Hocus Pocus
Description official description
Hocus Pocus is a young magician apprentice who has two goals in life: to join the Council of Wizards in the land of Lattice, and to marry his sweetheart Popopa. Unfortunately, both objectives cannot be accomplished without embarking on a long and dangerous journey to gather magical crystals on behalf of the wizard chief Terexin. The quest for career and love begins!
Hocus Pocus is an action platform game. Controlling the young magician, players run, jump, and climb through levels populated by various types of monsters. Hocus will encounter many magic potions on his way; some will restore health, others will grant special powers; such as as a super-jump that will allow access new areas, or laser shot which offers a better attack.
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Credits (DOS version)
18 People (11 developers, 7 thanks)
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 69% (based on 6 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 44 ratings with 8 reviews)
The Good
The graphics were very clean and moved smoothly. The controls were simple and have a one mintute learning curve. The gameplay is ok although...
The Bad
...it was really all too easy. The sound effects and music leave something to be desired. I really wanted to like this game, I played through, but found that it was the same old thing over and over again with minor changes in scenery.
The Bottom Line
Hocus Pocus is fun for about a half-hour but quickly loses what charm it might have had.
DOS · by Derrick 'Knight' Steele (2346) · 2000
Basic Mario type platform game.
The Good
Personally I like the music. It's a standard platform game otherwise.
The Bad
The enemies are repetitive. Same moves over and over.
The Bottom Line
Good platform game. Excellent parallax scrolling. Cute character.
DOS · by gametrader (208) · 2000
Solid game without anything spectacular
The Good
Hocus Pocus has lovely graphics - it beats Xargon, Vinyl Goddess from Mars or sometimes even Jazz Jackrabbit! Music is in MIDI format, and it matches levels very well. There are cheerful melodies, spooky tunes and oriental themes.
Enemies differ in various levels, so you will encounter giant mushrooms (sound familiar?) and crocodiles in first levels, and later you will face Eskimos in snow levels and bear-like monsters in scary castles.
The Bad
There are only few music tracks, so they repeat frequently. Also, level design is repetitive - for example, Arabian levels use almost the same tileset as Egyptian levels - only pyramides are absent and mosques are added.
As I said, enemies are different in various levels, however they are stick to one of three schemes: "fly-and-shoot", "walk-and-shoot" or "just-walk".
Also, there aren't any special features like map (Xargon), 3D bonus level (Jazz Jackrabbit) or minigame (Commander Keen) and game can be finished very quickly.
The Bottom Line
Overall, it's a good game, however without any originality. It beats most of Apogee's EGA platform games or earlier Moonlite Software side-scrollers, but it's inferior to Jazz Jackrabbit. Personally, I think it's worth throwing those few bucks when you find this game in a flea market.
DOS · by Sir Gofermajster (485) · 2009
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
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Both related sites links are dead | J D (3) | Jul 3, 2021 |
Trivia
References
Right through the game there are references to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The Tree-People who attack you in the second level are obviously parodies of the Ents, and the wizard to whom Hocus is an apprentice, Terexin, is a Gandalf spoof.
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Related Sites +
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Hocus Pocus
The official homepage - obsolete site, last archived in 2003. -
Hocus Pocus Web
Hocus Pocus fansite in Portuguese and English - obsolete site, last archived in 2009
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by IJan.
Macintosh, Windows, Linux added by Sciere.
Additional contributors: Xantheous, Frenkel, Maw, Patrick Bregger.
Game added December 3, 1999. Last modified January 25, 2024.