Pitfall! Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]
57Developed and published by Activision in 1984
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Harking back to the days when it was fashionable to have wood panelling on your games consoles and hi-fi equipment, Pitfall! is an iconic run n' jump game that first appeared on the Atari 2600. Conceived by David Crane, the game would be ported to many other platforms of the day, including the venerable C64.
The objective of the game is to guide intrepid adventurer, Pitfall Harry, through the jungle in order to collect as many treasures as possible within 20 minutes. Whilst the concept sounds simple enough, carrying it out is anything but!
The first thing to know about Pitfall! is that it can be beaten. The myriad of interconnected screens, dangers and the strict time limit make it seem almost impossible (more on this later), but there are a 32 treasures in total to discover and the game ends as soon as they are all collected. The treasures range from bars of gold, to precious rings and even platinum bars. Each item has a fixed point value, so the ultimate objective is to beat the game with a perfect score.
Standing in Harry's way are all manner of jungle perils, including alligators, gaping chasms, snakes, fire and quicksand. The only way to avoid these hazards is by avoidance - jump over them or wait for them to pass.
Whilst it might seem as though each screen in the game is randomly generated, they are indeed fixed and consistent each time you play. To stand any kind of chance of beating the game then you're going to have to get some paper and draw a map (that's if you're hardcore - I just went online and found a map), but you'll still need to plot the most efficient route through the game if you have any hope of beating it.
The tunnels located at the bottom of the screen are actually shortcuts. Whenever you exit left or right via a tunnel, the player moves 2 screens instead of the usual 1. Unfortunately, each tunnel is inhabited by scorpions that require pixel-perfect jumping to bypass.
Pitfall Harry has to climb down ladders to get into the tunnels, but it's possible to save a few seconds by simply falling down the hole. This will actually lose you points and making impossible to get a perfect score, but the strictness of the timing and other factors mean it's usually the best option.
Even armed with lightning reflexes and ninja-like jumping skills, the player will still need to learn each of the game's mechanics and to exploit them to their full advantage - expert Pitfallers will learn to only change screens when a pit is open, as well as it's possible to land on the single pixel where a croc's eyes should be without getting eaten or falling in the water. Only when you have mastered the perils of the jungle can you truly hope to beat the game.
Having said all of this, the simple fact remains that the game demands flawless execution throughout the entire game, something i don't think is possible to sustain. I used tool assists and save states to actually beat the game and even then I had barely 10 seconds on the clock.
Moving on to presentation, the game's visuals are all big, chunky sprites and squares daubed in high contrast colours - a decent recreation of the Atari's graphics if nothing else. However, there's plenty of charm to be found in these squares - a handful of pixels in the right places make for a convincing crocodiles, swinging vines and rumbling logs.
As for sound, things are fairly sparse here. There are a couple of basic effects for jumping and dying, although there is a really great attempt to create a Johnny Weissmuller-esque Tarzan bellow whenever Harry swings on a vine.
Pitfall! is a difficult game to sum up. On the one hand, it's charm used in the face of limited technology and computing power is great, but beating the game feels like an impossible task - play it with the objective of beating it and you'll get frustrated pretty quickly. Perhaps the answer is to treat it like so many classic arcade games where you want to aim for as high a score as possible and simply enjoy it for the moment.
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