Described as a game with “primary imbalance“, by publisher The Edge in 1985, Brian Bloodaxe is a strange platform game that tries to have a laugh at the expense of everyone – you; itself, and the genre of platform games it belongs to.

The fun begins when the game pretends to crash, right after loading! On the Spectrum, the black screen and white bars flash up as if the machine had indeed crashed, but then a message sheepishly appears on-screen to tell you that it was all a joke… Ha. Ha. Ha.

Brian Bloodaxe – as a platform game – is weird. It doesn’t rely on precision. Nor does it rely on skill. What it does rely on is experimentation – that the player tries different things to solve certain problems.

You might not know, for example, that most enemies can be ridden on – as long as you’re walking in the same direction as them, you can jump on top of them and use them as a platform. You can also drop carried items (you can hold up to three at once) and use them as platforms. You can use your horned helmet to jump up and stick into the ceiling, or even use it to kill enemies by jumping at them from below. You don’t seem to instantly die if you fall into water… Brian Bloodaxe is full of the unexpected. And I think that’s what they meant when they said “primary imbalance“.

More: Brian Bloodaxe on Wikipedia
More: Brian Bloodaxe on World of Spectrum