Today we discuss the first platform game that I had the chance to try in my thirty-year career as a gamer. The game is dated 1984 so do not expect collapse but, given the special affection that binds me to the title, I decided to dedicate my tribute reminiscent of that which gave me hours of fun.
Joe is the lone custoste a NASA space station in orbit around the earth. One fateful day, staff the station's robotic crazy becoming a threat to poor Joe that you see thus forced to give up fighting for his orbiting home unharmed. To achieve salvation the fearless guardian, wearing his space suit, will go through the five sections that make up the space station, taking the key there scattered. To put a spoke in the wheel to the protagonist will think crowds of robot out of control and levels of full scale, platforms (fixed and mobile), elevators, poles, slides and a variety of amenities placed at art. If we add to the limited air supply, which will oblige Joe to complete the level within a maximum time, the complete lack of weaponry, which will cause the player to skip or bypass the robot to avoid the fatal impact and the inability to survive falls from a height is immediately clear that the company is anything but simple! Now I just have to ask yourself one question: "Are you ready to put on the whole space?".
The first two levels Janitor Joe
As you can see from the pictures the game provides a very spartan graphics far from the results obtained by other contemporary titles, however, based on standard CGA (just look at the excellent Alley Cat you that I just mentioned in one of the first post of this blog ). The sound is at its lowest terms, it is only a few sound effects and a fun jingle the title screen ( beeper course). Despite the obvious technical limitations, Janitor Joe is filled with the gameplay (and the difficulty within the limits of frustration) that contrastinguevano games first-generation videogame. In short, despite a title that only five levels you will have a hard enough reason. To give a hand to his longevity are also meeting the five difficulty levels that affect the behavior of the robot mad: as low as they move along predefined pattern, gradually becoming faster, smarter (will move in your direction if you enter in their field of vision) and lethal (with the ability to shoot) man man who adds to the challenge.
not optimal, in my opinion, the control system that provides the touch of a button to stop the stroke of the character (after you select a direction the main character keeps moving until you stop it explicitly) and the inability to stop while climbing a ladder. From these limits in the control system arising most situations that will lead you to rant violently to the programmer: o)
The third and fourth level
Just to its program and the gestation of this game I want to dedicate this last paragraph.
The game was developed in solitary (very common in those days) by a boy of 16 years Atlanta (Georgia ) in just 5 days. Kevin Bales Is the name of the young programmer, decided to publish the game on a BBS of his city, a choice that allowed the game to spread rapidly gaining a large group of admirers (think that, despite the low prevalence of dell'antisegnano Internet in Italian peninsula, the game managed to get on my bold Olivetti M24). Technically, the game was developed in BASIC language (later filled in) ... precisely the limits of this language derive some of the major flaws of this game as the of sprite flickering and approximate control system.
Before leaving the inevitable movie I was sweating the proverbial seven shirts, you raise the challenge that the same programmer offers you the instructions on the screen: "unable to find the secret room?" (If you have the patience to watch the movie to the end will give you a bell'aiuto!).
PS The game works fine with the proper DosBox. Given the limits of the programming language the title is not able to adapt to the speed of modern processors, then set the value cycles (in the file dosbox.conf) to a value close to 300 to avoid splashing good to see Joe at supersonic speed (alternatively press Ctrl + F11 to change this value at runtime ). Have fun ...
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