Preliminary: Ooooo, Manic Miner-influenced, collect-all-the-items platformer, sadly no way to fight back, but very much so that Speccy feel that I like. Seems to be doable in how long it is, but we shall see about the difficulty. Oooo and you can fall from reasonable heights, rather than an arbitrary death.... hmmm this is looking promising for a full playthrough!

Look: 7/10 Your usual Speccy Manic Miner-derivative affair, but it was cute with the Well-Done at the end. And overall mostly well-done sprites. Tbh this really deserves a 6, but just for the nostalgia of the Speccy Manic Miner type platformer era, I bumped it up.

Sound: 6/10 Overly long death jingle for sure. The title screen jingle is technically good, but quite annoying as it is.

Play: 8/10 Again, grateful for the game not having you arbitrarily die from any missed jump. Disappointed, tho, there isn't a way to fight back. Nevertheless, that classic Manic Miner Speccy feel -- what more could I ask for to hook me to a game with a reasonable length and a set ending?! All the elements I look for in these early platformers :-p Wow nice you can move while falling! In fact, they expect you to manipulate movement while falling--interesting flexibility I haven't seen in much else besides Lode Runner (and arcade platformers, of course).

Feel: 8/10 As with many of these incredibly difficult, slightly clunky (tho this was particularly good in the controls and mechanic department), and precision-required early platformers, I eventually had to abuse savestates heh. Even mid-level smh. And sheesh, why would they make the death animation/jingle so long when it's so frequent. Quite tacky. Technically, this was a clunky, god awful, frustrating mess of a platformer... yet I kept pushing through... and through... and through (albeit abusing savestates and referring to a playthrough video). Why do I do these things to myself? It happens especially with platformers heh. And wait, why did I suddenly become a bird character later? lol. It seems I prefer those levels: unless I'm missing something, you seem more capable of jumping over enemies when manifesting as the bird character, which makes for a more enjoyable gameplay style than mere timing over and over and over again (which I still can't deny I was hooked to for a whole week ha).

Attachment: 7/10 Definitely tedious. Maybe I had too high of hopes based on my preliminary viewings (now that I know the game, I realize they had collisions turned off--no wonder it seemed so fun and doable! haha). The game prides itself on tedious trial and error, with super precise and often borderline illogical solutions to what seemed like traps, as many of these early platformers do. Unfortunately, it just didn't have that appeal, feel, sound, look, and attachment that Manic Miner did to make me push through. I fear replaying Manic Miner someday, cuz I'm afraid it might ruin my love/nostalgia/memory of it. Cuz sheesh, every game I've played that's called Manic Miner-esque has been tedious and overly difficult. Once I realized there was also a time limit, when I finally solved the third level and thought I might push through, yea---this just prides itself on being difficult not fun. I allllmost gave up at that point, yet couldn't resist trying again the next day.

It just keeps going and going! Why do I do these things to myself lol I spent 4 nights pushing through this frustrating, silly game... Why are there so many levels where you can die immediately at the start unless you already know what to do, why does it pride itself on frustrations like how almost every level has a mechanic where you can't re-access an area of the level (which I don't find a valid form of difficulty, like you have to collect all the items on a screen, so if you can't go back you might as well had made it difficult enough that I died... not just stuck and have to kill myself... felt tacky)... and yet why did I keep pushing through? And why did I feel committed to/proud of learning the absurdly precise mechanics? What a serotonin rush when I would make a series of pixel-perfect jumps heh... I guess that means I can't completely write it off. Plus, I can't deny I wound up feeling like I got better and better, being able to solve the "puzzles" and avoid the traps/pits, after going through the headaches enough times heh... in the end, after getting used to the game's antics, it felt like the first few levels would have been obvious... but still why do I do this to myself lol. There are so many better games to come. This is a solid early microcomputer platformer, very Manic Miner esque, and only for those who want to play the Manic Miner derivative era of early platformers. Otherwise, ostensibly skippable.

Welp, after a week of playing, a good ~8-10 hours of gaming in, I finally reached this screen and beat it! Sad it just loops back around, but still nice that there's a set ending level

Completion: All unique levels, ~9500 Score Playtime: ~9 hours over 7 different play sessions