Created by two Italians, Giovanni Zanetti and Paolo Malnati, and first published by Mastertronic in 1986, Pippo is a beautifully-produced puzzle game that plays somewhat similarly to Gottleib‘s Q*Bert.

The aim of the game is to step on each floor tile in order to match the target colour, while at the same time avoiding contact with ‘The Guardians’ who are moving around the screen, or falling off the edge of the play area. Occasionally you can pick up a pill that turns The Guardians into springs for a limited amount of time, which you can collect for extra points. There’s also a smiley face that will move around the board and turn back any squares you’ve changed, meaning that you’ll have to do them again.

Pippo has eight levels in total. The first level requires that the colour of each tile be changed once. The second level: twice; the third level: three times, and so on. And there are four screens in each level, making 32 screens in total.

If Pippo sounds simple, that’s because it is. It’s a simple, relatively enjoyable game that looks great and isn’t too stressful. It’s also a game that’d completely passed me by in 1986, and discovering it now is a surprisingly pleasant experience. It’s worth loading-up now just to see the opening title screen colours change in time to the music, which is a neat effect.

More: Pippo on World of Spectrum