Jumpman Lives!

The Good
Out of the very few games I played by Epyx on my Commodore 64 were the excellent platform-puzzler Jumpman and its sequel Jumpman Junior. Both these games require you to negotiate girders and ladders, while collecting bombs and avoiding hazards unique to each level. They gave me a complete headache as I tried to work out how to complete each level without running into the many hazards. The highlight of both games was memorizing each level and its hazards, so the next time you play, you would already know how to complete it. Now, an independent programmer by the name of Dave Sharpless liked the game so much, he created his own version and submitted it to Apogee for publication.

Jumpman Lives! contains a handful of levels from the two games plus a few new ones. I like the homage to the C-64 version at the start; you have a small computer at the bottom of the screen, with the monitor displaying the same exact loading screen from Jumpman. There is also a fantastic story behind the game. A group of terrorists have infiltrated the Sagan Institute of Astronomy, planting TechnoBombs around the building, and Jumpman must fly to Saturn – their headquarters – and disarm them before they do any damage. You eventually see Jumpman flying to the ringed planet to spell out the title letter by letter, before jumping up and down in victory. I love the appearance of each letter; they look futuristic.

Four difficulty settings are available, and some of the levels are restricted to a certain difficulty setting. For example, you don’t get to play “The Pyramid” at the easiest difficulty setting. I think this encourages replayability; after the game is completed, the player can restart the game at a higher difficulty setting, taking a different path through the same levels, but playing any ones they missed.

If you have an Adlib or SoundBlaster card installed in your system, then the game has sound on par with Epyx’s two games, including the little diddies that play when you complete a level and when you lose a life. The game can still utilize the PC Speaker, but the sounds will not be as spectacular.

The Bad
There are two more features I have a problem with, with one being the ability to save your game. Unlike most of Apogee’s offerings where you can save your game at any point and you will load up that game and restart at the beginning of the level, here you are offered to save after every ten levels you complete, and there is no keyboard shortcut that allows you to save beforehand. Another is the editor (available in the commercial release). It sports a rudimentary interface, and even though there are instructions on how to use it, I still find it difficult to use.

There is usually a small gap between the girder and the purple string you climb down. If you are climbing down the string, you will fall to your death as soon as you reached the gap. Jumpman is incapable of stepping up onto lumps on the girders, so you will also die if you try to.

The Bottom Line
Jumpman Lives pays homage to Epyx's Jumpman series. It takes levels from both games, but also includes its own. The game boasts a nice introduction along with some impressive animations and sounds (especially if played through Adlib). There is save-game support and an editor where you can create your own levels (but good luck using it, though). The game was only available for a short time before it was pulled from sale at the behest of Epyx.