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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 6793
Author: jetsetdanny
Date: 19/02/2015
Subject: "The Archaeologist" - Daniel's review
"The Archaeologist" is a game by Paul K. Sneesby (Sneesby Software), published by Spectrum Computing back in 1985.
The game was mentioned on this forum once before 2015, in message 151 on 23 May 2000, posted by Andrew Broad on behalf of Carl Murray (however, Andrew did not include "The Archaeologist" in section "Other Games of MM/JSW Interest" on his list of MM and JSW games - I can only presume that it was because at the time of the post his list did not have that section yet).
The purpose of the game, as described on the menu screen, is to "enter the volcano Sneffels Jokul and pass through the earth's core to finally reemerge at Mount Etna collecting the various artifacts as you go".
According to the information on World of Spectrum, "The Archaeologist" "appeared on side B of electronic magazine Spectrum Computing 18" and was "originally planned for a commercial release, but the publisher went bust before the game was finished".
It is indeed a shame, as the game has the potential of being a very enjoyable 8-bit platformer, IMHO. It looks and feels very JSW-ish to me during gameplay, in spite of some features alien to JSW. In the lower part of the screen there are 5 meters (counters) marked by colourful pictures of items: a red apple (marking the level of food or health, perhaps?), a magenta petrol can (?) (fuel?), a green... - I'm not sure what it is, perhaps some kind of container or water bottle, or fire extinguisher, or battery???, a cyan pickaxe (?) (tools?) and a yellow revolver or pistol (ammo?). From my playing experience, the levels of substances (energy, vitality, health or whatever it is) shown by the first two meters decrease visibly during gameplay, and when they go down to zero, the protagonist loses a life. I did notice some changes in the next three meters - going up from time to time and going down, too, but never to zero - but I could not relate them to any specific impact on the protagonist (maybe because I did not try hard enough).
A feature similar to JSW128 and JSW64 game engines, but not the original JSW48, is the superjump (called "Supa Jump" on the menu screen). It can be activated by pressing A during the regular jump. It drains the level of the protagonist's health (the red apple) very quickly, so you have to use the feature VERY sparingly. If you are not careful, you can lose your lives so quickly when applying the superjump that you actually think it's a bug which is killing you. But it's not a bug, I think, but a conscious design meant to limit the use of superjump.
From my playing experience I can say that the superjump is indispensable to collect the uppermost item in the room "The Haunted Hall of Abu Hassan" as well as to get out of "Root of Volcano" (after exploring this room and "Stalactites and Stalagmites" below). The problem is that it drains your health so fast that you end up losing lives. Since you also lose lives periodically just from the "wear and tear" due to the passage of time (or using up your energy irrespectively of the super jump, or however you want to describe it), I think that the game would be impossible to complete without an ability to somehow replenish your health / energy / whatever it is (the red apple meter especially).
A map of the game created by Pavero in 2004 is available on WoS and, as Sendy mentioned, on Speccy Screenshot Maps (http://maps.speccy.cz, which is the original upload site, I believe). In my playtest I got more or less halfway through the game, as far as "Lava Flow". Just before it, in "Saknussemm's Camp", you can see beyond doubt that the game is incompletable, because there is no way to collect the items in this room (the first time it happens since the start of the game). In my playtest I reached the score of 50% (the items you collect are not numbered, you see a percentage score instead), which confirms that I was halfway through the game.
I believe that if one did not collect the items along the way, but just tried to get as far into the game as possible, he or she could go much further than I did - because you would not waste any time or energy, which would mean that the periodical death from health / energy loss / passage of time would come relatively later. I did not think it worth trying, as we know the game is incompletable anyway, but it makes me wonder how Pavero created his map - was it by exploring the game while playing it, or just by using some smart software, without even trying to play the game???
Sendy wrote:
> Oh yes, I forgot to say. The Archaeologist. Have fun with that :) It's virtually unplayable.
Well, not really unplayable, Sendy, but pretty frustrating when you lose your lives just because of the passage of time or because you try to use the superjump. And very frustrating once you realise you will not be able to complete the game no matter how hard you try.
Sendy wrote:
> I quite like the look of the screens and the game map but I'd honestly say I've had more fun looking at the map (on Speccy Screenshot Maps) than I have trying to play the game directly.
I like the look of the screens, too, and the sprites, and that's why if someone were able to batch-transfer the rooms and sprites to a JSW file (using one of the JSW game engines), I would be willing to try and finish the game and offer it to the community as a completable, regular JSW game, without the extra features (like the loss of health with the passage of time or the energy-consuming superjump) and preserving the original design as much as possible.
Any volunteers to figure out the transfer trick?
Daniel
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