You are Krazy John, the screen instructions inform you, the foolhardy climber, and you are stuck in a burning building. It's a rehash of the exhausted ladders and levels theme - and time to start groaning I suppose.
The game is a hybrid machine code and BASIC game - running left and right has a sort of jerky 8 pixel jump feel to it; jumping is a smooth-scrolling machine code routine. You need the jump to sail over the little fireballs that patrol each of the platforms - they are easily avoided with a well-timed jump, but as the time ticks down they multiply and, as the levels get higher, they multiply at a speedier rate.
To complete a level you need to heatbutt ten yellow squares that hang from the girders. Yes, I did say squares; the programmer's imagination obviously deserted him. No coins a la Drain Mania or balloons a la Boxer - nope, an 8x8 matrix of plain boring binary ones.
Still, the screen itself is rendered in Mode 2, so you do get all seven colours displayed - and the layout is logical with a header featuring score, time, hi-score and lives count and the main action taking place below.
To give it its due I also have to make the point that it's not a bad game. It's not too difficult and it's not too easy. You have to formulate a plan to reach the top left-hand corner - and you have to make sure that you don't take too long getting there.
The trouble is it's all just too, well, samey. There's simply no variety - you leap the fireballs and, whether you win or lose, you start a new level and have to leap the fireballs again. Yes, the level layout changes - but attention-grabbing variety is very much Missing In Action. So much so in fact that after winning two screens I just couldn't really be bothered to play the third.
Krazy John is sort of like the very poor cousin, twice removed, to Killer Gorilla or Drain Mania. A few hammers to smash the fireballs up with or an adversary racing you to the final ladder would have worked wonders on the gameplay. Alas, without them, the game is decidedly underwhelming.
Krazy John was written by John Wilson and is available on the Your Computer 4.06 companion disc. It runs on a BBC with PAGE at &1900.
30th October 2010
