Personal Compuer Games


Jungle Trouble

Author: WD
Publisher: Durell
Machine: Spectrum 16K

 
Published in Personal Computer Games #2

Jungle Trouble

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, trouble has always lurked amidst the trees. There are only four trees in Durell Software's jungle, so that its more of a Light Savannah Trouble that's offered. Trouble it is, nevertheless.

The trees appear at the second level of the game, which has three levels in all, and which constitute an assault course which must be covered as soon as possible to reach home.

First, your man collects an axe and has to jump along a line of stepping stones across a river. If he falls in, a crocodile appears pretty snappily.

From there, a ladder leads to the second level, and this is where the axe comes in handy. Your man has to chop down the trees in turn, a task hindered by the axe becoming blunt and a monkey coming to steal it.

If the axe gets completely blunt, you have to go back to the beginning of level one, and collect a new one. If in the course of chopping down all the trees, one hasn't fallen on him, your man climbs another ladder, and thence must swing across a pit of fire, and make an Olympic leap over a chasm which suddenly yawns open.

Jungle Trouble gives you three lives and four speeds to play at, and all movements of your figure are controlled by the cursor control keys, which have been well chosen.

The game is written in machine code, and it shows. It's an attractive game which offers a variety of challenges and a fair amount of initial frustration.

The graphics especially are interesting. In other games, figures move about like wooden dummies on wheels, but in Jungle Trouble, your matchstick man runs, leaps, jumps, and falls as if in a professional animation. You can even study his leg movements.

Similarly, the monkeys are truly mischievous, they scratch their heads and tap you on the shoulder before they rob you.

In fact, attention to detail is good everywhere. The state of the axe is illustrated on the bottom of the screen, and you can watch it becoming blunter - until it looks like a rotten, gnarled tooth.

Jungle Trouble is amusing. It clearly demonstrates that being a Tarzan-like lumberjack is at least as exciting as being a starship commander.

WD

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