Creepy Corridors

The Good
Creepy Corridors is a game I was not familiar with until now. It is a simple action game that some VIC-20 owner may be familiar with.

The gameplay mechanics are the same as in Mr. Do! You can finish the level either by collecting all the diamonds or killing off all the enemies. This gives the game a bit more variety, because in one level, you can collect, while in another, you can kill.

The mazes are well-drawn, and their color scheme changes every two levels. I only got up to level eight where there were about ten enemies, and it goes from blue to purple to red to black. The animations of the enemies navigating the maze us well done.

I like how the game gets difficult each time you get through a level. You have the usual enemies in the early levels, but later ones reveal a skull that follows you repeatedly and you can't shoot at it. The best way to deal with it is go behind one of those sharp corners and stay on that half of the screen.

I could say that Creepy Corridors acts like an Atari 2600 game, if not for the title screen which shows players what to expect in the game. There is no "Game Over" text when the user runs out of lives, and the entire game can be restarted by pressing [F1] during the game.

The controls are simple to use. The joystick is used for movement, and the fire button is used to shoot enemies. I like this simple control method, because that is the method I grew up with and there are no complicated key combinations to memorize. I like how your character sounds when he is walking.

The Bad
I can't think of anything bad about this game.

The Bottom Line
Creepy Corridors is a simple game from Sierra, years before they became popular with their King's Quest series. The animation on the title screen is excellent, showing players what to expect during the game. The game itself has a nice color scheme that changes every two levels and the graphics are well-drawn, The sound is okay, but not the best compared to other VIC-20 games in its time. What's best about the game though is the increased difficulty, which sees more enemies coming in the game whenever the player advances a level.