Personal Computer News


Rabbit Trail

Author: Shirley Fawcett
Publisher: Funware
Machine: TI99/4A

 
Published in Personal Computer News #020

Carrot Chomping

Carrot Chomping

Cute as rabbit pie, that's this Froggeresque "only-with-rabbits-and-weasels" game for the somewhat software-starved Texas Instruments micro. Cute, but the review copy PCN sweated over had a will of its own.

Objectives

You are a little bunny rabbit, hopping along a pleasant green trail munching carrots.

There are weasels, hawks and various other nasties all out to get you and squelch you flat. Nice! You're supposed to stuff yourself with the maximum possible number of carrots possible per square inch of your hide.

In Play

Rabbit Trail

As with most TI games, the graphics are pretty. Your little fuzzy friend is the softest shade of pink, with a fluffy white cottontail, and he hops along really quite convincingly.

The rabbitholes are no more than black squares, but the general effect is not bad.

The action, too, is fine as far as it goes. You get an apparently random stream of weasels charging down the racetrack as you hop up it, and your only chance if you meet one head-on is to either jump over it, or to turn cottontail and get out of there fast.

Rabbit Trail

They tend to hunt in pairs, and since you can't jump over two unless they're running more or less neck and neck, your only strategy is to lurk between a pair of rabbitholes, and hope that one of them will go down the first hole so that you can jump over the second.

Rabbitholes are also your best bet if the occasional random hawk turns up to bother you.

So far, so good. You get three lives, shown as fluffy tails at the side of the screen, so however cack-handed you are, it shouldn't be long before you get to the top of the first racetrack. But then I waited... and waited... and jumped over weasels... and waited. Nowt happened. Just once, apparently by sheer chance, my bug-eyed hero landed up on a different screen positively dripping with carrots.

Verdict

Fairly fast and tricky enough to be worth playing if you get a copy that will go beyond the first screen. I'd say Rabbit Trail could be quite a slick game.

Shirley FawcettMax Phillips