Written by Jeff Minter at Llamasoft and first published by Ariolasoft in 1985, Batalyx is a compendium of six minigames that can be played in any order. Completing them all must be done within a set time limit in order to beat the game.

The six minigames are: 1. “Hallucino-bomblets“; the player controls a probe that moves by firing in the opposite direction. 2. “AMC2” aka “Attack of the Mutant Camels 2“; a variant of the Attack of the Mutant Camels gameplay. 3. “Activation of Iridis Base“; follow a series of joystick moves in a Simon-like game. 4. “Cippy On the Run“; the goat-like creature from Ancipital returns and must turn all the floor and ceiling tiles to rainbow colours to complete the level. 5. “Synchro II“; a series of patterned squares that can be moved around using the joystick; the aim is to stop the enemy probes from moving by synchronising the floor movement. And 6. “Psychedelia 2“; a light synthesizer that can be used as a pause mode.

Batalyx is not a particularly easy game to get your head around, but it is imaginative, extremely well-presented, intriguing and playable across all the sub-games. The ability to instantly jump from one minigame to another (by pressing the 1-6 number keys), and play them in any order, gives the game an interesting structure.

Batalyx is classic Jeff Minter and Llamasoft on the Commodore 64. Brilliant title screen by Mo Warden too.

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