Lately, I’ve been playing two old Commodore 64 games through emulation, and finding that these 25-year-old games, surprisingly, have far more replayability and fun factor than about 80% of what’s out there on the shelves of EB Games and Wal*Marts today. Now, that may not be especially surprising, given that that’s a refrain often sung by the choir of the Church of Retrogaming of which I am an acolyte priest, but in these two cases especially, it’s surprising and maybe even a little bit frightening how much better they are than most of what’s out there today - and that they both should still be as innovative now as they were when they were first released. It’s very much an indictment of how far the gaming industry has fallen since the Model T days, and how little they seem willing to break the mold of the ordinary cookie-cutter format (let’s be honest, now… how many military-sim FPS games and permutations of Madden NFL does the world really need?).

The games: Jumpman and The Temple of Apshai, both by Epyx, a legendary games publisher within the Commodore crowd.

I’ll discuss Temple of Apshai in its own article next time. For now, let’s start with Jumpman, which pretty much established a subgenre of its own during the 1980s - what were known as the “Ropes and Ladders” platform games. Like its close cousin Lode Runner, in Jumpman you navigated a “maze” of girders and ladders, viewed from the side, to collect all the items (in this case, a series of bombs) and avoid all the enemies who are out to stop you. In most levels you only defense is to jump out of harm’s way (hence the title of the game, natch), though on a few special levels you can actually shoot things.

And therein lies what makes this game special, and far more fun than the likes of Lode Runner, which is itself a classic of retrogaming. You see, every Lode Runner level is more or less exactly the same - you simply collect the treasures, avoid the guards by simple evasion or by digging holes in the ground, and escape to the next level to lather-rinse-repeat until your arm falls off or you run out of lives. Jumpman, however, is cut from a different cloth entirely. While the goal on every level is the same - collect all the bombs - each of Jumpman’s thirty levels has its own distinctive and unique flavor, and nearly all of them offer a new twist on the format.

For instance, on the first level (depicted above) you encounter bombs that, when collected, cause certain parts of the screen to disappear, potentially cutting off escape routes. Your foes on this screen are hailstones that will appear randomly, and may or may not speed toward your location once you occupy the same horizontal or vertical position they’re on - you never know if they will until they do. Later levels pit you against robots that move on predetermined courses through the maze, a little bit at a time for each bomb you grab, forcing you to figure out the best order in which to collect them; giant hailstones that don’t kill you, but automatically force you to jump in a random direction if you touch one - usually not where you expected to end up; a level that starts out empty and appears a little bit at a time when you grab a bomb; levels that require you to collect only certain bombs and leave others behind in order to grab special bonus-point items, using trial and error; and other examples of fiendish level design. It’s frustrating, but very fun, to work your way through each level and see what new surprises are in store for you… it’s almost literally an entirely new game in each one.

This is an example of the sort of experimentation you just don’t see these days - taking a familiar concept (Jumpman actually started life as a Donkey Kong clone, as indicated by its title being taken from Mario’s original name) and then turning it on its ear with a bunch of new and/or unexpected features designed to keep you guessing. And while there are some games today that have unexpected surprises in them, it’s usually in the sense of finding a secret area, or triggering a hitherto-unexpected deathtrap in the next room. It still “makes sense” in the overall appearence of the world you’re in. Jumpman, conversely, is more like a schizophrenic dream landscape, where every bomb you grab can literally change the entire complexion of the world and you’re never quite sure what is going to happen next. While that can be maddening at times, speaking for myself, I find such unpredictability makes for a playing experience that’s more challenging, and more fun, than just about anything else out there.

Perhaps because it’s such an abstract game, disconnected from “reality,” is why it can get away with this. The trend in gaming today is realism, with consoles and computers that are capable of creating almost frighteningly-realistic environments… but there are times when I think that this trend misses the point. Games are supposed to be fun more than they’re supposed to be simulations, at least in my view, and that could be why I prefer an ancient fixed-screen platformer like Jumpman to most of the 3D stuff that’s available today.

Next time: The Temple of Apshai, one of the earliest “mainstream” attempts at a D&D-style gaming experience on a home computer.

If you liked that, try...

1. Retro-Active, Part II: Temple of Apshai
2. Retro-Active: Wizard
3. Retro-Active: Top 10 Retro Puzzle Games NOT Called “Tetris”
4. Retro-Active: Action 52 (Genesis)
5. Retro-Active: R.O.B.

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