Rodland (Amiga) - Bubble Bobble meets Ghostbusters? - Saturday Afternoon Gaming
6Grab your magical rod and let's go!
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I'm Gaming Jay: Youtube gamer, let's player, fan of retro games, and determined optimist... Normally I'm working my way through the book 1001 VIDEO GAMES YOU MUST PLAY BEFORE YOU DIE in my Let's Play 1001 Games series. This is a great book with a ton of classic retro games but it doesn't have everything and it's even missing some of my favorite video games. Hence, in Saturday Afternoon Gaming, screw it, I'm just going to play whatever I want!
In this series I will be playing some of the best retro games that don't appear in the 1001 VIDEO GAMES YOU MUST PLAY BEFORE YOU DIE book. So pull up a chair, slap on your headphones, and join me as babble aimlessly through some of my most favourite classic games! And hey, if you have ideas or suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments below. I'm always looking for more games to try! Today we play...
Rod Land
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Land
Rod Land, known in Japan as Yōsei Monogatari Rod Land (妖精物語ロッドランド, lit. "Rod Land: A Fairy Tale"), is a 1990 platform game originally developed and published in arcades by Jaleco.
The player(s) control one or two fairies called Tam and Rit armed with a magic wand (rod). Following the concept of Taito's Bubble Bobble, the rod doesn't kill the monsters directly, but only leaves them immobilized, crying. To kill them, the rod can grasp them in a magic force-field and the player can smash them down over her head until they disappear and leave a power-up behind.
Each level is only one small screen composed of monsters, platforms, ladders and, later, tunnels. Unlike other games of the genre, the players can never jump, but have to use ladders. They can conjure one custom ladder above or below them in order to go to the appropriate platform. There can be only one such 'custom' ladder; therefore if the fairy summons it again, it will disappear from its previous position in order to appear again next to the fairy. This can be beneficial for the player, if a monster is climbing that ladder to approach her.
The fairies' quest is to rescue their mother, trapped in a tower. In the sequel (part of the original arcade machine) they must venture into a pyramid, to stop an evil demon that is building a mobile fortress. The spirit of their departed father "guides" them at a couple of points. The ending implies that the demon in the pyramid was somehow responsible for their father's death.
Rod Land's Amiga port was published by Storm and began development by Random Access in March 1991, and was released in September.[2] The One interviewed Ronald Pieket Weeserik, a programmer for Rod Land's Amiga port, for information regarding its development in a pre-release interview.[2] Weeserik notes that Rod Land's conversion was 'easier' than other titles, expressing that "it's nice to do a game that the computer is capable of emulating ... Everything in the coin-op can be included and the finished game will run at the correct frame rate".[2] The Amiga version of Rod Land has "hidden features and bonuses" that are absent in the arcade version, revealed by entering certain codes, a feature noted by The One to be in several other Random Access titles.[2] Rod Land's Amiga port also adds additional levels that are absent in the arcade version.[2] The Amiga port also corrects several glitches present in the arcade version, with Weeserik giving such examples as "enemies getting stuck at the top of ladders, the ability to slam enemies down on thin air, and not being able to zap things from ladders" and further stating that they wrote the 16-bit versions in the way the arcade version should have been written.[2]
Jaleco supplied Random Access with the background graphics for Rod Land stored as 16x16 pixel squares, although "jumbled up and in the wrong colours"; around five hundred sprites were stored this way, and this was noted as a difficulty in the Amiga port's development.[2] During this, however, Random Access discovered unused animations for every enemy in Rod Land, which were implemented in the Amiga port as a visual indication for when monsters are changing from 'patrol mode' to 'attack mode'.[2] Rod Land's sound effects are synthesised as opposed to sampled in the arcade original.[2] The Amiga port replicates these, but Weeserik expresses that "several of the less suitable sounds" are replaced by "something a little more palatable".