Supaplex (DOS)

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Description

Supaplex is a puzzle game reminiscent of Boulder Dash. The player controls the red Pac Man looking character called Murphy. The objective is to reach the exit, which is only opened when a certain number of Infotrons are collected (usually all in the level). The setting is inside of a computer, therefore some computer terminology describes elements found in the levels. This includes destructible RAM chips, indestructible hardware, utility disks (which are explosives), terminals, and ports (one or two way gates). The most common enemy is a zonk, a rock which falls and rolls downwards, and explodes if it comes in contact with some, but not all other game elements. One of the most common enemies are a scissor looking enemy called snik snak which always moves in a predictable pattern.

Some levels feature gravity, where Murphy will fall down if he stands still, and has nothing beneath him. Other elements have fixed rules, such as Infotrons and Zonks always falls down, while RAM and hardware always stays put. There are 111 levels in total, and up to three of these may temporarily be skipped to advance. The game allows several profiles so that players may use the same computer with their own progression.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "Think!" -- Amiga working title

Part of the Following Groups

• Boulder Dash variants
• Supaplex series

User Reviews

Man, was it addictive - but I FINALLY completed all levels	Karin Carroll (3)
Probably the game I spent most time with of all games!	Erwin Bergervoet (397)
One of the most addictive games to grace the PC.	Tomer Gabel (4643)

Critic Reviews

GameHippo.com

Oct 11, 1999

8 out of 10

80

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Trivia

The game was originally designed to run on XT/AT machines (before the days of the 286 even). The speed was supposed to be 35 frames per second, which was achieved because the game waited for the vertical refresh (monitor update) which is 70 frames per second in VGA, but the game calculations were slow enough to make the game wait for two retraces.

Since the game was mostly popular on 286 and higher machines, almost everyone played (and plays!) the game at twice the intended speed.

Herman Perk disassembled the code and updated it to make the speed variable, resulting in the first SpeedFix. This was later extended to enable hidden features in the game and fix some bugs.

Related Web Sites

• Supaplex website (The most extensive Supaplex website in existence. You can get the game here, level editors, new levels, and many other things.)
• Supaplex - Wikipedia (More information about the game on the open encyclopedia website, Wikipedia)