YANGA+
(Vitaly Serdyuk, 2021)
There was a young Viking called Yanga, who strongly disliked Kosmic Kanga. Well, such people do exist... cough, Dave, cough. His girlfriend has been kidnapped by a dark wizard who wants to sacrifice her, so he can become a god. Urgh, what a pig! 60 levels of puzzlement await you, involving runestones and the usual sort of stuff you find lying around in dungeons, no doubt.
Dave: "Well, this looks like an interesting puzzler, got a Sokoban vibe to it. I was a bit perplexed when I started - level 1 involves one move and it tells you a bit of the (absolute) basics, after which you're presented with level 2 which is a difficulty spike of Everestian proportions... Once you start groovin' through the levels it's pretty addictive though. Difficulty levels seem to fluctuate as you progress. Main downside is I think the 'lives' feature is a bit pointless, you don't really want to do the solved levels again, though emulator snapshots solve that issue."
"After a bit you start encountering levels where 'things moving' requires a bit of reaction time; I thought I'd eventually get stuck on one of those, and level 49 has completely bamboozled me - there are only two runes!! What's that all about Al?!? Two runes..! Not three..! It's impossible...! Aargh..! Now come on, what are you doing with that straitjacket...?!"
Al: "It's for your own good Dave, and society's generally. Right then, a puzzle game here, so one might expect a certain lack of excitement. But this one has a definite swagger to it. It's colourful, noisy (even if the tune seems to go slightly wonky at times) and quite a novel twist on a familiar idea. You have to combine 3 blocks together without first combining 2 blocks, since that kills ya stone dead. As the game goes on, new elements are introduced, and generally it's cool, fool."
SCORING TIME!
Dave: "Kosmic Yanga is quite a lot of fun, if a bit clunky and rough around the edges at times"
8/10
Al: "This fun puzzler might even bring a smile to the miserable looking blokey on the load screen"
8/10
"Just one more thing..."
Columbo: "Riddle me this gents... Care to share any thoughts on Spectrum puzzle games?"
Dave: "Now there's a question, lieutenant... I don't think I played many 'back in the day'. Most seem to have appeared towards or after the end of the Speccy's commercial life, when I'd moved onto the Amiga ('pthooey!') or PS1 ('pthooey!' though maybe a bit less). Well now.... There was Deflektor, which I thought I used to enjoy, until I tried replaying it recently and was left totally flummoxed, barely making it past a couple of levels. Another that springs to mind was that 3D isometric game Kirel. Takes a bit of trial and error to progress - you don't know what's under some of the hidden bricks when you start a level. Enjoyable though."
"Modern day Speccy-wise, there've been hordes of good puzzlers. A couple that immediately spring to mind are Jonathan Cauldwell's W*H*B, and Stonechat's El Stompo. Nice graphics for both and awesome to play. Now, where did I put that crossword?"
Al: "I reckon Psion's Scrabble was the first I played, and what a great version it was, so long as you didn't cheat and override the computer's challenges constantly! Pete Cooke did a few good little puzzlers, like Brainstorm and A Whole New Ball Game on a Crash covertape. Special mention goes to Split Personalities for making a slide puzzle a great laff."
"Oh Dave, I've just had a go at your troublesome Yanga level, and lo and behold I've managed to sort it! I simply hung around and did very little, then the baddie became the third rune for some reason, and then all three came together, opening the door. Just call me The Fixer..."
Dave: "Wha? Let's see. Oh yeah... well whaddyaknow? Sometimes doing nothing at all really is the best course of action..."