magazine

Palace Of Magic
A DISCOVERY THREE DECADES IN THE MAKING
» RETROREVIVAL
» BBC MICRO » 1987 » SUPERIOR SOFTWARE
This BBC Micro release escaped my
attention on its debut, mainly because
I only knew a few people who owned a
BBC Micro when I was a kid. Luckily, we
now live in the age of the internet, and it’s
possible to discuss games with all sorts of people and even
see what said games are like without the need to ever pop
over to someone’s house.
I first came into contact with Martyn R Howard’s
entertaining adventure game a few months back as it was
being sold on a Facebook group that I’m a member of. It
immediately caught my attention because there was a frog
on the cover (I like frogs) along with a stylish-looking castle.
I headed over to YouTube to get a little more information
about it and felt it seemed interesting enough to warrant
actually playing.
I’m glad I gave it a whirl, because Howard’s game still
holds up exceptionally well today. Yes, it has the garish
eye-assaulting colours that so many BBC Micro games
seem to suffer from, but it also has decent collision
detection, tightly honed controls and a quick fluid pace to
it that makes exploring the huge palace a joy rather than
a chore. It’s also surprisingly complex with keys and other
objects slowly opening up new sections of the sprawling
palace. I’ve seen it described in the same breath as
Metroid, but it’s not really on par with Nintendo’s gem, as
your main character never really expands his skills beyond
the ability to jump. It’s clear that a lot of thought has gone
into Palace Of Magic’s level design, though, and if I still had
access to gridded paper, I’d probably feel the itch to map it
all out so I could uncover every last secret.
I came under fire a few months back because I
professed my dislike of Chuckie Egg II, suggesting it had
aged poorly (which it has). While I still believe that there
are a fair number of classic home computer games that
are nowhere near as good as our rose-tinted memories of
them, it’s equally satisfying to discover plenty of
seemingly-forgotten titles that play as good now as they
did on their original release.
16 | RETRO GAMER