Previous Next

There are some games that are easy to categorise - shoot-'em-ups, beat-'em-ups, arcade adventures and so forth - but Archipelagos can only be described as 'weird'.

Farn you check out our original review in Issue 7, you'll find out that Archipelago means a collection of islands. Archipelagos is a bigger collection of islands, over 10,000 of them in this case, and all of these are waiting to be conquered by you.

The main island on each level is home to an obelisk which must be destroyed - this is achieved simply by clicking on its square. But that can't be done until all of the stones on the islands have to be destroyed and these can only be destroyed if they're on the same island as the obelisk... still with us?

So how do we get them there? Simple, by making land between the two islands so that they join up. This is achieved by clicking on areas of the sea to generate land, but it requires energy. Where do you get energy? You absorb it from the plant life on the islands.

So it still sounds simple. Well, it isn't, because there are also a few enemies to hinder your progress, for example the wiggly wisp-like lost souls, which must be avoided at all costs (they kill you if you come into contact with them). Even nastier are the blood eggs, which can demolish your bridges of new land.

While this is evidently a thinking man's game, thinking is something you don't have a lot of time to do. Hang around for too long and the trees begin to creep towards you, getting closer and closer, until...

Of the game's 10,000 levels (phew), 100 were put together by the programming team and they get progressively harder. The remaining levels are computer-generated, so they could be all completely impossible or a complete walkover, you just won't know until you try them!