Rod Land is a one or simultaneous two-player platform game created by Jaleco and first distributed into arcades in 1990. In it you control one of two fairies – Tam or Rit – each armed with a magic wand (or a ‘rod’, as the game’s title implies) which can immobilise monsters that chase you on each stage. The aim of the game is to rescue your ‘mom’ (and later, your dad) who has been kidnapped and taken to the top of a large tower.
Tag Archives: Colourful
Rollaround, Commodore 64
Rollaround is an isometric action/puzzle game written by Tony Kelly of Mr. Chip Software and was published by Mastertronic in 1987. The gameplay is a combination of Marble Madness, Bobby Bearing, Spindizzy and Q*Bert, where the aim is to control a rolling ball that moves around a map of screens, rolling over tiles, activating switches, and collecting cross tiles for points.
Flimbo’s Quest, Commodore 64
Flimbo’s Quest is a scrolling platform shooter that basically recycles the gameplay from the classic C64 game, Hawkeye. Designer/programmer Laurens van der Donk was a member of demo scene coders Boys Without Brains (who created Hawkeye), which explains the connection. From what I can tell, though, van der Donk was not involved in creating Hawkeye, so I’m not entirely sure how or why Flimbo’s Quest came to be.
Marvel Land, Arcade
Marvel Land is a cute, colourful, scrolling platform arcade game, first released by Namco in 1990. The European version was called “Talmit’s Adventure“.
Wolfenstein 3D, PC
Wolfenstein 3D is an infamous first-person shooter, developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1992. It is essentially a first-person remake of MUSE Software‘s overhead stealth game, Castle Wolfenstein, but with no stealth and lots of shooting.
Sunset Riders, Super Nintendo
The 1993 Super Nintendo conversion of Konami‘s 1991 arcade hit, Sunset Riders, is considered to be something of a classic on the system, and it is a lot of fun to play, either single-player, or with two players playing simultaneous co-op.
Energy Breaker, Super Nintendo
Energy Breaker is an isometric, tactical, turn-based RPG, developed by Neverland and published exclusively for the Super Nintendo by Taito in 1996. It was only ever released in Japan but does have an English fan translation patch available for it, which makes it playable to Western audiences.
Super Fantasy Zone, Megadrive/Genesis
Super Fantasy Zone is a conversion of the 1986 Sega arcade game, Fantasy Zone, re-programmed by Sunsoft and published by Sega in 1992. The game was initially only released in Japan and Europe, but North America did finally receive an official release of the game via Virtual Console in 2008. The game is also included on the Sega Genesis Mini.
Cauldron, ZX Spectrum
Palace Software‘s 1985 release, Cauldron, is a conversion of the Commodore 64 original, where you play as a witch who is on a quest to become the “Witch Queen” by defeating her opponent, “The Pumpking”.
Katamari Damacy, PlayStation 2
Katamari Damacy – meaning “clump spirit” – is a third-person action game that involves rolling-up items onto a ball called a ‘Katamari‘. You play as ‘The Prince‘ – a small, green boy who is the son of ‘The King of All Cosmos‘ and who pushes the Katamari around the landscape, making items stick to it, which in turn makes it grow in size. The aim of the game is roll-up a Katamari of a certain size in each of the game’s various levels.
The King of Grabs 