1st January 2009Magic Mushrooms has been getting a lot of press recently, with a large-sprite re-make doing the rounds on the Archimedes/RISC OS circuit. Actually, this re-make isn't even half as good as playing the original - but it was enough to send us back to it for a screen designing sesh. Hence, this issue of EUG contains a suite of screens for the old Acornsoft favourite.
Although equipped with one of the easiest screen editors to master, surprisingly few 'home grown' efforts have been produced so far, if one compares the scene with, say, the many home-grown versions of Repton.
The 'EUG Screens' are as follows:
 A Walk In The Park |
 Trick Or Treat |
 Hasta La Vista |
 La Cage Aux Folles |
 Middleton I Hate You |
 Explicit Content |
 Women Are From Venus |
 At The Car Boot Sale |
 Directors Commentary |
A great deal of time has been spent designing and playtesting them, and solving any screen after number three will really tax the hardened arcade addicts out there! There is always a solution of course, but be warned, many of the screens require you to do the whole circuit of obstacles twice or more to reach that final chequered flag.
As an addendum, also note that there are a few obscure references in the title names - A Walk In The Park is meant to signify an easy start as well as indicate that the level has been mapped a little like a park with trees, and Middleton I Hate You is a reference to a childhood foe who still incurs my hatred and whom I felt deserved immortalising in some way. At The Car Boot Sale is something of a tribute to where I picked up the original Magic Mushrooms cassette, and Directors Commentary comes at the very end as if an extra option on a DVD. The other names are either plays I recently saw or books I recently read.
The screens are presented, readily ingrained into the Magic Mushrooms program on the EUG disc. That is, you don't need to do any disc-swapping; you can just play the original Electron version of the game with the new screens within it (a la the Repton 3-style collections). However, if you want to load the screens into a BBC version of the game, you can do so by loading the file "d.MUSHRM3" which is also included on the EUG disc.
If you're anxious for yet more new screens for Magic Mushrooms, then a further collection of them is supplied on the BBC PD disc Public Domain Games #08.
