Daley Thompson's Decathlon - Sinclair Spectrum - 1984

Daley Thompson’s Decathlon is Ocean Softwares take on Konami’s acclaimed Track & Field arcade game.  Thompson was popular at the time having won gold medals in the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games.

The game came on a cassette tape with 5 events on each side.  In addition to the two run / one action button controls of Track & Field it could also be controlled by furiously waggling your joystick (ahem), and was famous for wrecking many in the process.

Each of the ten events has a qualifying criterion and you lose a ‘life’ if you fail to meet it. You have three lives.  If you get through the 5 events the qualifying gets tougher the next go round.  Nine of the ten events involve alternately hitting the run keys as fast as possible and then pressing the action button at the appropriate time to adjust jump/throwing angles etc. The exception is the 1500 metres where you need to juggle speed with energy to get the best time.

Daley Thompson’s Decathlon is one of the earliest and still one of the best sports games on the Spectrum.  The graphics and animation are functional and fine for the time, if a little flickery in places.  The sound is limited to spot effects such as the crowd cheering, although there are a couple of nifty (for the Spectrum) tunes including a version of the Chariots of Fire theme on the podium screen.  The main downside is that only 5 events could be fitted into the Spectrum’s 48k memory at once so the two sides of the tape are effectively separate games. 

This game has four more events than Track & Field, but no two player option.

Booty - Sinclair Spectrum - 1984

Booty was a budget title released in 1984 for a pocket money friendly £2.50.  Despite the budget price it’s still an enjoyable game and was better than many full price games from that era.  Your objective is to plunder 125 items of treasure spread over 20 holds (screens) of a pirate ship.  You lose a life by being touched by pirates who move back and forth across the screen, or by the ship’s parrot or rat which occasionally put in an appearance. Some items of treasure contain booby traps which explode and give you a second to avoid the blast. You can also lose a life by falling too far.  Additionally Booty features the staple platform game elements of moving platforms, lifts and disappearing floors.

There is also a puzzle element as each room contains numbered locked doors which can only be opened by the corresponding numbered key which is usually located strategically away from the door.  You may be able to carry up to 125 items of treasure but can only hold one key at a time and it can’t be carried between screens.  I did find one bug where it is possible to come off a lift halfway through a door.  The key goes back to it’s original position and the door remains locked so taking a step the wrong way leaves you in a locked room with no way to escape.  This is a game ending bug as there is no way to quit and no time limit so you would need to reset the computer.  The game is also a little difficult to map as instead of moving off the side of the screen you enter doors in the ‘back’ of the screen, a couple of these being one-way. Once you have picked up all the treasure you have 45 seconds to find a golden key.

Booty is a fine game considering the price when it was released.  The locked doors are a nice touch to the standard platform fare and set it apart from its contemporaries.  The graphics are bright and colourful but result in some dreaded Spectrum colour clash.  There is also a suitable (and annoying) sea shanty that plays throughout and some basic spot effects.

During the creation of this blog I am going make an attempt to complete and map every game that is completable and mappable (are they even words?).  I have mapped Booty but couldn’t complete it.  Having picked up the required amount of treasure I can’t find the golden key in the allotted time.  It can take 45 seconds to traverse one screen, let alone searching twenty and seems a tad unfair after getting so far.  

 

A game ending bug - how do I get out of there?

After picking up the treasure you have unreasonable time limit in which to find a golden key to escape

Below The Root - Commodore 64 - 1984

Even though I never owned Commodore 64 I attempted to keep an eye on the ‘competition’ so to speak, yet this game somehow slipped under the radar.  On discovering this little gem my jaw hit the ground. The game looks so ahead of its time for 1984 and I was surprised I had never heard of it.  Maybe it was never released in the UK; I don’t know.  It is one of those games you knew the Spectrum would never have been able to run not least because it came on these new fangled things called floppy disks.

Below The Root is a graphic adventure game set in the world of Green Sky.  Your ultimate goal is to discover what has happened to someone call Raamo, a character who was trying to unite the two races in the game but has subsequently disappeared.  You start by selecting one of several characters, each with differing abilities and starting points on the map.  You begin the game in your own abode (or nid-place as it is called) and have to explore the world of Green Sky, talking to the inhabitants in order to find clues on what happened to Raamo. 

The game covers several dozen screens set above, on and below the ground.  It also incorporates some very basic platforming elements due to the bulk of the environment being set in the branches of trees. There are several items you can pick up or purchase which help you get around.  These include ropes, lamps, trencher beaks and shubas.  Trencher beaks can be used machete-like to cut through undergrowth and a shuba is garment that enables you to glide between trees and prevent injury when falling.  You also possess ‘spirit skills’ which are psychic-like abilities.  You can use these to read minds, teleport items (or yourself) and to make tree branches grow.  You don’t have all the skills at the beginning of the game but they can be increased by speaking with key characters.

Although you can’t die in this game you do have a limited amount of stamina and food.  Stamina is sapped by running about and getting hurt.  If either of these stats reach zero you fall unconscious and are transported back to your nid-place to recover.  This takes precious time from your 50 day time limit.  Stamina can be replenished by resting and food can be bought, found or is occasionally offered.

One outstanding aspect of the game is that it is entirely joystick driven with very intuitive controls.  You use the joystick to move your character around and a SCUMM-like menu can be called up anytime for other commands.  All very slick for the time.

Technically the sound is somewhat basic, limited to spot effects and short, simple tunes whenever a major discovery is found.  The graphics, however, are varied, colourful, detailed and well animated for the time.  Overall Below The Root is a great game and would have been well ahead of it’s time when it was released. One bonus for me is that it's not too difficult because I'm crap at adventure games.  It's just a case of pense and speak to everyone and follow their hints, rather than finding uses for unrelated objects for obscure purposes.  This is one of those unsung classics I had hoped to find when starting out on this project.

The shuba is one of the most useful items in the game

Sample of gameplay

Spoilers (My game map and final screen)

Below The Root map

'That's all very well but get out of my personal space'.