- by Owen Morton
Being bored at this time of morning (1.00am), there is only one thing to do. That is go to bed. However, I have chosen not to do this because I'm wide awake, and this leaves only one other thing to do: write an article for a certain website, thus keeping me entertained for however long it takes me to write it, and you entertained for however long it takes you to read it or alternatively decide it's not worth reading any more.
I was sorely tempted to write Act I, Scene II of the Hamlet rewrite that begun yesterday at much the same time of night, but I decided against it, in favour of writing some form of review of another Archimedes game that I was blessed enough to possess at one point in my life. This game was called Repton 3: The Life of Repton, and it was not very good. It could, I think, quite conclusively be argued that no Archimedes games were very good, but this one really took the biscuit.
Repton 3: The Life of Repton consisted of you controlling an interestingly deformed little man, presumably called Repton, as he ran around in a maze pushing rocks out of his way in order to acquire golden diamonds. You had to collect all the diamonds in a level before you could progress to the next level. It was an extremely simple premise. And as you can see in the picture below, it used extremely simple graphics.
Various hazards awaited Repton on his long and dangerous journey to collect lots of little golden diamonds. Most of them were due to his own intense stupidity, by which I mean that he was somehow perfectly capable of pushing rocks onto his own head and thus precipitating his demise. This was the usual way in which he topped himself, although he also had the chance to get himself well and truly exterminated by straying too close to large golden eggs, which then had the annoying habit of hatching and producing little green monsters which would then either chase him around until they killed him, or stand about next to the golden diamonds, thus making it impossible for you to complete the level. However, the ultimate method Repton had of killing himself was if you accidentally pressed a certain button on the keyboard. Yes, that's right. If you pressed a certain key (I think it was the 'd', but I'm not sure), Repton would blow himself up. Quite why the programmers felt this extra feature was necessary, I'm not sure, but then quite why they thought it necessary to create the bloody game in the first place, I have a similar level of ignorance.
I will confess, actually, that Repton 3: The Life of Repton presented some serious challenges to players (or, at least, players with my intellect). The main problem was that rocks had to be pushed about in a specific order for the level to be completeable. If you messed up and pushed the wrong rock, you could end up with some inaccessible golden diamonds, and then if you wanted the game to end, you would have to press the 'd' key a number of times until Repton used up all his lives. (That's probably why the blowing-himself-up feature was included, actually, in case you buggered up and wanted some way out of the game other than turning the computer off.) In fact, I feel no shame in admitting that I was incapable of progressing past Level 1 on this masterpiece of a game.
Well, that's not strictly true, actually. I wasn't capable of progressing past Level 1 if I actually played the game properly. However, the programmers of Repton 3: The Life of Repton evidently felt no need to protect the game from the most rudimentary of hackers. As with many games, it used a password system so you could get straight to the last level you'd got to without having to play through the whole painful experience again. Unfortunately, all these passwords were cleverly printed in the game's directory, so working out what they were did not present a great challenge. And thus I was able to check out every level and see that they were little different from Level 1: all involving pushing rocks about.
I'm sure the question on everybody's lips is 'why is it called Repton 3: The Life of Repton?'. Actually, I'm sure it's not. The question on everybody's lips is probably 'why doesn't Owen do something useful with his life instead of wasting it away on stupid websites?'. But anyway, to answer the first question and ignore the second (chiefly because I'm not sure I could give a satisfactory answer), I believe the '3' in the title is intended to imply that there was a Repton 1 and a Repton 2 that came before this edition. Fortunately, I never encountered such games, and I may be assuming things: maybe the man involved in this game is actually called Repton 3. But that's not really relevant. I will now attempt to explain why it has the phrase 'The Life of Repton' in its title.
Judging from the insight I got into the game by cheatingly checking out every level, I noticed subtle differences in Repton's appearance every time round. It seemed that he was growing up! Goodness me! Thus each level represented a different stage of his development! How very sophisticated. Though quite why he should grow up as a result of pushing rocks around and collecting golden diamonds, instead of doing more conventional things (eating, sleeping, going to school, etc), I don't know. Maybe he sold the golden diamonds for food and education at a jolly good school. However, I can't be certain on this point. Neither can I be certain on why in Level 1, Repton appeared as a full-grown man, then reverted to babyhood in time for Level 2 and then progressed through life in a relatively normal fashion (or as normal as it can be when one's life consists of pushing rocks around). But it probably doesn't really matter. Or, indeed, definitely doesn't.
That's pretty much all I have to say on the subject of Repton 3: The Life of Repton, apart from a brief mention of the fact that the music was perhaps the most irritating feature of the whole game, and given the incredible irritatingness of the game, that is really saying something. The music gave you five options: off, or one of a number of incredibly badly rendered but still slightly recognisable tunes. Obviously, the option 'off' was the most frequently used one, but in the event you wanted to force someone else to commit suicide, this could be achieved by the utilisation of the music and a good set of ear plugs applied to your own ears.
I'm sure there's an awful lot more that I could say about Repton 3: The Life of Repton, but to be perfectly honest, I can't be bothered. I have much better things to do, even at this time of night. That better thing would be to go to bed, like perhaps I should have done instead of writing this article in the first place.