Game:

Ant Attack (1983)

Duration: 2:12:09

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I take a look at Monster Max, a 1994 GB game from Rare's catalogue that revisits the isometric platform adventure genre the Stampers pioneered with Knight Lore in 1984. It was made for them by Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond, who had created one of the most popular games in that style at that time, Head Over Heels. This is a loving look back a decade on from that and I found it surprisingly accessible, with an interesting item swap mechanic and a typically cool soundtrack by David Wise. I had a lot of fun with it, clearing about half a dozen of the game's levels over the course of an hour.

Then I delve further back to an isometric predecessor to Knight Lore on the ZX Spectrum, 1983's Ant Attack. Sandy White and Angela Sutherland were ahead of their time with a big scrolling world to explore with an adjustable isometric viewpoint, and what is essentially survival horror gameplay. It also has an early example of selecting the gender of your player character in a game! After playing around in the ZX Spectrum original and the Commodore 64 port, I looked at some fan remakes: to the more primitive ZX81 in 2013 by Bob Smith, a more colourful 2006 Windows version by Tyrone Cartwright, and a full 3D remake from 2006 by Andrew Nixon.

Sandy White's homepage with behind the scenes info: http://sandywhite.co.uk/fun/ants/
Bob Smith's ZX81 demake: https://bobs-stuff.itch.io/ant-attack
Tyrone Cartwright's PC remake: https://web.archive.org/web/20150906041242/http://www.whimsy.demon.co.uk/antattack/remake.html
Andrew Nixon's 3D remake: https://web.archive.org/web/20080911120716/http://www.urbaninteractive.net:80/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=43

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