Game:

Repton 3 (1986)

Duration: 6:44

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2

In this, the conclusion to my longplay of Dave Jeffery's SET1 levels, I tackle the last four screens. Screen E is another one that takes inspiration from Repton 2, which also has a level in three parts with the top and bottom parts being identical except for where Repton starts. Dave's level takes this framework and spices it up by making it possible and indeed necessary to open connections between the different parts in order to cage all the spirits.

As I am playing this on the original BBC version, Screens F-H have no map availability, and indeed Screens F and G were specially designed to be more interesting to solve without a map. These levels make a good case for why it's a real shame that Superior Interactive closed this avenue off by insisting that all new levels must have map availability. Screen F is just a maze, with the very tight time limit being the main source of difficulty.

Screen G (Timothy) is the scenario's crowning puzzle; it's not easy to divert the spirits from orbiting the inner wall clusters and guide them to their cages, particularly as Repton finds himself, in order to get around the level, having to take diamonds that separate the wall clusters and can easily just end up isolating a spirit again. The uppermost spirit is the trickiest, and here I deal with it by placing a rock to temporarily connect its wall cluster to the cluster below, and immediately push this rock away before the spirit approaching from below gets trapped in the upper orbit. Notice how the level is made icier and quietly menacing by the blue / yellow / cyan (instead of green) colours.

Finally, Screen H is just a bonus level to reward the player for getting through the preceding seven.

The music for this video is another Scott Joplin rag, "Something Doing".

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