Murphy needs your help to travel through more than a hundred of the most diverse game levels. A great journey awaits you to collect infotrons, dodge zonks, escape from snik-snaks, and smash ... Read allMurphy needs your help to travel through more than a hundred of the most diverse game levels. A great journey awaits you to collect infotrons, dodge zonks, escape from snik-snaks, and smash electrons along the way.Murphy needs your help to travel through more than a hundred of the most diverse game levels. A great journey awaits you to collect infotrons, dodge zonks, escape from snik-snaks, and smash electrons along the way.
Storyline
Did you know
- Crazy creditsIn-game elements such as infotron and zonk, as well as characters like snik snak and Murphy are listed as cast members.
Featured review
68% - A fresh frontrunner to a dying class of Boulder Dash clones
Philosophers have clashed over where we humans derive our knowledge. Two classical opposing views separate the rationalists like Pythagoras, who summarized that "all is number", from the empiricists like John Locke, who held that all knowledge is derived from our senses. The issue of epistemology remained unresolved for millennia, but in 1991, a Swiss startup company called Think! Ware believed that it had settled it. Philip Jespersen and Michael Stopp created a brain-teaser under the prototypical name Think!, as evidenced by the name inscribed in a handful of levels. It was released as Supaplex for Amiga and DOS for £25.99, inspired by the long tried-and-done concept of First Star Software's Boulder Dash, with its emphasis on the intellect.
My playthrough of the game mostly makes a case for empiricism instead, where I found learning from my mistakes necessary to pass. The player controls Murphy, a ripe tomato ball who is exploring inside a computer gone berserk, using his debugging genius to fix it. As he does, he chomps on objects in his way with his large jaws opening and closing. Sound familiar? This guy does not eat fruit or ghosts, but he does eat base and infotrons, the latter of which are necessary in order to use the level's exit door. As you can probably tell, I am already not a huge fan of this game's naming conventions. Some of the names are standard, and some of them at least make sense semantically (infotrons are the "emeralds" of Supaplex). The remaining few are given names that are either forgettable or seemingly arbitrary. Sand is now base, fireflies are replaced by scissors called "snik-snaks", and boulders are now zonks. I am not sure what "base" refers to or where scissors fit in the theme of computing. Maybe I know, but I don't care. And zonks ... are spheres with an equatorial groove that I can only assume are so designed to look as menacing as the Death Star from Star Wars, which, like the boulders before them, they are to one's progression. At this point, it is worth noting that the developers in the manual called their game "the coolest action game around". Although a peek at my score for Supaplex will suggest that I think "coolest" is subjective, the developers were clearly proud of their work.
As always, the game asks for one's player name, and it starts off as merciful, not wanting to overwhelm the player with what awaits them ahead. The first levels start off like tutorials to familiarize oneself with the elements of the game. One of the things the player may immediately notice is that Murphy and objects move from one square to another in a smooth manner, taking up two squares in the process rather than "snapping" to the next. This makes a difference physically, not just visually, in ways the developers would exploit in later puzzles. The speed of the game is comparable to Boulder Dash, and the player still has a good grip on their character. Murphy can still chip away at base and take infotrons without taking up their space, as well as shove zonks left and right. These two objects slip sideways on rounded surfaces. Everything from the game it is based on seems to be there spiritually, with larger levels and obvious visual differences. However, it has its own cast of elements. There are no amoeba or walls that convert zonks into infotrons and vice versa to worry about. Instead, it has three differently colored explosive floppy disks, buggy traps that look like base except when they are glitching, and doorways only Murphy can use that typically restrict movement. As for the disks, the red ones can be collected and planted anywhere on the map to destroy walls and objects. The orange ones can be pushed and will explode when they fall onto a surface or an object is dropped on them. The yellow ones are not gravity-bound and can be pushed anywhere, but like zonks, none of them can be pulled. They are only detonated once Murphy finds and uses a terminal. Interestingly, both scissors (replacing fireflies) and electrons (the butterflies that explode jewels) now travel only on the left side of a wall, and they only kill the player character when both touch the same square they are on.
The presentation admittedly isn't the most impressive for an Amiga game first marketed at full price. The graphics are a little crude, and the only two sound effects are for explosions and level completion. The DOS version has the missing sound effects, but with the tradeoff that, unless the player had a Roland SC-55 or some other decent sound module installed, they were better off hearing David Whittaker's song on the Amiga Original Chip Set than on a SoundBlaster. At least the single-track music is tolerable enough to be played many times apart. None of it is as important as my telling you what playing the game is like. It is best described as a throwback to the aged concept of Boulder Dash with twists to keep it alive for a few more years. Here, it has no time limit, and passing a level is like solving a favorite puzzle on a Sunday newspaper. Supaplex tries hard to suspend the player's interest with maps that become increasingly more open-ended, hoping they would come back to replay the whole game to beat their own record. I am reluctant to declare that it is feverishly addictive, but before I tell you why, the levels do become increasingly difficult. Surprisingly none of the 111 levels themselves feels redundant if time is no object. Some of them that involve pushing yellow floppy disks are reminiscent of the old video game Sokoban, and some levels even have the player character bound by gravity, allowing for even more possibilities with what few cast of elements it features. Some of those levels with gravity have doorways the player can (or in many cases must) use that toggle it on or off. Whether one is frustrated or stuck on a level, the design of the levels is worth appreciating.
Now for the part no one wants to hear, but must. I tested a "cracked" version of this game on an Amiga emulator, but for your sake, I promise that I did not use cheats, save states, or any other convenient means of speedy progression that were initially unavailable upon release, so the frustration I felt is genuine. Put simply, Supaplex leaves a countless number of possibilities for the player to make mistakes, but only several possibilities to succeed. Every level must be beaten without any blunders made or be restarted. Vital to progressing are patience, coordination, and rational forethought, but sometimes that also requires foreknowledge of the level's structure and elements, which can only be acquired by prior experience just from the game; no preview of the entire map is shown at the level selection screen, and the camera is always bound to Murphy. It is then realized that the clock that begins and resets at the start of a level is useful for knowing how much time is at stake of being wasted, but despite it having an hour mark, a level's size constraints thankfully mean that it should never take nearly half that long. Sometimes, it takes several seconds.
Unfortunately, it can take hundreds of failures to pass even a single level. This game has exposed me as a stereotype of humans as fallible creatures who are prone to impatience, miscoordination, and fallacy. I cannot tell you how many times I have boxed in my tomato Pac-Man with zonks or simply miscoordinated my movements. It does not get more anticlimactic when I forfeit minutes-long runs to things that I would say result from brain cramps. Hours sunk in, and the average time it takes to complete a level increases. Throughout, I gape at close calls and facepalm over my fatal stupidity. It seems ludicrous how a game like Supaplex could possibly sustain our interest, let alone keep us addicted, but this game has taught me to not snap as dramatically and maintain a peaceful state of mind. It still should have had saved positions or checkpoints to save the time lost unnecessarily to pressing the wrong button or repeating the same thing, but at least I was rewarded a sense of immense joy after fleeing the maze and its troubles. I persevered to the end, clocked in at 43h:32m:29s, and was given a screen containing a developer's message congratulating me for beating their game, as well as their own record of 5h:39m:15s. I will not call it out as a bluff by someone who promised us that the game is beatable, but knowing how well I performed feels like a slap in the face.
Its price of £25.99 would suggest that this rocks-and-diamonds game blows all others out of the water. It doesn't. It's just your average good. If the developers were serious about delivering the ultimate experience, they should have considered a level editor, multiplayer, and perhaps another element, to name a few suggestions. Else, it should have been at least sold at a low price, especially since it is not much different from the hundreds of clones that litter the public domain library.
VERDICT: Rating this game was no easy task. I had to isolate all of my frustrations from all the times Supaplex has impressed me. First off, it is not a particularly special addition to the old genre of rocks-and-diamonds games, and it should have been at least marketed as a budget title. I still question how the playtesters overlooked adding checkpoints or other means of saving hours lost to trial-and-error. That said, I did enjoy the game's take on the traditionally adventure-oriented genre by considering many combinations of puzzles using only a few elements, and the levels themselves were creative about it. There is just enough variety in the puzzles to keep us figuring out what to do in the next level, and I can see someone replaying the game again to break their own and perhaps the creator's record. By the end of the day, it is not the solution to the millennia-old debate on epistemology, but it is something that could have been a lot worse.
My playthrough of the game mostly makes a case for empiricism instead, where I found learning from my mistakes necessary to pass. The player controls Murphy, a ripe tomato ball who is exploring inside a computer gone berserk, using his debugging genius to fix it. As he does, he chomps on objects in his way with his large jaws opening and closing. Sound familiar? This guy does not eat fruit or ghosts, but he does eat base and infotrons, the latter of which are necessary in order to use the level's exit door. As you can probably tell, I am already not a huge fan of this game's naming conventions. Some of the names are standard, and some of them at least make sense semantically (infotrons are the "emeralds" of Supaplex). The remaining few are given names that are either forgettable or seemingly arbitrary. Sand is now base, fireflies are replaced by scissors called "snik-snaks", and boulders are now zonks. I am not sure what "base" refers to or where scissors fit in the theme of computing. Maybe I know, but I don't care. And zonks ... are spheres with an equatorial groove that I can only assume are so designed to look as menacing as the Death Star from Star Wars, which, like the boulders before them, they are to one's progression. At this point, it is worth noting that the developers in the manual called their game "the coolest action game around". Although a peek at my score for Supaplex will suggest that I think "coolest" is subjective, the developers were clearly proud of their work.
As always, the game asks for one's player name, and it starts off as merciful, not wanting to overwhelm the player with what awaits them ahead. The first levels start off like tutorials to familiarize oneself with the elements of the game. One of the things the player may immediately notice is that Murphy and objects move from one square to another in a smooth manner, taking up two squares in the process rather than "snapping" to the next. This makes a difference physically, not just visually, in ways the developers would exploit in later puzzles. The speed of the game is comparable to Boulder Dash, and the player still has a good grip on their character. Murphy can still chip away at base and take infotrons without taking up their space, as well as shove zonks left and right. These two objects slip sideways on rounded surfaces. Everything from the game it is based on seems to be there spiritually, with larger levels and obvious visual differences. However, it has its own cast of elements. There are no amoeba or walls that convert zonks into infotrons and vice versa to worry about. Instead, it has three differently colored explosive floppy disks, buggy traps that look like base except when they are glitching, and doorways only Murphy can use that typically restrict movement. As for the disks, the red ones can be collected and planted anywhere on the map to destroy walls and objects. The orange ones can be pushed and will explode when they fall onto a surface or an object is dropped on them. The yellow ones are not gravity-bound and can be pushed anywhere, but like zonks, none of them can be pulled. They are only detonated once Murphy finds and uses a terminal. Interestingly, both scissors (replacing fireflies) and electrons (the butterflies that explode jewels) now travel only on the left side of a wall, and they only kill the player character when both touch the same square they are on.
The presentation admittedly isn't the most impressive for an Amiga game first marketed at full price. The graphics are a little crude, and the only two sound effects are for explosions and level completion. The DOS version has the missing sound effects, but with the tradeoff that, unless the player had a Roland SC-55 or some other decent sound module installed, they were better off hearing David Whittaker's song on the Amiga Original Chip Set than on a SoundBlaster. At least the single-track music is tolerable enough to be played many times apart. None of it is as important as my telling you what playing the game is like. It is best described as a throwback to the aged concept of Boulder Dash with twists to keep it alive for a few more years. Here, it has no time limit, and passing a level is like solving a favorite puzzle on a Sunday newspaper. Supaplex tries hard to suspend the player's interest with maps that become increasingly more open-ended, hoping they would come back to replay the whole game to beat their own record. I am reluctant to declare that it is feverishly addictive, but before I tell you why, the levels do become increasingly difficult. Surprisingly none of the 111 levels themselves feels redundant if time is no object. Some of them that involve pushing yellow floppy disks are reminiscent of the old video game Sokoban, and some levels even have the player character bound by gravity, allowing for even more possibilities with what few cast of elements it features. Some of those levels with gravity have doorways the player can (or in many cases must) use that toggle it on or off. Whether one is frustrated or stuck on a level, the design of the levels is worth appreciating.
Now for the part no one wants to hear, but must. I tested a "cracked" version of this game on an Amiga emulator, but for your sake, I promise that I did not use cheats, save states, or any other convenient means of speedy progression that were initially unavailable upon release, so the frustration I felt is genuine. Put simply, Supaplex leaves a countless number of possibilities for the player to make mistakes, but only several possibilities to succeed. Every level must be beaten without any blunders made or be restarted. Vital to progressing are patience, coordination, and rational forethought, but sometimes that also requires foreknowledge of the level's structure and elements, which can only be acquired by prior experience just from the game; no preview of the entire map is shown at the level selection screen, and the camera is always bound to Murphy. It is then realized that the clock that begins and resets at the start of a level is useful for knowing how much time is at stake of being wasted, but despite it having an hour mark, a level's size constraints thankfully mean that it should never take nearly half that long. Sometimes, it takes several seconds.
Unfortunately, it can take hundreds of failures to pass even a single level. This game has exposed me as a stereotype of humans as fallible creatures who are prone to impatience, miscoordination, and fallacy. I cannot tell you how many times I have boxed in my tomato Pac-Man with zonks or simply miscoordinated my movements. It does not get more anticlimactic when I forfeit minutes-long runs to things that I would say result from brain cramps. Hours sunk in, and the average time it takes to complete a level increases. Throughout, I gape at close calls and facepalm over my fatal stupidity. It seems ludicrous how a game like Supaplex could possibly sustain our interest, let alone keep us addicted, but this game has taught me to not snap as dramatically and maintain a peaceful state of mind. It still should have had saved positions or checkpoints to save the time lost unnecessarily to pressing the wrong button or repeating the same thing, but at least I was rewarded a sense of immense joy after fleeing the maze and its troubles. I persevered to the end, clocked in at 43h:32m:29s, and was given a screen containing a developer's message congratulating me for beating their game, as well as their own record of 5h:39m:15s. I will not call it out as a bluff by someone who promised us that the game is beatable, but knowing how well I performed feels like a slap in the face.
Its price of £25.99 would suggest that this rocks-and-diamonds game blows all others out of the water. It doesn't. It's just your average good. If the developers were serious about delivering the ultimate experience, they should have considered a level editor, multiplayer, and perhaps another element, to name a few suggestions. Else, it should have been at least sold at a low price, especially since it is not much different from the hundreds of clones that litter the public domain library.
VERDICT: Rating this game was no easy task. I had to isolate all of my frustrations from all the times Supaplex has impressed me. First off, it is not a particularly special addition to the old genre of rocks-and-diamonds games, and it should have been at least marketed as a budget title. I still question how the playtesters overlooked adding checkpoints or other means of saving hours lost to trial-and-error. That said, I did enjoy the game's take on the traditionally adventure-oriented genre by considering many combinations of puzzles using only a few elements, and the levels themselves were creative about it. There is just enough variety in the puzzles to keep us figuring out what to do in the next level, and I can see someone replaying the game again to break their own and perhaps the creator's record. By the end of the day, it is not the solution to the millennia-old debate on epistemology, but it is something that could have been a lot worse.
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- FreeMediaKids
- Nov 24, 2022
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