 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2019) |
| Wriggler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Romantic Robot |
| Publisher(s) | Devonshire House |
| Platform(s) | ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC |
| Release | 1985 |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Wriggler is a Spectrum and Amstrad maze game published in 1985 by Romantic Robot. The original release of Wriggler contained an instrumental track on the B-side titled "Moons of Jupiter," composed by Alexander Goldscheider.
Wriggler is based around maggot racing other maggots. The player controls a maggot and has to escape a maze consisting of 256 screens. The maze is divided into sections: garden, underground, hell, planet surface, the dungeon.
The graphics, animation and cassette inlay artwork were created by Allin Kempthorne while still at school. He went on to become a writer and cartoonist for The Sun newspaper. He later became an actor and comedian, most noted for writing and starring in the comedy feature film The Vampires of Bloody Island . The Spectrum version was programmed by his twin brother Matthew Kempthorne, and the Amstrad version was programmed by Matthew Kempthorne and David Vivian.
A version of Wriggler was developed for the Enterprise (ported directly from the Amstrad version), but not released.
An article on The Making of Wriggler appeared in issue 114 of Retro Gamer Magazine . Written by Graeme Mason, it contains interviews with both Matthew and Allin Kempthorne.
| Publication | Award |
|---|---|
| Crash | Smash! [1] |
Wriggler became the Star Game in Personal Computer News [2] and the Game of the Month in CRASH magazine.
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. Considered one of the most influential computers ever made, it is also one of the best-selling British computers ever, with over five million units sold. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and around the world in the following years, most notably in Europe, the United States, and Eastern Bloc countries.
The Quill is a game creation system for text adventures. Written by Graeme Yeandle, it was published on the ZX Spectrum by Gilsoft in December 1983. Although available to the general public, it was used by several games companies to create best-selling titles; over 450 commercially published titles for the ZX Spectrum were written using The Quill.
Manic Miner is a platform game written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith. It was published by Bug-Byte in 1983, then later the same year by Software Projects. The first game in the Miner Willy series, the design was inspired by Miner 2049er (1982) for the Atari 8-bit computers. Retro Gamer called Manic Miner one of the most influential platform games of all time, and it has been ported to numerous home computers, video game consoles, and mobile phones.
Sabre Wulf is an action-adventure game released by British video game developer Ultimate Play the Game for the ZX Spectrum home computer in 1984. The player navigates the pith-helmeted Sabreman through a 2D jungle maze while collecting amulet pieces to bypass the guardian at its exit. The player does not receive explicit guidance on how to play and is left to decipher the game's objectives through trial and error. Sabreman moves between the maze's 256 connected screens by touching the border where one screen ends and another begins. Each screen is filled with colourful flora, enemies that spawn at random, and occasional collectibles.
Knight Lore is a 1984 action-adventure game developed and published by Ultimate Play the Game, and written by company founders Chris and Tim Stamper. The game is known for its use of isometric graphics, which it further popularized in video games. In Knight Lore, the player character Sabreman has forty days to collect objects throughout a castle and brew a cure to his werewolf curse. Each castle room is depicted in monochrome on its own screen and consists of blocks to climb, obstacles to avoid, and puzzles to solve.
Colossal Adventure is a text based adventure game published by Level 9 Computing in 1982. It was originally released for the Nascom.
Ghostbusters is a licensed game by Activision based on the film of the same name. It was designed by David Crane and released for several home computer platforms in 1984, and later for video game console systems, including the Atari 2600, Master System and Nintendo Entertainment System. The primary target was the Commodore 64 and the programmer for the initial version of the game was Adam Bellin. All versions of the game were released in the USA except for the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum versions, which were released only in Europe, and the MSX version, which was released only in Europe, South America, and Japan.
Newsfield Publications Ltd was a British magazine publisher during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Zzap!64 was a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact.
Rush'n Attack, also known as Green Beret in Japan and Europe, is a run-and-gun and hack-and-slash video game developed and released by Konami for arcades in 1985, and later converted to the Nintendo Entertainment System and home computers. Its North American title is a play on the phrase "Russian attack" due to its Cold War setting. It was ported to home systems and became a critical and commercial success for arcades and home computers.
Rick Dangerous 2 is a platform game developed by Core Design for the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS. It was released in 1990 and published by Micro Style as a sequel to Rick Dangerous.
Eureka! is a video game for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum computers, written by Ian Livingstone, developed by Novotrade for Andromeda Software and published by Domark in 1984.
Tornado Low Level is a multidirectional flight game developed by Costa Panayi and published in 1984 by the company he co-founded, Vortex Software. The game was first released for the ZX Spectrum, and later ported to the Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64.
Oh Mummy is a video game for the Amstrad CPC models of home computer. It was developed by Gem Software and published by Amsoft in 1984. It was often included in the free bundles of software that came with the computer. The gameplay is similar to that of the 1981 arcade game Amidar.
Personal Computer Games was a multi-format UK computer games magazine of the early/mid-1980s published by VNU.
Dandy is a dungeon crawl maze video game for Atari 8-bit computers published by the Atari Program Exchange in 1983. It is one of the first video games with four-player, simultaneous cooperative play. Players equipped with bows and unlimited arrows fight through a maze containing monsters, monster spawners, keys, locked doors, food, and bombs in search of the exit leading to the next level. If a player dies, they can be revived by finding and shooting a heart. The game includes an editor for making new dungeons.
Splat! is a maze video game published for the ZX Spectrum in 1983 by Incentive Software of Reading, England. It was subsequently released for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and SAM Coupé.
Red Shift was a video game publisher active between 1983 and 1985. They were well known for their strategy games and had a close working relationship with Julian Gollop and Games Workshop.
Dragontorc is an action-adventure game developed by Steve Turner's Graftgold and released for the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum by Hewson Consultants in 1985. It is a sequel to 1984's Avalon The 3D Adventure Movie. The hero of Avalon, Maroc the Mage, returns to defeat an evil witch and save Britain. The game was very well received by critics.