Themepark Mystery - how to play?

[Tim Janssen]

I know this thread has been posted before, but I cannot found it anymore. It was about how to play Mirrorsoft's Themepark Mystery. I really want to explore this game further since I have typed over the review text of this game from Zzap magazine:

Eighteen pages of informative text set the scene for this imaginative arcade adventure, reminding readers of the medieval origins of carnivals. Many of the various sideshows have mystical aspects, something which films from Big to Something Wicked This Way Comes exploit. Now you've inherited one such entertainment palace, but don't celebrate yet. You were bequeathed it by a mad grandfather and for the sake of both your sanity, and future profits, you must face up to the spirits that haunt it. In fact, there are eight demons to be found.
The game begins with you at a monorail station in Yesterday Land where there are three machines from the early 1900s. A fortune telling machine, a bagatelle and a grabber must be exploited to provide a train ticket.

Once you have a ticket you can board a train for the three other lands, or games. These must be completed in order, so first you must get off at Dragon Land. This is a platform arcade/adventure where you're transformed into a barbarian who must battle stone apes, ghosts and pigeons! Collecting a dream potion will allow you to go to Dream Land, but there's also five cogs to fix the dragon ride – taking you to four variations on the Dragon Land theme.

Dream Land is a multi-directionally scrolling overhead-view arcade adventure. You start off on a chess board with various pieces dotted around. Bumping into them reveals boxes which can be opened by keys. Inside there are such things as oil cans (to use on deadly eyeballs!), ladders (to cross gaps) and the demons you need to collect to finish the level. As well as lethal eyeballs, lips and beetles, there's a snowfield to cross, complete with snowball-throwing snowmen.

The next level is Future Land, a first-person perspective view of a ride up (and down!) a futuristic rollercoaster. You defend yourself with a laser-armed grabber which can collect demons and the debris of destroyed ships.

Zzap, Issue 63, July 1990, p.81


I am very interested to explore this game. Can anyone help?

[Belgarath]

Apparently there are instructions for this game on lsd docs disk 24 and a solution for it on lsd 8

If you don't have these I can post both of them in the zone.

[Tim Janssen]

...so can you post the instructions in The Zone? Many thanks.

[Belgarath]

lsd 24 in the zone, what would you have done if I was feeling even lazier though?

I would have printed the instructions to a text file but I can't remember how to do it...?

[Tim Janssen]

.. I would have posted this topic at other Amiga boards (are there any?).
Thanks for uploading the file. Finally I can explore this game. The review makes me very curious about it.

[Belgarath]

Let me know what you think of it, it's a game I always wanted to play back in the day but never got my hands on it, and now although i've had the adf for the last several years i've never gotten round to giving it a go but I might depending on what you think of it

[Tim Janssen]

... I have played the game for a couple of minutes and I am bit disappointed. So far I made it to the Dragonland-level but did not get very far in it.

When you start the game, collect all tokens and coins that are left in the slot-machines. Then go to the far right machine, insert a coin and a ghost will appear telling you to collect 8 demons. If you head up to the station, the metro will stop and you can enter it. The next stop is Dragonland where you turn into a beefy hero in a platforms 'n' ladders game.

I am a bit disappointed about the gameplay here: the collision detection is bad, the sprites are poor and pixel-perfect leaping is required. However, the promising sounding Dreamland and Futureland levels will eventually urge me to come back to the game.

[7-Zark-7]

If memory serves,(& I've got the issue around somewhere), Zzap didn't give it a ringing endorsement though,did they? It reminds me of how all the reviewers raved about Batman the Movie's 3D driving/flying sections, yet when I finally got it,(on clearance after already having owned/played a compilation which had Lotus Esprit 1 on it), I thought the driving section was very average especially compared to Lotus.

They are of course limited to what was available at the time as to what to compare it to though. Look at the C64, they had Retrograde being a great shoot-em-up, but was then completely dwarfed by Turrican within a couple of months,so much so even the Miggy games,(Turrican 1 & 2), still were classics despite not being much more than direct ports of the C64 versions gameplay/size.