Computer Gamer


Wriggler

Publisher: Romantic Robot
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Computer Gamer #2

Wriggler

Having battled through the regional finals, you are rightly proud of yourself as you line up with three other contestants for the final of the Annual Maggot Marathon. The bad news is that no-one has ever completed the race in over thirty years. Thus the scene is set in Wriggler, as you strive to pick your way through over 250 screens to find your way to the planet surface.

Your first reaction is that this is a game to be mapped but this is not as the screen set up is different each time you play it. No doubt some fanatic will put a map of each screen onto an index card and lay them out on the floor as he goes along. There are four main areas through which you must pass consisting of garden, scrubland, underground and the mansion.

As you move around, you come across many items which can be picked up (but only one at a time). Some increase your points tally and others prove useful in a tactical sense. Trying to stop you en route, are various insect types including several type of ant and a lethal spider.

The Wriggler

The graphics are excellent - nice bright colours and a lovely animated, wriggling maggot. The maggot moves very slowly though and impatience tends to set in. Another problem is that, as there is no scrolling between screens, you have no idea as to what obstacles are coming up and it's tough luck if you go off the right hand edge of one screen, only to find a spider dropping on you as soon as you enter the left hand edge of the next.

When you get killed, you have to wait for a tune to be played before you slowly regenerate and this becomes quite boring if you die as frequently as I did.

Wriggler is quite original as maze/mapping games go and there is a lot in it to challenge and keep the interest of the player. I just wish it had been that little bit faster.