Future Publishing


Supaplex

Publisher: Dream Factory
Machine: Amiga 500

 
Published in Ace #055: April 1992

Supaplex

"You're Murphy, bug-hunter extraordinaire, exploring deep inside a crazy computer. Snik Snaks must be avoided at all costs, and falling Zonks will trap the unwary." Well, with an intro like that, you can resist? Supaplex comes as quite a refreshing change from a company that normally turns up heavy-duty simulations and plane-based arcade games - it's half puzzle, half arcade, a sort of weird hybrid of Boulderdash and Pacman.

In each of the game's 111 levels, Murphy must snap up all the "infotrons" by whizzing about the four-way scrolling screen, gobbling up bits of the landscape and grabbing them when you find them. The trick is to eat the landscape in such a way that you don't send all manner of horrible heavy things crashing down on yourself. As the levels progress things get more complex, with warp gates, explosive devices and marauding enemies.

Okay, okay, so it's Boulderdash with knobs on, but it isn't actually at all bad. It may not look like much, but it feels nice and smooth and the simplistic action is strangely compelling. With plenty of options and well-varied levels, Supaplex is likely to keep you playing for quite a while - provided its simple charms manage to grab you in the first place.