| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ FINDERS KEEPERS (c) MASTERTRONIC ★ |
AMTIX |
The King of Ibisima just doesn't know what sort of present to give his daughter Germintrude for her birthday. Instead of nipping down to the local Ibisima Woolies to scan the shelves for a suitable gift, he sends you. the Magic Knight, out on a quest to find a fitting gift. If you succeed vou will become a Knight of the Polygon Table... if you don't then forget the thought of ever going back to the palace. Finders Keepers first appeared on the Spectrum and was Mastertronic's first game (for that machine) of real quality. Its transfer to the CBM 64 was even more triumphant and proved the point that excellent budget software was here to stay. What of the Amstrad version? You start the game with the King waving you to a transporter. Step on this, and you're magically transported to Sprite-land, an alien-infested platform world packed with valuable items. The resident aliens sap your energy which is shown on screen in the form of a bar. if you're not careful and the energy reaches zero then you lose one of your five lives. There are many objects scattered around the landscape which form an important part to this game. These all look the same, being little white triangles but if you stand on them and use the examine command then you are told what the object is. If you consider the object might play a useful part in the game you can pick it up. rather like a true adventure game. You can Finders Keepers from two viewpoints. If you wish to comply with your King's wishes then you need to trade different objects until you have a prize fit for the Princess. If, however, you are willing to commit a bit of treason then you could always enter Spriteland as a free agent, working only for yourself. Once you've stacked up a reasonable horde you can leave the castle for a life of luxury Finders Keeper is an arcade adventure platform game featu ring a wealth of screens. Though involving a lot of arcade elements. the adventure side of things is very similar to the traditional style of adventuring. To attain any status you have to trade objects at a profit. In some cases if you collect two objects they may interact, combining to leave you with an even more useful item. A philosopher's stone and a lump of lead, for instance, leaves you with a much more valuable lump of gold. Also, as in traditional adventures, there's a limit to how big your inventory may grow, the maximum amount of objects you can carry being five. Around the game you come across traders willing to barter their wares. Using the traders it's possible to turn apparently useless objects into very useful ones by buying items that interact The screens mostly take a standard platform-type format involving pixel-precise jumps from ledge to ledge. If you do 8 bit of exploring it's likely you may find at least one of the two mazes in Spriteland. The mazes scroll around you keeping your knight central, a system reminiscent of that employed in Boulderdash The scoring system is in two parts displaying a percentage of how many rooms have been explored and the amount of cash you're worth. The screen display shows how many lives you are left. Control keys: Cursors for movement, G to get; T to trade; D to drop; E to examine. CRITICISM Finders Keepers is a first rate piece of budget software The standard of programming plus the interesting gameplay make this one a winner. It puts a lot of software houses to shame especially those who try to peddle their substandard wares around the £10 mark The graphics are of a high quality with a good standard of movement, though the way Magic Knight jumps could have been better Screen movement is smooth and unflickery. Very good as well with the variety in terrain with the maze and platform screens intermingling. Overall one of the best pieces of budget software to date and gives a timely reminder for other software houses to pull their socks up! 3. Its appearance on the Spectrum was something of a revelation, as at that time no one thought budget software could produce anything reasonable. But Mastertronic have improved the game even further with the Amstrad version. The arcade elements are well up to standard, requiring some skill and good timing. The adventuring and trading bits blend in perfectly, and it can take some time to work out how best to qo about playing the game. Playable then, attractive to watch and strangely addictive.
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