Acorn Arcade - PD games - I to P

PD GAMES REVIEWS
A to H, I to P, Q to Z, Index.
On this page: Kryten 98, Plig, Mars Quake, PushyII

By Arm 'd and Dangerous
Rating: GOOD
Max. players ... 1
Status ... freeware Kryten 98

Kryten 98 was written by Robert Titman (G_Elf) and is one of the new Arm'd and Dangerous PD releases. You play the role of Kryten (of Red Dwarf fame) on who wakes up after rebooting to find himself alone in empty quarters. Your mission is to find and revive the rest of the crew.
The game is a fairly basic text adventure game, with a simple to use yet effective parser. On bootup a strange mix of the Red Dwarf theme tune is loaded, this alone being reason enough to download the game. The game contains 155 rooms and 84 objects. The locations range from a "little boys' room" to a vat of dogs' milk. Interaction with characters from the main series and the first two books is also possible.
The game plays well, and it is fairly easy to get started. The descriptions and interactions are riddled with in-jokes from the TV series. The game is fairly simple to complete, though some parts can take a while to work out, such as how to speak to the Toaster. However, for anyone who has played Secret Garden or Colossal Cave, it is comparable yet the puzzles are not as abstract.
The only real problem with the game is that some knowledge of the Series is required to complete some of the puzzles. Getting started is fairly easy, and the game does get harder, but could do to be a bit larger, with more interaction with the characters.
Approximate duration of 2 weeks for a begginer to the genre, and 3 days for an experienced adventurer who knows the series. It took me about 6 days to complete.
A good game, and fun to play, but it is let down slightly as there are too few locations and interactions. I look forward to more from the author.

By Paul Taylor
Rating: GOOD
Max. players ... 4
Status ... freeware
MarsQuake Boom:Deluxe
This game is a Bomber Man clone. Your task is to drop bombs around a playing area to destroy the rubble created by some huge explosion. The game is, however, a lot more difficult than that because there are various kinds of robot and pipes which will take your explosions to different areas of the screen!
This games would have been awarded the full five stars, had it not included a very tedious menu system where about 7 menus must be worked through in order to start a game. Other than that minor niggle, the playability is excellent and as usual, I awarded an extra star for the multi-player modes.
The "Boom:Deluxe" part of the title indicates that this is the second version of the game following its release on an Acorn User cover disc some time ago. Improvements in the latest version include:

RISC OS front end
Level editor
Computer players
Serial link option
Enhanced sound effects
Several bugs fixes

By Skullsoft

Rating: GOOD
Max. players ... 1
Status ... freeware Plig
Plig is a very simple game, you control a cute looking character who must be guided around a screen, collecting tokens. However, if this sounds too simple, there is a twist, you can only change direction when stationary. This means that the solid objects scattered around the screen must be used to stop your character and change his direction. Later levels include flames which are deadly on contact and also more restricting time limits.
The game has very good graphics and amusing sound effects which add to the already excellent game-play. The game can be downloaded from the link above or can be found on the Acorn User CD no.3 in the 'funland' directory.

By R Fred Williams
Rating: COOL
Max. players ... 1
Status ... freeware Pushy II
Pushy is a sliding-block puzzle game. The idea of the game is to ensure that each cross on the floor is covered by one of the wooden crates which are dotted about the playing area. You are represented by the small, purple bouncy thingy visible in the screenshot below. The author of this game, Fred Williams describes this game as a "Kid's game". I don't agree because so far I have been unable to complete the 25 levels included although my friends claim to have been able to! Overall this is a very good game and I got hooked on it and spent hours trying to complete the damn thing! This game also takes advantage of the 24bit and hi-res screen modes available to owners of Risc PCs with sufficient V-RAM.