Although the Commodore 64 was not thought to be particularly well-suited to these types of isometric platform games, Head Over Heels bucks the trend by being arguably just as good – if not better – than the Spectrum original.
Thanks to the sterling efforts of programmer Colin Porch.
Jon Ritman did the programming and Bernie Drummond did the graphics. And the result was: Head Over Heels – an isometric platform game, published by Ocean Software, and featuring two different characters who can combine to become more agile.
Happy April Fools Day!
A celebration of jokes and humour, and – in our world – video games.
Written by Jon Ritman, with graphics by Bernie Drummond, Head Over Heels was first released in 1987 and is still a fantastic game to play now – across a number of different formats.
So every day this week we’re going to be celebrating Head Over Heels – a classic 3D platform game like no other – starting with the ZX Spectrum original, and covering all the different versions of the game as the week progresses.
Anyway: welcome to April. You lovely gaming fools.
The King of Grabs
Head Over Heels on The King of Grabs:
ZX Spectrum version, Commodore 64 version, Amstrad CPC version, MSX version, Atari 800 version, Atari ST version, Amiga version, PC version, Head Over Heels Week
And here is the PC MS-DOS version of Bullfrog‘s classic Populous (1989), for comparison’s sake.
Bullfrog‘s classic ‘God game’, Populous, was first released on the Amiga in 1989. It broke new ground with its ingenious mix of real-time strategy and sandbox-style landscape-building.
Rare‘s classic isometric action game, Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll, was first released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. This Sega Megadrive/Genesis port came later, in 1993.
Project Zomboid is a fantastic, post-apocalyptic, zombie survival horror game that was first released on Steam in 2011 and continues to evolve to this day.
Sega made the (frankly bonkers) arcade game Moonwalker – starring Michael Jackson – based on his 1988 film of the same name.
Squaresoft turned Nintendo‘s figurehead character, Mario, into a level-grinding RPG in 1996, much to the delight of games-players world wide.
Atari‘s 1985 arcade hit Paperboy features an isometric road to cycle down and houses to throw newspapers at. It’s an attractive proposition for an arcade game. Especially when the game has real bike handlebars for steering, which the original arcade cabinets did.
The King of Grabs 