Game Info --------------------------------------------------- Developer: Magic Bytes Publisher: Magic Bytes Year of Release: 1988 Game Review & Impressions --------------------------------------------------- Pink Panther on C64 has, for several decades, been a thorn in my side. I owned a copy of this back in the day and never got further than the first screen. I could never figure out the controls or what to do, so I'd long assumed the game was broken or incomplete. I decided to revisit it once more to see if I actually get anywhere and, to my surprise, finally figured it all out, but was it worth the effort? The short answer to this is a resounding "No", but let's dig a little deeper to understand why this game is a steaming pile of panther dung. The game star the eponymous Pink Panther, famous for his cartoons and TV shows. Ol' Pinkie enjoys the finer things in life, but lacks the fiduciary means to live out the life he's always dreamed of. Right now, he quite fancies a luxury holiday on a desert island, but he's going to need to earn some serious cash to get there. To ease his money troubles, Pink decides to seek employee as a butler to the rich and famous and, as luck would have it, his pay masters turn out to be somnambulists. Pink must take this opportunity to swipe as much cash and valuables as he can from the house while taking care to prevent the sleepwalking owner from bumping into something and waking up. The game features 4 levels, each set inside the confines of a luxury mansion. Each house is divided into multiple floors, each connected by staircases and doorways. Each floor is divided into foreground and background layers, which both the player and sleepwalker can move between. The 'walker moves in a straight line until he either crashes into a wall or piece of furniture, or is redirected by the player. Pink can hold out his arms, which causes the 'walker to reverse direction switch between front or back playfields, or simply change direction if one of the playfields is obstructed by an object. It's also possible to make the sleepwalker just swap between the playfields by ringing a small bell, which the panther has on his possession at all times. In addition to walls and furniture, some areas contain bearskin rugs or grates on the floor which cause the sleepwalker to wake up when stepped on. Pink Panther can place trampolines and seesaws to help the sleepwalker navigate these obstacles, and it's even possible to position an inflatable replica Pink Panther at strategic points, which redirects the sleepwalker when touched. On paper, the game design sounds as though it might be quite fun, but in practice it's just infuriating. The opening level places the sleepwalker a short distance from a wall and gives the player only a few short seconds to redirect him. The controls aren't exactly intuitive, particularly operating the stupid bell, so sleepwalker will almost certainly cannon head first into the first wall, at which point the level ends and you're dumped back to the main menu. This game could have been so much better if only some kind of tutorial existed, or the first level had been simplified to ease the player into the game. But don't worry, if you're struggling to get anywhere, it's possible to go straight to the desert island from the main menu and view the ending screen without playing any of the game whatsoever! As to why the developers included this in the game is beyond me, especially when there's no way back to the game if you actually select the stupid thing. This is a particularly painful discovery for tape owners who'd have to reset the machine and load the entire game all over again if they accidentally selected this option. Pink Panther is a really depressing game, more so because there's actually the germ of a good idea in there somewhere. Unfortunately, it's suffocated by the appallingly bad level and game design, which is only made doubly worse by the excruciating multi-load for tape users. Video Notes --------------------------------------------------- - The game doesn't actually end, even when you complete all 4 levels, so I just added the ending in manually. Chapters --------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Loading screen & menus 00:40 Level 1 06:10 Level 2 10:25 Level 3 15:54 Level 4 22:00 Ending ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGRz4g01DIk