Your thoughts on...Wriggler

edited October 2010 in Games
Hi guys, as I'm planning a feature about the making of Wriggler, I wondered what everyone's memories and thoughts of the game were. It was the only release by Romantic Robot, more famous of course for the Multiface 1 et al.

Wriggler

I'm quite impressed someone mapped it!
Post edited by jdanddiet on
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Comments

  • Funnily enough I played this again a few days ago.

    I still don't know what i'm supposed to be doing though!
  • edited October 2010
    i think the aim is just to find a way out of the maze, although you are supposed to be trying to win the race as well.
  • edited October 2010
    Didn't get too far with it, tended to run into that big creepy spider thing and die instantly. Even the other creatures were a bit unforgiving, you only had to clip them and they seemed to sap most of your energy. The puzzle element with the objects added some extra depth though. I don't think I ever finished it even using POKEs.

    Having said that, I used to like exploring the map, & loved the bright graphics and animation and the fact there were lots of sections overground and underground.

    At the time I thought it was a very impressive and surprising release from, as mentioned, a company known mainly for its more serious utilities & hardware.
  • edited October 2010
    I remember back then that I was very impressed by the graphics. I still like the game today, but find it a bit difficult, when you get underground. It was something different back then. Would like to know how well it sold really. Would probably have been a bigger hit, if released by one of the big games companies back then???
  • fogfog
    edited October 2010
    the guy behind romantic robot is a local... and still contactable (he runs a record label with the same name)

    but it was marketed in with other items.. so didn't really stand out,
  • edited October 2010
    Possibly the most notable aspect of this game was a decade later, when Stuart Campbell ranked it at number 3 or something in his top 100. I tried it and wonder what the fuss was about.

    edit: ok scratch that, it was 75, I think I mixed it up with Stop The Express, another obscure game. However its inclusion still seemed a bit bizarre & esoteric.
  • edited October 2010
    A worm trying to escape from a high labyrinth? Inexplicably I found this game
    very playable and funny, high map and, also inexplicably, funny loading screen & inlay.
  • lordsnooty wrote: »
    Possibly the most notable aspect of this game was a decade later, when Stuart Campbell ranked it at number 3 or something in his top 100. I tried it and wonder what the fuss was about.

    edit: ok scratch that, it was 75, I think I mixed it up with Stop The Express, another obscure game. However its inclusion still seemed a bit bizarre & esoteric.

    Stop the express is a bona fide classic!
  • edited October 2010
    Not played this since the 80s, and I remember it vividly and fondly.... Mus have had something about it.....

    Nice big graphics?
  • edited October 2010
    This was one of the very first games I actually played on the Spectrum and I have some kind of warm memories of it. I never got any far or understand what to do, more than trying to race the other worms which seemed much faster than me.

    However, since I was very young when I played it, the feeling of the large map was kind of mystical and magical, and the large spiders were scary.. :smile:
  • edited October 2010
    lordsnooty wrote: »
    Possibly the most notable aspect of this game was a decade later, when Stuart Campbell ranked it at number 3 or something in his top 100. I tried it and wonder what the fuss was about.

    edit: ok scratch that, it was 75, I think I mixed it up with Stop The Express, another obscure game. However its inclusion still seemed a bit bizarre & esoteric.

    That's Stuart Campbell for you. He wouldn't just reel of a list of a hundred obvious classics without trying to sneak few oddball games in there.

    Anyway, Wriggler is obviously just a twist on the old huge multi-screen maze games, such as Sabre Wulf, but with its own distinctive personality; loved the nicely animated graphics and the bold use of colour. That said, the map is ridiculously convoluted and once the novelty wears off, it's a serious grind. I did like the music on the reverse of the tape though.

    As for Stop The Express, come on, it's a blooming masterpiece; nothing else plays even remotely like it, and it looks fabulous into the bargain.
  • edited October 2010
    I love wriggler , great fun , great large well animated graphics and a tough challenge .
  • edited October 2010
    Good game , nice tune at the beginning. I always thought I'd done something wrong if I landed up in 'Hell' and that there was no way out. Yeah , a good game and playable , but not addictive as it was too tough too soon.

    That bony spider was one of the scaries baddies on the Speccy though!
  • edited October 2010
    I love wriggler. And it can be completed in one of two ways, the hard or the easy. Easy (not that easy as you have to get lucky with the death spider thing) is to get the skeleton key which will open any door in the mansion. Hard is to not get the skeleton key and play through the mansion getting each key in turn. This is exceptionally difficult when relying on the randomness of the pickups, and remembering which key unlocks which key. I've completed the game in easy mode with a life remaining without save states, and hard mode only with save states, and even then it was tricky!

    Oh and there are also two versions of the game out there, one easier than the other. The easier one is best avoided as it isn't a challenge in the slightest.

    Wriggler is an all time classic spectrum game.
  • spud wrote: »

    Oh and there are also two versions of the game out there, one easier than the other. The easier one is best avoided as it isn't a challenge in the slightest.

    Which version is on the wos archive?
  • edited October 2010
    The harder one if memory serves me. I've only ever seen the easy one on a youtube video walkthrough of the game.
  • zx1zx1
    edited October 2010
    I played this when it was given away free with YS, it was fairly good with nice colourful graphocs but it would crash about 3 or 4 screens in, the screen would fill up with various parts of the graphics and i would be stuck.
    And yes, that spider was scary eeekkk!
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • edited October 2010
    spud wrote: »
    Oh and there are also two versions of the game out there, one easier than the other. The easier one is best avoided as it isn't a challenge in the slightest.

    Really? Hmm, that's interesting. Will have to check that....
  • edited October 2010
    zx1 wrote: »
    I played this when it was given away free with YS,

    I think I had my copy on some Game Compilation, perhaps a 10-pack of some kind.
  • zx1 wrote: »
    I played this when it was given away free with YS

    A lot of games from the top 100 turned up on a YS cover tape not long after. Hmmm...
  • edited October 2010
    Rickard wrote: »
    I think I had my copy on some Game Compilation, perhaps a 10-pack of some kind.


    It was on the famous Beau-jolly computer hits compilation.
  • Did you have to beat the other worms?
  • edited October 2010
    They're supposed to be maggots and I think technically yes you are supposed to win the race. Problem is the other maggots are not affecte by the enemies and can just swan through them...
  • edited October 2010
    One of my fav games back then,the maze is designed so that some exits impossibly loop around sending you in circles so there is really only one real route above ground,when you get into the cave network it gets harder lol,try following another maggot may not help much either.
    The `B` side of the original cassette had Romantic Robot music all through it
  • edited October 2010
    jdanddiet wrote: »
    It was on the famous Beau-jolly computer hits compilation.

    Ah, that is correct, this is the one.

    Some good stuff there: Skool Daze, Harrier Attack, Wriggler, Chuckie Egg and since I played some text adventures I also liked Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle.
  • edited October 2010
    yeh just a shame about brian jacks, overlord...

    but then that's compilations for you!
  • edited October 2010
    jdanddiet wrote: »
    yeh just a shame about brian jacks, overlord...

    Also Braxx Bluff. It looked very good, but I never understood how to even land..

    BraxxBluff.gif
  • edited October 2010
    I understood how to land - it was just very very tough. The second part didn't justify the effort if my memory serves...
  • edited October 2010
    jdanddiet wrote: »
    yeh just a shame about brian jacks, overlord...

    but then that's compilations for you!

    Meh. Overlords is a brilliant game, it just needs two players with the additional problem of them both wanting to learn a moderately complex strategy game. Such an occurrence was probably rare in the market Beau Jolly was pitching to, alas.
  • edited October 2010
    I think that was part of the problem - you had ten games and BJ obviously wanted to include some decent titles over a variety of genres.
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