Previous Next

The average graphic adventure is a mix of endurance and deduction, but it's not often that this type of game format can be described as "hard". Yes, the puzzles within it can be hard, but the walking from item to item whilst jumping or shooting the quota of patrolling nasties rarely is. However, The Golden Figurine breaks the mould. This is truly a hard graphic adventure in every sense of the word.

The inlay tells you that your prized family heirloom, the titular golden figurine, has been stolen and locked in a secret vault which can only be unlocked by retrieving five keys. It also informs you, in a stunningly matter-of-fact way, that you are an orphan because every member of your family has already died trying to find the secret vault and retrieve the heirloom. Ok, I suppose, but the large-headed hero of The Golden Figurine looks about four years old... Would this figurine really be worth recovering to one so young?!

Mind you, I'm a bit suspicious of this whole premise anyway. The figurine looks more like a teddy bear to me. Maybe Atlantis renamed this from Cuddles' Search For Little Ted so tough nuts like me wouldn't leave it on the shelf.

In common with most graphic adventures, you can move left and right, jump, and pick up and drop the objects you find. In common with no other graphic adventure I've ever played, Toddlerman zips around the screens like he's being chased by a wild bull, unless walls or objects are in his path. These bring him to a grinding halt. A few screens into the game you find the so-called "secret" vault (making me wonder just how far these family members actually got!). The trouble is that, if you enter the vault without the keys, you can't get back out again and so, the game informs you in big double height text "You have failed in your quest".

You'll be informed of your failure quite regularly because the vault is just one of the places in which you'll be unceremoniously killed off through no real fault of your own. Your most likely method of demise comes from falling into a pit of spikes. These generally have a platform above them which float quickly from left to right but, unlike in real life, in The Golden Figurine, you have to walk *with* it. If you walk onto one and stand still, the platform will slip out from under you, leaving you to a particularly nasty impalement.

Other areas of the game are unfair through weirdness - in one location you can pick up a magic potion which will immediately give Toddlerman weightlessness. It's then a frantic race against time to move him left and right to float to the top of the platforms directly above him. If you don't make it, you'll fall back and the game will become uncompletable, hence "You have failed in your quest". In another location, a spring will send you flying directly into some overhead spikes unless you quickly move left and right to avoid them. Again, you'll end up failing in your quest at least once as a result.

Slipping and sliding around like the whole game takes place on an ice-rink is certainly different, but being killed off every couple of minutes is, unsurprisingly, not very motivating when there also looks to be a substantial quest within the game itself. Put simply, it's the type of game where you could invest thirty minutes to reach a pit of spikes, only to get your timing a nanosecond off and get sent all the way back to the beginning in one second flat. If you start to lose energy very rapidly, some games return you to your entrance point of each flick-screen room. The Golden Figurine does not.

At just £2 back in the day, Atlantis were clearly keeping expectations of the game rather low. Electron User quite liked it but also found the difficulty level made it highly frustrating to play. Nevertheless, I think a player might actually have quite a bit of fun with this... if he played it via an emulator and utilising the ability to save position every few rooms. If however, you want to play it on a real Electron, do not expect to get very far at all. And expect to pay £1-£2.