The perils of software piracy
TREASURE ISLAND
(Mr. Micro)
This is a strange one. In some respects time did indeed forget this game, as it seems that nobody at all could be bothered giving it a review back in the day, although some of the mags did deign to publish the odd playing tip and map of it eventually. And yet there must have been tens of thousands of people who owned this game at some point, even if they didn’t particularly ask for it as such. What am I going on about? Well I’ll tell you, now this introductory paragraph is a wrap, let’s go people, that's lunch.
Mr. Micro, for it is he, released just a few games back in the dim and distant days of 1983 and ’84, the most infamous being Hunchy, which swiftly became Punchy as everyone should know by now (see my Part 1 if not). Their others were the less interesting Crazy Golf, Harlequin and this game. They came out, were largely ignored by the press, save for Crash giving Punchy a scarcely believable rating of 88% in its second issue, and that was it for them. Or was it?
It seems that Jim Gregory, boss of Mr. Micro and supposed author of this game, knew his stuff when it came to marketing. In ’84 he managed to persuade those renowned apothecarians Boots to flog Treasure Island, together with a paperback book called not “Treasure Island”, but “The ZX Spectrum and How to Get The Most From It” as a little package. So you could snag some Fishermans Friends and grab a book and game while you’re at it. Those really were the days, weren’t they? Even the internet would struggle to provide that many services under the one roof. You could probably get the lot for one of those huge £10 notes we used to use.
So that was a good wheeze, but there was another to come which must surely have made Mr. Micro an absolute stack of cash. When the evil empire of Amstrad wanted to flog its ‘revolutionary’ Plus 2 Speccy rip-off in 1986, they fancied throwing some games into the bundle to sweeten the deal, as who doesn’t love ‘free’(ish) games? So did they choose some of the top titles of the day, so the full capability of the new machine might be gloriously demonstrated, boosting sales no end? Erm, no. They took what was presumably the super-cheapo choice of buying a stash of old, unheralded games and putting quantity well and truly over quality. They weren’t even 128K games. For shame.
So what you ended up with, as well as a tapedeck embedded in your Speccy (sounds painful) was three of the four aforementioned Mr. Micro titles (Harlequin the one that went missing), plus 2 games by the similarly mighty Gem Software (Disco Dan and Oh Mummy) and one of Sinclair’s own (Alien Destroyer). All 2-3 years old by then, and none likely to be life-changing in any way, though Disco Dan was alright it seems. I thought Alan Sugar was good at marketing?! Is this why he needs new apprentices every year? They gave them new covers with ‘Sinclair’ emblazoned on them, and that was about it.
So it seems you couldn’t avoid Treasure Island one way or another. It’s surprising it didn’t fall out of your box of Corn Flakes too in them days. The book was of course an epic tale of software piracy by Robert Louis Stephenson, who wrote it in his spare moments during his designing of ‘The Rocket’. I read it ages ago and it was decent, though its TV prequel Black Sails was even better. Thanks to Wikipedia for this indisputable info by the way, and surprisingly the game itself even has its own entry on Wiki. It informs us that David Whittaker did the music for the C64 version (boo, no fair!) and that on the Spectrum version a bug prevents you getting a score of 100%. Oh.
First things first, let’s check out the inlay. He said, as though he ever does this before playing any game. The cover features a suitably maniacal one-legged pirate, and the instructions claim this to be “an exciting game based upon the classic adventure by Robert Louis Stevenson”. Wonder if it was text only or had some graphics, or maybe Stevenson just had a play with The Quill like we all did at some point. You play cabin boy Jim Hawkins, who not content with somehow surviving Firebird’s ‘Booty’ fancies himself some more treasurey shenanegans. A colourful, if slightly messy, loading screen soon appears, made by the mysterious Issi, a Mr. Micro favourite, who later also did the screen for Spitfire ’40. Good for him/her/them!
Hurray, the game’s loaded! We have a menu screen with no music sadly, but some might be grateful that there doesn’t seem to be any terrifying digital speech outbursts, the likes of which still haunt my dreams after playing both Hunchy AND Punchy. “Oh ho, har har…. that’s the way to do it… the bells, the bells…” (Shudder) In a sense, it could be argued that the speech in those games might just constitute the most effective ever heard on any Speccy game, the acting is top notch and it really does put the willies up you. Anyway, they’ve resisted throwing in a “Haaa haaar Jim lad! Pieces of eight, pieces of eight!” in Treasure Island, which now seems a pity.
Screen one and Jim lad has to play a bizarre version of Frogger, or Crossy Road if you’re one of those hip kids. Like the chicken, he has to get to the other side of the road to reach the Hispaniola, or he ain’t going nowhere and he stays home and dies of the plague. There is a grand total of 3 pirates waddling back and forth, one of which is apparently Blind Pew, though in truth they look more like racing grannies, particularly hilarious when inadvertently sped up on an emulator! This bit is laughably easy, but the bad news is you don’t get any skis when you do reach the other side. Boo.
Screen two is pretty odd as well. Jim lad must avoid getting captured by some of the crew after overhearing their mutinous plans. So in short he has to perform 3 leaps from barrel to barrel (to barrel) while avoiding the massive muscly arms of 3 irate pirates, to get from the left of the screen to the right (or starboard). The graphics on this bit are cracking but it’s annoyingly fiddly to time it right, so it’ll take about 47 attempts to get past it. Time to save my game state I think, click. Phew, now it’s history.
Once you’ve got past the rather weird two introductory parts, you’re thankfully onto the game proper. Jim me hearty must find the treasure located in Ben Gunn’s cave, then take it to the anchored ship. Quite how he gets it home secretly is anyone’s guess. There’s a maze to traverse, 64 screens of it the inlay tells us, and it soon becomes clear that your way will regularly be blocked by those potty pirates, who want to splice your mainbrace and feast on your gizzards, or some such. There are cutlasses around and about, which is handy, but there are only so many. Some pirates have their own weapons and throw them at you if you approach them.
But you have a handy trick you can do. If you approach a beweaponed pirate, then run away quick, he’ll throw his cutlass carelessly, it’ll travel a few character squares, then fall on the ground. Now’s your chance to grab it and throw it back in his one good eye! In this way, you nicely recycle the weaponry and clear your path into the bargain. So what we have here, gentlemen, is a big old pirate puzzle rather than the usual type of arcade game. This is refreshing I gotta say. And once you’ve picked up the knack of returning a pirate’s cutlass to him with interest, the game zips along raaaaarrrrrther nicely. Had to get a lame pirate joke in here somewhere.
Are the aesthetics pathetic or, erm, good then? Graphically I reckon it’s a really good looking game. The sprites are large and chunky throughout, although their animation doesn’t quite come up to scratch on the whole. There’s colour to burn, really good use of the Spectrum’s super-bright colour palette. The only disappointment is the sound – the whole thing is way too quiet, which is a pity. You could always play the Booty theme in the background if you want your experience to seem a bit more seaworthy, but some people REALLY don’t like that tune, so don’t feel forced to do it. Maybe just hum it to yourself instead.
The main game is really quite fun to play and is pretty forgiving, unlike the second section before it, it reminds me of a bigger, chunkier version of Sabre Wulf. Actually it’s a bit more fun to play than that game if I’m honest, mainly because I suck big time at Sabre Wulf. No cute hippos in this one though, or somewhat non-PC natives. My high score in Treasure Island was a not totally unrespectable 32%. So not a bad effort by the Meeeeester Micro here, I think Alan Sugar Rush accidentally got himself a half-decent game amongst the antiques he gave away with his +2. Oh hang on, there’s one more thing I need to tell you about this game, maybe one paragraph more and that’s it, two tops.
In 1985 Firebird were experimenting with slightly more expensive budget games, more £3.99 than £1.99 and they came in big, unnecessarily chunky boxes. I bought one called Chimera, a fairly unremarkable 3D number, and unless I’m mistaken, the only other one to come in a chonky box was Willow Pattern. I’d heard of it, but only after reading the Wiki entry for Treasure Island did I learn that it was a re-make of that game, by Monsieur le Micro no less.
The graphics are all suitably oriental, and do look really nice. There’s a tune on the menu screen, albeit not an amazing one, and oddly the game itself is even quieter than T.I. They’ve even incorporated the “avoiding three arms grabbing you” bit into the game proper – when you cross a bridge, 3 Chinese chaps try to grab you as you go right to left this time. Only it’s way easier than those pirates’ arms thank god. It’s a shame their appearance is massively unacceptable these days, but that aside, it’s a good looking affair, even though it is a re-hash. So I guess the conclusion to draw here is that on the whole you can’t keep a good game down, try as you might!
PIRATICAL PERCENTAGE
70%
THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT: 1984 EDITION
2nd out of 5
