Introduction

Horace, whilst drunk and pining for the fame and the wealth he enjoyed in the days back when he was a well-known computer game star, gave in to the evil counsel of that rotten old egg, Dizzy. He starred in some games on the Commodore 64 - a really obscure business. He really needed the money.

Tragically, not only did the C64 games not lead to a revival of Horace's Spectrum career but the C64 games, which he'd hoped so desperately would be unnoticed by all, were announced to all and sundry in the gutter press! "Horace sells out in C64 shocker!" ran the headlines, to his dismay. Suddenly, no-one in the street would look at him. The so-called ZX Spectrum mascot starring in C64 games! What a shock! The disdain was so much he felt like Katie Price. Without the placky tits, but with a brain.

He was so miserable that he didn't even wait for the coppers to come and arrest him for his betrayal of the Spectrum community. Instead he went to the nearest copshop and handed himself in. The police handcuffed him and put him in the Tower of London, telling him that the next day he'd be beheaded.

"Oh well, at least when I'm dead my suffering will be over," was all he said.

"It bloody won't be," said a voice, and Horace whirled around to see the ghost of Sabre Man standing in the corner of the room.

Horace jumped back in terror, and Sabre Man continued: "There's a special corner of gaming Hell reserved for sellouts, and that's where you're heading, and that's where you'll spend gaming eternity...".

He paused then added "Whooo-ooooooooooooo," to bring home just how scary Horace's post-death future was going to be.

"I-I'll escape from gaming Hell," said Horace. "That's what I'll do. I'll not only escape but I'll get to gaming Heaven somehow".

"No chance," laughed Sabre Man, taking the same sadistic delight in Horace's plight as he had when he'd witnessed thousands of kids spending their hard-earned pocket money on his crappy excuse for a game, Sabre Wulf. "There's about as much chance of someone escaping from gaming Hell as there is of Joefish getting his lazy bottom in gear and finishing Buzzsaw."

"Actually, there is a way to help both of us. If you escape from here, and burn the master copies of your C64 games, and the master copies of other sell-out games, then you won't go to gaming Hell".

"Fecking wow!", cried Horace in delight, and he jumped up and ran to the door. He tried to open it, but it was locked, being a prison cell and all.

Sabreman looked him over and said, "I'll agree to open the door if you agree to find and burn the master copies of my two C64 games, Sabre Wulf and Underwurlde so that I'll be freed from gaming Hell too".

"Fair enough", nodded Horace, and the door disappeared and Horace exited the screen (no scrolling here, it's a Speccy game!) and emerged into the corridor. Jumping over the first fatally deep gap between the floating platforms (if they had those in real prisons then they wouldn't be over-populated!) Horace began his mission...

The Game

The game is simple: jump and run, find keys to fit in keyholes and open your path to unaccesible areas, and get all the master tapes (10 in total) which are spread accross the whole tower.

In many screens, in order to be able to advance, you'll have to push special blocks (checkered and green) to move them to most adecuate places so you can jump on them and reach higher platforms you wouldn't otherwise reach.

If you get trapped, thanks to the miracles of modern science, you can press R so everything goes back to its original place (including you).

Game Credits

Game: The Mojon Twins, colección Pretujao, vol #8.

Based upon the backstory written by ewgf in the WOS forums.

Powered by La Churrera by The Mojon Twins and splib2 by Alvin Albrecht.
Uses aPPack decompressor by dwedit, adapted by Utopian & optimized by Metalbrain

Dedicated to William Tang.

Trivia

The idea behind this game came from a thread on the World of Spectrum forums, where we were joking about the existence of Commodore 64 versions of Horace games, whilst Horace is usually considered some sort of "mascot" for the ZX Spectrum. Inspired by the backstory written by ewgf for a possible game about him, we felt like making a simple Churrera game. Just an excuse to draw some graphics, and to have some rest from our big, ongoing projects for this year. And this is it!

Horace Goes To The Tower took us just one afternoon using Churrera.