Good evening! This is the first day off I've had for quite some time so I made the most of it by having some fun with the BBC Model B. Today I was playing the game "Rubble Trouble" and thought I would share some details of the game with the wider world.
The game is set in the futuristic age of the early 21st century in the aftermath of World War III, which was terminated by a massive nuclear bomb. This reduced the entire world to being populated by primitive cavemen, and evil creatures called "Krackets" (mutated, flesh-eating turtles). The object of the game is to move around a maze of rocks and kill the Krackets before they kill you, and this is done by shoving rocks on them. There is a time limit in each level due to the rising level of background radiation. Bonus points can be scored by crushing rocks that contain numbers, and crushing a rock containing a bomb basically causes eveything to disintegrate. Sounds good doesn't it?
"Rubble Trouble" loads in approximately four minutes from tape and gives the option of displaying instructions during the loading process. The game play is fairly fast as you need to keep moving to avoid the Krackets and shove the rocks without them bouncing back at you. The colours are very vivid and take full advantage of the BBC's graphics capabilities, which were much more advanced than most other computers of the time. There are also great sound effects, including a funeral march when the caveman gets eaten, a fanfare for high scores and a celebratary jingle at the completion of a level. It is a game that can provide hours of amusement and is suitable for people of all ages.