My first Anco game
Anco's Death Trap was released in 1990 and reminds me of platformers like Horror Zombies From The Crypt, with hints of Prince Of Persia and Ricky Dangerous. The gruesome cover is nothing short of tremendous!
We begin the adventure in a labyrinth of horror and encounter traps, like falling blocks, poisonous chests, spikes, etc. Each map is huge, and easy to lose your bearing so I doodled myself a route, which helped a bunch. Puzzles are simple, like flipping a switch to unlock a door, but this might mean backtracking, and sometimes you're even required to walk the long way around. Not easy, when you're under constant attack.
Okay, that's enough yapping. Let's view a couple of screenshots...
The graphics are absolutely superb, with gorgeous tones used!
Right, stop! There's a switch... wanna risk pulling that thing?
It's all about the killing!
Yes, evil creatures inhabit this dungeon and will annoyingly appear at the most inconvenient times (it's quite similar to Black Lamp in this respect). They're all relentless, so watch out for ghosts who materialise from out of thin air, jumping frogs, bats that swoop in and drop rocks, Egyptian wizards, and many others. I must say, I love the stripy grabbing hands that appear before the culprit appears to chase you!!
Controls are responsive and keep up with the demands of our adventurer. The tighter jumps can be difficult as you need to tiptoe right to the end of a platform, which is difficult when constantly chased by creatures! Our direction cannot be altered during the jump, which is awkward.
We're armed with a pathetic blade, but this can be upgraded with potions - I love the fireball that grants the ability to kill something before it gets close. These potions can be used to conjure spells, recover health, etc. The trouble is that exploration is vague, with lots of backtracking and guesswork. Or, in other words, Stevie got lost a lot!! If there was ever a game that needed an auto-map feature, this is it.
Right, let's see another couple of sexy screenshots...
The enemies are on par with Black Lamp. Gorgeous enemies, like this stripy dude!
Those leaping frogs are insane. Very deadly too!
The CryptO'pinion?
Technically, this spooky adventure impressed me with its agile scrolling, animated sprites, great controls, and sampled sound effects. However, Death Trap is tough; the maps are huge, and I often get weary of the enemy's constant onslaught, which can feel annoyingly unfair. So, I came away impressed and unimpressed. It's got the hallmarks of a great platformer: a labyrinth of interesting places, nice puzzles, and monsters to kill. But there are too many monsters constantly getting in the way of exploration and progress.
A trainer might be welcome to fudge that. Surely that's not right? [Don't Call Me Shirley!!]
- DOWNLOADS -
Back when AtariCrypt was just a baby, I recorded this gameplay video. Stonish has a great floppy disk, and the hard disk version is available thanks to 8BitChip. If doodling ain't your thing, then Hall of Light has every level mapped.
