Previous Next

My mother is Water Lily, the most beautiful flower on the Earth. My father is Ant, the strongest being on the Earth. Volcano has given me fire. Wagtail has blessed me for great deeds. I went on the road to return life to Valley of Rains.

With this monologue, narrated by the protagonist of the game, a young woman with flaming hair, Valley Of Rains opens. This is the game that stunned the Spectrum fans community at its appearance in December 2019 and won the Yandex Retro Games Battle 2019 contest. There is not much to say about the plot and the setting: from the words spoken by the main character you can guess that the story takes place in a fantasy world invaded by evil forces, against which our heroine will have to fight relentlessly to restore peace to her Valley.

Surprises actually begin when the game starts, set in a forest of dead trees. One character sprite stands out immediately, namely the one representing the main character: very large, well defined and well animated. Going forward, it can be noted that the backgrounds, in addition to being wide, colourful and rich in details, move on two, and in some cases three, parallax levels. The first enemies, resembling huge bats, come against her: she immediately begins to shoot energy projectiles, and with a few shots she gets rid of them, but later, a bigger enemy, a sort of dragon, blocks the road, showing itself to be well more resilient than the previous foes.

Other dangers are then revealed, such as large acorns that fall on the young woman when she passes under them, or sharp spikes that suddenly come out of the ground. All of this takes precious life force away from the heroine. Fortunately, she can also find some help at times, such as flowers that restore some of her energy, or alternative weapons and shields left on the ground by dispatched enemies. During the adventure, she will meet other bloodthirsty creatures and move along meadows dotted with strange and huge mushrooms, lakes, caves, buildings and more. Sometimes it will be necessary to operate mechanisms to open passages that will allow her to proceed further until she reaches the last of the eight levels the game is divided into.

Valley Of Rains is clearly inspired by the first section of the famous Savage programmed by Dave Perry and Nick Bruty of Probe for Firebird in 1988, but manages to do better than the latter. The attention to detail is impressive, from the splashes when the heroine moves in the water, to the animated waterfalls present in some levels. It's a fairly long title, and quite varied in terms of backgrounds and sprites, which is even more surprising if you keep in mind that it was designed to run on the 48K Spectrum.

The great diversity of environments, as well as the fast, but not excessively frantic action, keep the player's attention well awake. Beeper sound does its duty, but a unique solution has been found for background music: an audio CD with themes specifically composed for the game. Valley Of Rains is a masterpiece and fully deserves the praise it has been given, which includes my personal award as the Spectrum game of the year 2019.