Preliminary: A very, very odd game... Hm.. So the first "challenge" is figuring out how to even start the game. It starts with a bidirectional arrow. I went left first, which led to basically a very early Paint program. This was my wonderful artwork that came out of it (really just me exploring the controls lol).

Now... how do I get to the actual game without having to wait for the super slow C64 loading (I should have played the Atari 8-bit version since that came out first, but it looks worse sounds worse and I wanted to try this... even tho I should've waited... it came out late 84 woopsie...). I like strange art games, non-games etc. And from what I read the concept sounded interesting, tho I knew it'd result in frustrating/confusing/vague gameplay. My sources of preliminary info were the official inlay:

And the mobygames description:

Ankh is a flick-screen arcade adventure where you control a Mindprobe in the "Metareal" world of Ankh. You have to explore the 64 room world to find a Treasure, Tool or a new mystery in the last room of the world. As you move around you will encounter various objects that move around the screen shooting at you but you are able to shoot back. There are doors that need opening by switches, other treasures to collect and objects that can be used elsewhere to help you in your quest. If you are shot, touch certain objects, touch walls or the doors then an energy bar decreases and when it is empty then it is game over.

Welp, I got into the game itself and the preview/announcements at the start clearly pride themselves in cryptography ( "good" showed some obscure confusing collection of symbols, and "bad" showed some other obscure confusing collection of symbols and lines lol, no clue what it meant(. Success will come from "Logic and Destruction". Ok? And some words I couldn't understand cuz the font is so cryptic, tho I did catch "human matrix" at the end. Welp, time to start exploring this MetaReal World :-p oh 80s scifi concepts :) Definitely on a come-up again nowadays. Oh nice, and before I get too far into the game, I luckily found the manual in a YouTube comment (it oddly wasn't on Atarimania, they usually have everything heh). And like many of these early games, a joystick isn't enough, especially in games where you have to pick up/drop items (the one downside of Atic Atac heh, having to navigate that sloppy pickup/drop item system).

Look: 7/10 The art program part has a nice variety of textures to choose from, and surprisingly pixel precision (e.g., it isn't just a row of like 10 blocks, it's far more in-depth than that). The font is super cool, even if hard to understand. I think? the bottom right is some sort of minimap or radar? Really not sure. Cryptic symbols, heh, which definitely fits the theme. And the UI overall is just really confusing. While I figured out some of its functions, some still remained completely useless even at the end of my playthrough (I slowly figured out that the upper right is a sorta inventory system). It's kinda funny how many of the areas look like swiss cheese/cheese-with-holes. At least there's some variety to the "maze" as you go deeper and deeper, unlike Psytraxx.

Sound: 6/10 I kinda like the continuous sound aspect, like I've mentioned before I enjoy the spam of sound effects in the likes of Atic Atac, this one isn't quite as great of sounds, but it's almost more musical cuz it seems to change its tone as you move.

Play: 6/10 Unfortunately one of those early computer games where you continuously move unless you press "stop"--which seems to be the same button that shoots if you're pressing a direction. Still, better-executed than many action-adventures of this time. Plus, like I always say, I appreciate early platformers and action-adventures that let you fight back, not a fan of the simply-wait-for-enemy-to-pass type games. And yay, this one is multidirectional (up down left and right, unlike that Psytraxx game I just played). But if you're gonna have controls like that, where you move until u stop yourself, shouldn't have your health go down whenever you touch something. Lame, frustrating feature of the game imo tho I realize it's part of the challenge. Weird how cowardly the enemies are, they'd hide in the swiss cheese holes (lol) and it'd become not a matter of precision or skill (I'd aim exactly where intended) but rather just waiting for them to come out of their hidey hole.

Feel: 7/10 Their goal, as they stated, was a game where you can spend "many months" solving the puzzles and trial-and-erroring your way through. 64 rooms--seems doable, unlike that insane 1000 rooms of Psytraxx. It definitely prides itself in its complex puzzles, but as someone who has played a lot of early action-adventures--shoot, let alone those early text adventures--I usually find complex, sometimes-illogical, not-always-intuitive puzzles fun as long as trial-and-error aren't too frustrating and RNG-based, and as long as there are resources online to refer to (fortunately there is for this game, tho ugh, a video. Why do there seem to only be video-based playthroughs/walkthroughs of speccy and c64 games instead of written walkthroughs, I much prefer written walkthroughs. So excited for the late 80s/90s era of written walkthroughs for adventure games and RPGs). In reality, though, it was the same basic structure to the puzzles throughout the game

Attachment: 7/10 Sorta like Psytraxx, I wanted to like this more than I did. But these games that really prided themselves on being complex and/or long--much like that era when early text adventures transitioned to stronger technology--it just doesn't result in fun. Instead, it's just trying to have complex puzzles with extremely simple components, or like with Psytraxx, a very long game with extremely limited variety. And it's not just a symptom of the time: Atic Atac was even earlier and that managed to balance fun and challenge, size and variety, trial-and-error gameplay and pick-up-and-play thrills. On an oddly related but not really note, I never thought I'd say this, but I have been missing text adventures lately. Anyway, I definitely wont forget this game due to its unique concept and potential, but I don't see myself regularly replaying it due to its mediocre controls, frustrating health depletion, and relative lack of reward/excitement.

Completion: Hard to say exactly Playtime: ~40 mins