Fred - original game

Fred was originally released on the ZX Spectrum, and is also known as 'Roland on the ropes', released in 1984, to sum it up, you play a man named fred, who raids lost egyptian tombs in search of valuables and then must climb to the top and find the exit, originally developed by 'quicksilva' the game has had a few remakes over time but the core remains the same.

the game isn't very deep, upon playing the whole thing had a large atari feel to it, the game seems much more focused around your point count as opposed to actually finishing it, i believe the game keeps going in a loop until the player runs out of lives, which would make for a decent casual game possibly for an iphone or online arcade stores, however, this would make it difficult to re imagine without wandering far off the original concept.

The Remake

This was the only version of fred available for me to play to try it out for myself, i found the game to be very sluggish and unresponcive, you have a gun with 6 shots max, the ability to jump but not whilst running, and climb up and down ropes, i found myself getting lost and hitting dead ends 90% of the time, there isnt much on replay value as the game just keeps going and going in the same repetetive pattern, however i really do like the collect treasure aspect, and in my re imagining the dead ends either need to go entirely, or have something special about them.

Brainstorming


ive been thinking about possible sets for my version of fred, im going to keep fred as an explorer, as this could open up possibilities for very interesting scenery, plot ideas, and level progression, im thinking about possibly having the game along the lines of, you start at the top, you follow various tunnels and caverns, with creatures to avoid on the way down, you have a bag of digging tools to forge your own paths if necessary, however doing so would run the risk of the walls collapsing, the prevent players from just digging a straight line down to the bottom.

you search for treasure, along the way you can find powerup trasures in the walls, you would access them by using your digging tools on cracks in the walls, the bigger the crack, the better the powerup, but the higher risk of caving in.

possibly fred could have a few weapons, but nothing overpowering, i want the enemies to remain a threat, i quite liked the whole 6 bullets ad thats it idea, might hold on to that.

i considered having different worlds/environments to explore, almost in a super mario style scenario, maybe to cater to the exploration mechanic, starting each world at ground level, gradually going deeper and deeper underground, eventually fighting a boss at the bottom, and then having to retrace your steps back to the surface, with some sort of danger chasing you all the way, making dead ends thoroughly terrifying, and forcing the player to use powerups wisely, as they wont return on the second trip.