'm not sure that true hardened games players will find it durable. On the other hand, it does have qualities which make it worth more than a passing glance.