Ranarama

Copyright : Hewson | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Mervyn the sorcerer?s apprentice is trapped in an evil dungeon after escaping from an invasion of warlocks. Life wouldn?t be so bad if he hadn?t inadvertently changed himself into a frog, whilst concocting a potion to improve his looks.

Help Mervyn seek out the evil warlocks and destroy their misshapen guardian hordes. Blast their looming weapon generators and defeat the warlocks themselves in ritual magic combat... and if you have enough strength after all that - who knows, you might succeed in turning him back into a human Mervyn.

An overhead maze exploration game with more than a hint of Gauntlet dropped into the mix, Ranarama was programmed by Steve Turner of Dragontorc fame and picked up a Mastergame award in AA #21 before being given away on the covertape of issue #79

Graphics

The first thing that springs to mind is Gauntlet. While this similarity is both obvious and undeniable, it tells only part of the story and once you get over how similar they look in a general sense, you can start to look underneath the surface and see what makes the game unique.

The most obvious difference between Ranarama and the swathes of Gauntlet clones out there is the simple but clever trick of only revealing small sections of the map at one time. Each room is blacked out until you enter and this gives you a limited amount of time to respond quickly to what dangers face you in a room and the quickest way back out of it!

Although the colour scheme is a little dismal, the background changing to indicate what dungeon level you are on, the animation is nicely done with Mervyn hopping merrily around the dungeon. Equally, the level of detail is unusual for a game of this type and looks much more polished than most of the other games in the genre.

Sound

A nice range of short tunes and sound effects play continually throughout the game and there?s enough variety to keep everyone amused.

Perhaps the tunes could?ve been sacrificed for a single, longer tune but it?s hard to judge because what there is, is perfectly adequate.

Gameplay

The aforementioned exploration of the dungeons is what sets Ranarama apart from the other Gauntlet clones. The sense of enjoyment and adventure that comes from charging around the dungeon not knowing what?s around the next corner is what makes this game special.

The minions that populate these dungeons don?t just restrict themselves to the rooms in which they start out, often taking to the dungeon corridors and providing back-up for each other at the most frustrating of intervals.

Add to this several other neat gameplay touches like the puzzle solving method of destroying warlocks and the different spells that can be cast and Ranarama moves away from being a simple overhead dungeon shoot-em-up into a more strategy based game.

Look out too for the effect on the lighting when you take out the last warlock in the dungeon level you?re on: the lights go out and you?re left to try and escape the dungeon in a murky light. This is a neat graphical touch and gameplay feature to boot.

While undeniably similar to Gauntlet and so for that reason it cannot claim to be the most original of games, there has been enough added to the mix to allow Ranarama to rightfully claim that it should be judged on its own merits and, for what its worth, I actually prefer this game to US Gold?s more famous arcade game.

Ranarama has stood the test of time well and while it not look like the most gripping or exciting of games, give it a go and allow it the time to prove just how addictive it really is and you?ll be struggling to put it down.