Jumping Jack (ZX Spectrum)

Okay I'm tired of playing random retro games I've never seen or heard of before, and that more often than not turn out to be crap. This week I'm taking a break...

GOOD RETRO GAME WEEK SPECIAL, day 1!

For one week only, I'm playing 12 games I used to love. But it's possible/likely that these games won't quite live up to my hazy childhood memories. Will any of them still hold up today?

Well I might as well start at the beginning. This was perhaps the first game I ever played, and it was ancient even then.

Okay, first I have to figure out how to get the guy moving. He just stands there, turning his head from side to side, while I systematically press every key on the keyboard in turn trying to get him to move.


LATER.

I've figured out the controls! There's only three buttons, walk left, walk right and jump. I can only jump when there's a hole above me and when I jump to a floor I haven't been on yet, another hole appears on a line.

The level wraps around the edge of the screen, so I can run off the left of the screen and I'll appear on the right. Some holes move left and jump up a line when they reach the end of the screen, some holes move right and switch onto a lower line. The only way I can get up though is by jumping through a hole.

I escaped the level through a hole at the top! My reward: a few lines of story.

And now I've got to do it all again with an extra enemy on screen.

Damn, pressed the wrong button. I mean to press the 'run left from the dinosaur' key, not the 'jump up and crack Jack's skull against the ceiling' key. And now poor Jack has knocked himself out for a couple of seconds.

And I got stomped on by the dinosaur too. Which also knocks Jack out.

But it's fine. As long as I don't fall through a hole and hit the bottom of the stage I've lost nothing. I just have to lie here helpless for a few seconds now and hope no holes turn up.

Ow... and I've lost a life.

Somehow I managed to take a screenshot with the dinosaur between levels. But he's still out there somewhere, one level higher than he was a second ago.


A FEW RETRIES LATER.

I think I'm getting better! I'm up to level 6 now, with 5 enemies on screen for me to dodge.

As is tradition for early ZX Spectrum games, the selection of enemies makes no sense. There's a plane, a dinosaur, a farmer with a shotgun (maybe)... I've got no idea what the blue thing is meant to be.

Crap.  There was nothing I could do about that. The yellow thing is coming from the right, the hole is coming from the left. I can't jump the holes, all I can do is lose a life.



SOON, BACK NEAR THE START OF THE GAME.

Damn, I'm just throwing lives away now. I can't even make the first jump of the level without screwing it up. I think I should probably turn it off before I get any worse. I was so close to getting 1000 points too.


Is Jumping Jack as good as I remember? Well, it's incredibly basic, awkward to control, every level is the same as the last except with more enemies on it. There's no music, barely any sounds and the graphics are just red lines on a grey background. So yeah, it's exactly like I remember it.

The gameplay at the core is still solid, and it almost plays out like a Looney Tunes cartoon, with Jack getting continually dropped down holes and beaten up... then just picking himself up and carrying on. Get some friends around to laugh at you when you fall down the fifth hole in a row, and this still has some entertainment left in it.