Blast Annual


Gluf The Tesla Frog

Author: John Davies
Publisher: BitmapSoft
Machine: Spectrum 48K/128K

 
Published in Blast Annual 2020 Volume 1

Gluf The Tesla Frog

You must guide Gluf the Tesla Frog around the power blocks, charging them up by jumping on them when you have energy gained from battery blocks, avoiding nasties who also roam around the stages of this never ending platformer.

Developer: Denis Grachev

Denis Grachev has released over twenty ZX Spectrum titles dating back to 1998 under the RetroSouls (Russia) label. Some of the recent game releases include Twinlight (2017), Tourmaline (2016) and a scene demo called 'Invader' which was entered into the DiHalt 2018/LowEnd 256b Intro contest.

Gameplay

Controls to play are Q,A,O,P and M or Space to fire. Sinclair 1 or 2, and Kempston sticks can also be used. Keys Q and A can also be used to view above and below the current play area, when not on an elevator. The Enter key toggles music on or off.

Gluf

The title screen is actually the first stage of the game and works as a brief tutorial as does the second stage. Each is accessed via a little blue door which is also used as the stage exit when it flashes. The aim of the game is to hop onto each circuit block to charge it up, if you have enough energy to do so. If you don't, you can boost your energy, shown in the bottom right of the screen, by hopping onto a battery block.

Each time you charge a circuit block your energy loses a unit. The exit can be entered once you have charged all the circuit blocks in the stage. To travel up and down you can use energy elevators. These flash when being used by Gluf or an enemy. There is no jumping in this game, only falling when there's no block underfoot. But be careful not to fall off the bottom row of blocks or it's into oblivion you go. Some blocks disappear when you hop off them so they can only be used once.

The play area scrolls so stages can be the size of more than a single screen. You must avoid flying saucers, patrolling bug-eyed things and roaming meanies who make full use of the blocks and energy elevators. After a number of stages the music changes and so do the graphics for the stage blocks and the nasties.

Gluf

A nasty that can teleport is also introduced in the second phase of stages. It took me a while to realise you cannot die in this game. If you fail to complete a stage it simply restarts and loops forever until you finish the game. It's a weird concept, no score, no game over, no going back to the first stage.

If you wanted to restart the game from stage one you'd have to reset and reload the game. I'm still in two minds about this style of play. However, it would definitely release more memory for other game elements to use, such as sprites or screens.

Likes

Simple and addictive gameplay. The graphics are amazing, making use of some kind of rainbow colours engine - bifrost maybe? Whatever it is called, it blew me away.

Gluf

All of the characters in the game are well designed, some are very cute indeed. Music is very catchy with an on/off toggle for players of different tastes. In-game spot effects are run of the mill, but still charming enough.

Dislikes

There's no indication of which stage you are on. I think there's around 25 in all. Also the teleporting nasty can be a bit annoying when it teleports directly onto your head without warning.

Verdict

Fluid gameplay, colourful graphics and a couple of original concepts, tied in with some more familiar ones, make this an ecstatic, electrically charged, extravaganza in my book.

John Davies

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