Leaderboard November 2020: Traps 'n' Treasures & Spindizzy Worlds

[Biscuit]

When I started playing Spindizzy I was worried I'd never get the hang of it. But it only took a few goes to get used to moving about. The handbrake really helped. Most difficult bit is moving over multiple sloped surfaces quickly. Not sure how I'll get on with the hard levels but the easy ones are great. Managed it in under an hour. With quite a few retries on the last level.

136 jewels

[capehorn]

Originally Posted by Biscuit

Any idea how long hard takes? I have a bad feeling it's very long. Like a few hours.

Easy is where all the fun is, and I'd recommend that everyone tries the easy levels, and when they have finished, dip their toe into the hard ones to see if they like how the difficulty increases.


One of the problems about hard is that the puzzles get very tricky, and so does the general gameplay. Some of the levels are arcade style ones a bit like marble madness, but some are very hard to figure out, and just one screen can take an hour or so to work out if you haven't seen it before. The simpler levels are the first ones you come across, but as you get closer to the centre of the solar system, the levels get a lot more chore-like.


If everyone tried to play it to the end, I think only a minority would manage it. But the good thing is that they can have a go and post a score showing how far they got.

[Biscuit]

My magnificent score. 2,945

Yeah. Just getting a feel for it.

[manossg]

Getting some nice progress in Spindizzy. I think it is an awesome game and it is great fun rediscovering it.

Almost completed the easy level and the puzzles have started getting a bit fiendish!

[Biscuit]

I've no need to worry about the length of Hard. It's really hard so I won't make it very far. I did one more level than this but didn't get a screen of it. Gonna test out the levels a bit more with a saved game. Before trying another score attempt.

136 + 123 = 259 jewels

[Harry]

Easydizzy completed: 142 Jewels.

[Biscuit]

Traps 'n' Treasures is great. Really satisfying finding stuff and using it right. I made it to the second level. Definitely need to learn my way around there. So far the difficulty is pretty good. Taking my time looking for patterns and it feels fair. Only annoyance was getting trapped somewhere I needed a rope, but I took the risk going down there and paid the price.

Just short of arcanists score.

43,830

[arcanist]

The puzzle variety in T&T is nice. I got stuck a couple of times and had to look up solutions: getting to the rope in the first area and a button in the second.

I've got a good save state for practice now. I'd like to see as much of the game as possible.

[arcanist]

58,740

That's my legit run.

With some save stating - and more longplay watching than I'd like to admit - I've also made it to the third area. The second area is super trolly with softlocks, a blind rope toss, and a timed run at the end across half the map.

I can't really fault it though. This would have been good value for money back in the day. The game's huge and has quite a bit of variety.

Reading through Roman's blog and website, which has some neat backstory on the game's development, I found this remake of the underwater music.

[Biscuit]

I tried doing level 2 with the password to see how doable it would be to finish the game like that, but taking away your weapon and health bars is a bit mean. Makes it a good deal tougher. And some of the spikes etc get me too often. Still enjoying it. Like you say, a good value game.

I'm further through the level but it must be pretty big. Draining the water is cool. Liking all the animations and the music is great. Will have to read that blog properly - looks like it was hard work getting it made and released.

[manossg]

Managed to beat the easy Spindizzy level! What a great, addictive game! Will definitely try the hard level as well.

I used the built-in save, though, so I don't know if the (pathetic-127) score counts.

[Biscuit]

127 is alright. But you're right that saves aren't allowed for score runs. So I've put a null score on the board for you. It would be easy to breeze through a few levels now for a score if you'd like.

Good luck with the hard levels. They are good but live up to the name. I'm not great when moving really fast but it's fun trying.

[manossg]

No problem, i just might redo the easy levels just for the score...after the final easy level, I feel like the previous ones will be a piece of cake!

Looking forward to the hard levels, having great fun with this challenging game.

[manossg]

There you go, not much of an improvement, but I did it in one go, without saving.
Time for the hard level now!

133

[capehorn]

Here is my save-state assisted training run. I didn't bother with the final level, which is stupidly difficult, it's like 10 hard levels rolled into one, although I did complete it for real once in the 90s, it must have taken me forever. I hope I get time to do a proper score run before the month is out.

[manossg]

Aren't save states (as opposed to in-game saves) disallowed, even for non-score runs? :S
I hope they are, because I am pulling my hair out trying to complete the hard levels legitimately. No way am I gonna beat the hard level until the end of the month, though, so I am practicing for a score run currently.

[Biscuit]

You're right manossg. Those scores are not going on the board. Capehorn is just showing off what he has been practicing. It's impressive anyone can get that far.

I'm having trouble getting past more than 5 hard levels no matter what I do. The Pac Attack level is a lot of fun though.

Here's something random I didn't know until this month. The Spindizzy Worlds box cover was created through a competition on Amiga Format.

[manossg]

Originally Posted by Biscuit

I'm having trouble getting past more than 5 hard levels no matter what I do. The Pac Attack level is a lot of fun though.

Here's something random I didn't know until this month. The Spindizzy Worlds box cover was created through a competition on Amiga Format.

Wow, that's a nice piece of trivia!

Geez, the hard level is indeed very hard. The difficulty truly ramps up and I have to cherry-pick the levels that I can beat, usually the slow paced, puzzle-based ones. But I am getting there. I absolutely love the level design in this game, even though can be a bit sadistic at times!

[capehorn]

Yes, to be fair the save-states were only used to practice the bonus levels, the actual level playthroughs were done in one go, although not in the same play-session, so the score isn't to be counted.

I have to agree, sometimes people create good game engines and only design a small number of levels for the game, this has an enormous amount of good content, and I particularly love how every bonus session somehow matches the level it is paired with.

[manossg]

Phew, I managed to beat some levels and improve a bit on the current high score.

133+ 130=263