Game Review: Spooks (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

The loading screen to Spooks certainly sets the scene as much as it can, with you needing to exorcise the haunted mansion, which is full of ghosts.  You are clutching a book, which is The Layman’s Guide to The Spirit World, which has some useful hints in there which will help you in the game – and five of those hints are mentioned in the game’s instructions, so well worth a read of those.  It does mention that you need to collect eight parts of The Death March, located within eight musical boxes.  If you get those and play them at the exit, then the ghosts are defeated.

Arcade Adventure Anti-Ghost

It is also clear from the instructions that this game is an early arcade adventure for Mastertronic, where you will need to use the joystick to move around, and the fire button to launch the action menu, with either several actions then being pressed by the number keys 0 to 9 to carry out the action, or by moving the joystick to the command and pressing fire.  In theory, this is quite innovative as it meant that you could move around easy enough and using the command sequence (and thereby pause the game in play) without having to reach for the keyboard first.  This would later be utilised again by the same author in the game The Captive too, so if you had played that before this one, the controls would be familiar from the get go.  In fact, you could argue that the commands being fully controlled by joystick set an early precent for later games too, so there is some innovation there at least.

A-Maze-Ing

When the game loads, you are introduced to some of the ghosts whilst a painful version of Chopin’s Grande Valse Brilliante plays, which repeats after thirty seconds and plays a single channel version in-game too.  You can press the O key during game to turn that off and just have the sound effects, which may work better for you.  When you do start, you are at the very bottom left of a maze, and you must find the exit.  As you explore rooms, the map will start to show on the right-hand side to reveal which rooms have been explored.  If you find the actual map and pick it up, the whole map gets revealed which can be very handy to work out where to go.  It should also be noted that the whole maze can go dark, and a working torch can switch the lights back on – although what you may have seen of the maze resets and you will need to re-explore to see it.

Let’s Start Throwing Things

Early in the maze you will come across a table.  Picking it up is advisable, as it is mentioned that ghosts do not like having heavy objects thrown at them.  Sooner or later, you will encounter a ghost, which does seem to appear somewhat at random and not always at the best time. They move around diagonally, almost attempting to home in on you.  When they are within range, you can use the menu and select throw an item, and select something like the table.  You can then select the direction, and once the command is done, the object will be thrown and if it hits, the ghost goes away.  Other useful heavy objects include single and bunk beds, heavy weights, and hot coals (provided you collected and wear the gloves first) which seem to do the job well.  You can only carry three objects, so careful planning is needed as to what objects to carry at any one time.

Blue Key to the Door

You will also locate a blue key, and this is perhaps one of the most useful objects to have.  Any doorway that is marked blue will need the key in your possession to get past, and there are plenty of these doors dotted around the maze.  There are also large red and green keys that have their own uses, but you will need to find out what they are for.  Do not forget you can also wear certain items too, meaning they do not count towards your inventory total – so the likes of a jacket and some gloves, when found, may be better worn than carried if it helps you out.  There may also be a good reason for wearing those, as you may find out later.

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

There are also several boats that are dotted around the maze, and these are essential for getting past certain screens that show some water waves, whether that be a quicksand tide waiting to drag you under, or a flood of water.  However, if you find the boat, and have it in your inventory, then on the necessary screens you will see yourself on the boat and able to glide around those screens to the other side.  In fact, two of the eight musical boxes do lie amongst the waters, so you need the boat to get across and then carry back with you the musical boxes, and drop one of them off in a relatively safe place if you need to track back and get the other.

Play That Funky Music

Once you have collected at least one of the musical boxes, you will need to locate the exit screen, marked E on the map.  Once you reach there, the musical boxes automatically drop for you – and you can then head off and retrieve some more.  This is also indicated in the status display too showing how many you have collected. Inevitably this does mean some back tracking to find another one or two and return them back here, so careful mapping as to where the locations are is very handy.  At least one of the musical boxes is in the bottom right corner of the maze but to get there you need to cross some water with the boat, and you need the blue key to open some of the doors, thus limiting you to one musical box at once, so you do need to think carefully if you get that far.

Ghostly Goings On

The ghosts do tend to appear more at random as you play the game, which can unfortunately man that you do get trapped as they chase after you.  If there are two of them you have unwittingly uncovered and you do not have an object to throw, and they get you, it is instant game over.  This  can be very frustrating, more so if you have managed to locate some of the musical boxes and return them.  It could have easily been tweaked so any collision reduces your energy instead of killing you outright.  You already can find food and eat it to top up energy, so there may have been a tactical element of more importantly knowing where the food is.  And while your energy does reduce as you walk around, that element may have at least prolonged some games instead of being subject to insta-death.  Oh, and do not walk into the oven…

Status and Scoring

The bottom right of the display shows any rooms and descriptions, whilst the left-hand side is the slightly small play area, where the maze is, the monsters are and any objects that you locate.  The right hand side has the maze, either part mapped (revealed as you explore) or fully if you located the map, and when you press fire to use or collect objects, it also shows you how much energy you have left, how many musical boxes you have and a decision timer which counts down as you decide what to do with any objects and so on.  It is at least well laid out with plenty of colour, even if that does make the maze appear somewhat gaudy and at times difficult to tell which is a door (normally in white, but can be in many other colours) and what is a wall.  The map does help considerably to work this out, so well worth finding early in the game.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Spooks are somewhat basic, with user defined object backgrounds making up the backgrounds.  These do have some colour and variety and does include gardens with trees as well as differing locations within the maze.  The objects are all single colour and reasonably defined, whilst the scrolling is not as smooth as it could be.  The main criticism here is that it does not attract as much as it should.  The music is painful and I guarantee you will be reaching for the O key to turn the music off as soon as the game starts.  The sound effects do at least serve their purpose and add that sense of using an object or being located by the ghosts, so not bad there at least.

Final Thoughts

Spooks is a reasonably well thought out arcade adventure, with some good puzzles to solve and a good-sized maze to explore.  Despite the graphics and sound not being up to much, the gameplay elements and at the time innovative use of being fully joystick controlled for all the actions (something the later Magic Knight games would also do) does deserve some praise.  The playability is somewhat put off by the randomised ghost appearances and the fact that some are very lethal, resulting in an early death and frustration, which will put people off playing the game to a degree.  Get past that and there is a game in there that despite its flaws does have a sizeable goal to achieve and I can imagine if you did complete it, it will be a satisfying experience overall.

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