Arcade games

Background

A couple of things that I find impressive with new 8-bit game releases; one, when the author sets a difficulty level that encourages most players to play most, or all of the game; and two, when they release versions of a game on many platforms.

As you can probably guess, Shift ticks both of these boxes. The game is a port (though not an exact one) from Antoine Lavelle's (Armor Games) PC version - to no fewer than 7 different platforms, including our beloved Speccy.

Interestingly the author has created a few games that have a similar moody monochromatic look to them; I personally enjoyed Binary Battle, an icon-driven puzzler with roguelike elements to it.

The game

Your goal for each screen is simply to reach the big doorway somewhere on the screen. It's a platformer so I'm classing it as an arcade game, but the only hazards you'll encounter are spikes you can fall onto. Everything else is static so you won't be needing fast reactions for this one.

If that was it, it'd be a fairly boring platformer though - albeit a slick one. The key gameplay dynamic is - yep, Shifting (pressing the fire key).

Shifting flips the screen vertically, horizontally, and inverts colours - black to white, and white to black. It effectively gives you a new screen to navigate, and helps you get past otherwise insurmountable obstacles.

The game gradually introduces gameplay elements as you progress through levels, including:

• Switches that flip platforms back and forth
• Pick axes that clear certain obstacles

On the Speccy version there are 45 levels, plus a secret level (which I annoyingly haven't found yet). There's a funky tune (128k) playing throughout.

Summary

Amidst some of the incredible-looking modern Speccy games released recently, I've seen a few like this one going somewhat under the radar; I do wonder if they miss the hype train because they don't have screens full of large colourful sprites.

Don't be put off by the monochrome look to the screenshots for this one. Animation is fluid, controls are ultra-responsive. I suspect (like me) you'll find yourself glued to the keyboard whispering "...just one more level...".

Criticisms? Well I guess for early levels there's not much backtracking - you don't need to think much. Just run as far as you can go, flip, then continue going, flip etc. and you'll reach the exit without figuring out exactly what you did.

Having said that, as you proceed you'll start to engage the ol' grey cells to determine which switch does what, and what order you need to do things. Ultimately though you'll be finishing most levels in a minute or two, and can probably complete the game comfortably in one sitting.

So that's that - fancy a quick blast on a modern Speccy game that's easy to pick-up-and-play? Shift yourself over to Haplo's itch.io site and grab this one.