Ruff ‘n’ Tumble - Review
(Renegade Software, Commodore Amiga Game, 1994)
There’s no accounting for popularity. Being popular often has less to do with quality and more to do with clever marketing and being in the right place at the right time. Some achieve greatness while others that more than match them are relegated to be lesser known ‘also rans’. How many music artists enjoy multiple hits when their level of talent is questionable at best? Some authors churn out novel after novel with only a modicum of ability. And some really quite average games have been elevated to legendary status, whereas others worthy of sitting in the top division are rarely mentioned.
As an example, Zool is often cited as a fine example of an Amiga ‘platform shoot-em-up’ game; whereas I find it particularly unremarkable. Conversely, Ruff ‘n’ Tumble seldom finds itself listed in the top charts of ‘mig games. It may be because it was an Amiga exclusive and therefore didn’t benefit from the greater coverage that other multi-platform games would have enjoyed, but nonetheless I am surprised that it is not more widely appreciated.
Ruff ‘n’ Tumble was produced by Renegade Software in 1994. It is a platform shoot-em-up that sees Ruff Rogers running and jumping his way around the various levels, shooting bad guys and collecting his lost coloured marbles which open the exits. He starts armed with a machine gun (it is unclear what a small boy is doing with a machine gun, there are clearly safeguarding issues in play here; I didn’t ask and suggest you don’t either) and collecting power-ups will upgrade the gun to more powerful alternatives such as a laser, rocket launcher or flamethrower (ok, I was prepared to turn a blind eye to the machine gun but this is getting silly. Where are the parents? Has anyone got the number for Social Services?). The weapon power-ups are time limited and soon revert to the standard and much less effective machine gun, so picking the correct moment to collect them becomes increasingly strategically important. The gun has unlimited ammunition, but firing for too long causes it to overheat and your fire rate slows (similar to the gun mechanics used in Walker) so shooting in controlled bursts is the best way to go.
There are four worlds to complete; Fantasy Forest, Underground Mine, Tinhead Factory and Dr Destiny’s Castle. Each has four levels and an end of level boss. There are ladders to climb, tricky jumps to negotiate and keys to collect that open previously inaccessible areas which often reward you with a plethora of extra goodies, such as gun power-ups, health and points. And of course as is standard, there are vast numbers of enemies to dispatch along the way.
Gameplay is hard. Fair, but really pretty hard. With an absence of a selectable difficulty level it is likely that only the most committed player will get to see the later worlds. The bad guys take several hits to kill, meaning that a careful approach to progression is necessary. That said, there is enormous satisfaction in picking your way through and completing each level. The reward on finishing a world is an appointment with one of the end of level bosses, who are bastard hard, harder than calculus; making the level gameplay look like a walk in the park in comparison.
Graphically it looks great, the levels are bright, colourful, well drawn and very well animated. Movement is impressively smooth and your controls are precise, though ‘up to jump’ is always irritating in a platform game. Presumably there was little choice given that the fire button is used for your weapon. The in-game music is a fairly unpleasant techno affair and is best turned off (thankfully this is one of only two choices in the options menu, the other being to enter a level password). With the music muted, the sound effects do their job more than adequately, but you do become aware that your gun fires completely silently, only making noise when you are hitting an enemy, which is odd. There is also no sound effect for when you take a hit, again feeling like a strange omission.
Overall though, this is an excellent game. Good fun, well programmed with really clever level design and, depending on your point of view, either providing a real challenge or alternatively sitting just on the wrong side of being too hard. If it came with greater options (in particular a selectable difficulty) and the minor sound issues had been addressed, it would be scoring well into the 90% range and giving the likes of Turrican 2 and Gods a real run for their money for the top spot in this category. As it is, it is solid platform fun, sitting firmly in the premier division of such games and, for my money, trampling all over the likes of Zool.
Well worth a look. Extremely good but, unfortunately, just short of brilliant.
Graphics - 92%
It looks great; colourful, well animated and very smooth.
Sounds - 79%
The in game music is repetitive and unpleasant but it can be turned off. The sound effects do their job well, though it is strange that there is no sound to accompany your gun firing and Ruff taking hits.
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Grab-Factor - 88%
​Very easy to pick up and go. There is nothing particularly new here, so getting to grips with the game is straightforward.
Playability - 84%
​Very playable and a lot of fun, although the less-skilled player may well struggle with the difficulty level.
Verdict - 86%
AG 08/09/2021
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© Words and pictures copyright grapeswriting.com
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Alfred Chicken - Review
(Mindscape, Commodore Amiga Game, 1993)
An egg-cellent platformer or a one chick pony? Alan finds out…
Have you seen the reboot of the UK pop music /comedy quiz show Never Mind the Buzzcocks? I loved the original from the mid 1990s, so when it was re-commissioned I tuned in with high expectations. Unfortunately, the show introduced Daisy May Cooper as a team captain and many complained that her hysterical shrieking and excessive (seemingly fake) laughter made the programme a hard watch. It is a real pity when something that is largely excellent is potentially spoiled by just one thing…
Turn off and do something more interesting instead
Such was my irritation, I turned off and fired up Alfred Chicken. The game was developed by Twilight and published by Mindscape in 1993, for the Amiga, CD32 and other platforms. It is a cute, colourful platform game featuring Alfred, who is, as I am sure you can guess, of poultry descent.
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Now I will lay my cards on the table here, I do like a platform game. I have played and reviewed many and it is probably my favourite genre. And on the face of it, this one ticks all those required boxes to make a very good one. Cute, appealing main character? Tick. Bright, colourful levels? Tick. Intuitive and responsive controls? Tick. It seems to have every base covered, so I wondered why it is not lauded as one of the leading examples of its kind on the ‘Mig. Let’s find out...
First impressions
I’ll start with a moan. The game comes on two disks, but it doesn’t recognise a second drive. During booting, once disk two is inserted, everything stops, the screen goes completely black and nothing happens for really quite a long time. Just as you are contemplating resetting everything, suddenly you are asked for disk one again and then the game finally bursts into life. Hmmm.
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However, slightly unfriendly loading process aside, first impressions are good. The title screen is bright and colourful, and allows for an immediate game start, or alternatively you can access the options. These include the choice of a variety of music tracks and also alternative sound effects. There is a selectable number of retries too, for those that want to dial the difficulty up or down.
Cock a hoop
Once into the game, it is all rather splendid. The graphics are bright and crisp, if a little simplistic, but I love this look in a platform game. Being colour (shade) blind I certainly prefer a game to have a simple clean appearance, rather than displaying a zillion colours and 30 layers of parallax scrolling.
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Alfred is adorable and has real character, strutting around with genuine ‘chicken’ personality, if that can be a thing. He has to explore eleven stages set across six level types - two each of Cheese, Baby, Glass, Wood and Book, and then a final Sci-Fi level. His task is to find a number of balloons and release them by pecking the strings. He has a very pleasing and controllable jump (of variable height, dependent on the length of button press) and while he can’t fly, he flaps his wings to slow his descent (just like a real chicken!) and you can control him nicely. If you jump and then pull down, he will perform a dive bomb, which can be used to kill enemies or smash breakable blocks.
Make sure you eggs-plore
As you explore you will encounter spring loaded platforms that propel Alfred to reach the higher areas of a stage. He can collect gems for points and if he finds a watering can it awards an extra life. There are doorways that take you to new areas, where you may find bonus items or switches to activate certain blocks. You can collect a spinning worm thing that protects you, and pots of jam that enable you to fire blobs of jam to kill the bad guys and also reveal hidden platforms.
To help you, there is a clear status bar that shows your score, remaining lives, and how many balloons and gems are left on the current stage. There are also numerous (and very well hidden) secret areas. These don’t have to be found to complete a stage but stumbling upon one is always a fun bonus!
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And that’s pretty much it; it’s all fairly standard platform fare. The levels are well themed with a good variety of locations and it all hangs together very well. So far, so good.
Bad eggs
Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that irk, and one in particular does threaten to spoil the recipe. Firstly, when you jump to dive-bomb an enemy, a bigger jump sometimes takes you just high enough to scroll your target down off-screen out of view. Since most of them are on the move, this introduces a little calculated guesswork when aiming your attacks and makes scoring a direct hit just a tad harder than it needs to be. And this matters - because if you miss a bad guy, even by a fraction, they can walk into you while you lay there stunned, resulting in instant death.
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And that’s the big one. I HATE instant death. Any slight brush with anything bad and Alfred explodes in a cloud of feathers (and expletives from me) and back we go, either to the stage start or the last balloon released.
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Nearly every platformer allows a margin for error. Titles such as Superfrog, Gods, Turrican ll, Rough and Tumble or Zool all allow a player to take a number of hits before losing a life, and health power-ups can be collected during play. But poor Alfred has no health bar, so has to tiptoe through the game knowing that even the slightest mistake will be punished, instantly and terminally. Considering that the title is apparently aimed towards the younger market, you can’t help but wonder whether this level of required precision was such a good idea.
Missed opportunity?
To be fair, there is an awful lot right with Alfred Chicken. While appearing a little basic it still looks great. It sounds really good. Your character is full of personality, and control is largely excellent. It features large levels with a ton of secrets to find, and playing for the most part is good fun.
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There is good variation in the bad guys and while the gameplay doesn’t deviate hugely (though you do occasionally don a snorkel and go exploring underwater) the changing level themes do keep things interesting. It isn’t the longest game in the world but it does get pretty tough, so you definitely won’t finish it in a weekend.
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But, a couple of gameplay issues do make it more frustrating to play than it should be. And there is no getting around this; the instant death issue is very much the ‘Daisy May Cooper’ of Alfred Chicken. It might not spoil it completely, but you do find yourself wondering just how good things could have been had it not been there.
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Shame.
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Graphics – 83%
They won’t win any awards but they are simple, crisp, clear and everything I want from a platform game. Any game that starts with a cheese-themed first level gets a thumbs-up from me!
​Sound – 84%
The music is perfect and the option to choose your in-game music and sound effects is novel and a nice touch.
​Grab factor – 80%
Easy enough to get going, but a more straightforward first level would help to ease the lesser skilled player in more gently.
​Playability – 73%
In most respects it is a well designed, well programmed and fun to play platformer, but why not give Alfred a health bar? Instant death tips the challenging/annoying balance just a little too far in the wrong direction.
Verdict 80%
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AG - October 2023
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Featured in Amiga Addict magazine, issue 27.
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© Words and pictures copyright grapeswriting.com
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