Wloczykij

I spotted this game on the Atari 8bit fair in Hanau (Germany) some years ago. It was being displayed at the booth of the TOP-Crew. After watching it for a while and having a few rounds of the game behind me I decided to order it. You couldn't get a copy right away because there weren't any left except for the sample.

After a few weeks I could finally open the envelope that flatered to my letterbox on a sunny Friday afternoon. With the weekend ahead, I could now get into this AVALON game. The floppy sits inside a colorful wrapping displaying a boy (apparently a hiker) dressed with a pair of thin, gray trousers and a greeny shirt. Behind him a lonesome road amid of green pastures. The sky, partly covered with cloudes, iluminated by the aura of a late evening sun, prepares itself for resting after a fullfilled day. Superimposed over the sky, a huge (raytraced) earth globe suggests a somehow cosmic dimension of upcoming events. The reverse side of the wrappings yields a few clues to Polish readers, as to what this game is supposed to be about.

I assume that many of you are not very fluent in Polish, therefore here comes the story:

After returning from a long trip, Wloczykij (is it "Vagabond" in
English?) decides to get some rest. Only just seated in his
comfortable armchair, the door bell rings and disturbs Wloczykij's
peace. "What's the heck on fire?!", Wloczykij shouts and goes for the
door. Outside he spots a strange chap wearing a suit, looking like a
visitor from a very remote place. In a few words the alien explains the
reason of his visit. His spaceship crashed nearby a little known and
not very well researched planet called Earth. Luckily noone of the
passengers died in the crash. They could escape by emergency capsules
towards the mysterious globe. Lateron they got scattered across the
planet's surface. Now they need to be found and sent back home or else
their fait will be most fatal. The inhabitants of Earth are not
familiar with extraterestrial liveforms yet. Therefore they won't be
very friendly towards the aliens. Without loosing much time on
thinking, Wloczykij decides to help the aliens. This gives him the
opportunity to meet face to face with a new adventure.

So far so good. Now that you know the storyline, let's go on with the review. Upon loading, the program first chokes for a while. I guess it's some sort of copy protection, as the drive's sound suggests a nonexisting sector or track. Then loading resumes. Due to a non-standard sector scew you've got enough time to do a little cooking or doing some housework before the game starts up. This is true for unmodified disk drives. If you have a chance, switch your drive into turbo mode like I did on my modified "Turbo 1050". In this case you can forget the housework for the game loads within a few seconds.

The first graphics on screen is a logo, followed by a funny picture of Wloczykij. This creature looks more like a fruit than like a human, but it looks nice anyways. Shortly thereafter the main title screen appears. There's nothing special about it. If you turned on the volume on your monitor or TV-set you should be hearing the main theme of the game by Tomasz Liebig. Tomasz is not a nobody when it comes to excellent music on the Atari 8bit. Maybe some of you know his sound demos like the "Liebich-Demo". Knowing the later I was a little bit disappointed about the game's music at first. Maybe I set my expectations too high; in a commercial game, I figuered, you'd get the best musical score you can imagine. Somehow the music lacked something - this was my first impression. After a while my musical taste changed apparently for the music wouldn't dissapear from my head days later. Yea, it is a catchy tune, no doubt.

Let us press the START-Key now. Hm, looks good. In the lower part of the screen the show begins. Like in any 'Jump & Run' style games, you have to jump in order to avoid opponents or in order to get onto another platform, then you have to run if you want to get any further. Simple, eh? Not quite. First, one has to get used to the controls. It isn't the best part of the show I'd say. Wloczykij (which looks like an egg now BTW) is way too slow. Also other characters in the game take it easy. It's more like "Jump & Creep" than "Jump & Run". Then, it's not very easy to get the proper joystick feeling. Your first jumps will no doubt be a disaster. It'll get better as practice comes along, don't worry.

Now, back to the game. The main part of the screen shows a snowy landscape (well, it looks snowy on my green monitor, I can't say what color it's in reality) scattered with flowers, trees, fences, platforms, flashing aliens and the inhabitants of Earth. I never knew we've got so many strange characters around. One of them looks like a fish with wings, there's another one resembling a CIA officer, an Indian Chief, a monster PAC-MAN, a sailor (maybe). All these "creatures" can be eliminated by jumping onto the top of them, but be carefull! You have to jump _exactly_ onto the top of them, otherwise they'll terminate one of your four lives. Do you know the game DOOM? Then you're familiar with the face showing the state of the character's health. Something similar has been incorporated into this game. When you loose a life, the "face" of Wloczykij in the upper left of the screen also shows signs of decay. In order to complete a level, all aliens (these flashing thingies) have to be touched. You can see how many aliens are still to be gathered in the upper middle of the screen. On the upper right, there's a big hour glas urging you to hurry up.

In general, the graphics throughout the game is excellent! Nearly all of the characters are animated and look very funny. Every level is different. I've seen four different levels so far (landscape, cellar, arctic, house) and I'm eager to see more. Unfortunetely I haven't been able to complete the House-Level yet (but I was close *ugh*). Although the movement of all creatures is very much predictable, it's hard for a "Jump & Run" newbie like me to get through the game. You see, the game isn't too easy. I guess unless you are an expert with this type of games you'll need quite a while to see all levels (I wonder, how many of them are there?). Although the tune is very good, the whole game lacks any kind of sound effects, it's a pitty. Overall gameplay is nice, but like I said before, the controls and the speed of the characters aren't what I expected.

Hardware Requirements:
Atari XL/XE (64KB)
1050 disk drive (some sort of speeder recommended)
Joystick
also works on NTSC machines with minor problems (see comment by Mariano Domínguez Molina)

Overall ratings:

Graphics:    ********** (10 out of 10)
Music:       *********  ( 9 out of 10)
SFX:                    ( 0 out of 10)
Gameplay:    *******    ( 7 out of 10)

Overall:     ********   ( 8 out of 10)

Comment: Yea, it's cool, it's nice, go and get it.

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Marek Tomczyk