Keystone Kapers
| Keystone Kapers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio | Activision |
| Publisher | Activision |
| Senior Developer | Garry Kitchen |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
April 1983, 1984 |
| platform | Atari 2600 , Atari 5200 , ColecoVision , MSX |
| genre | Jump 'n' run |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | joystick |
| medium | Plug-in module |
| language | English & German |
Keystone Kapers is one of Activision developed video game from the Jump 'n' Run genre, the first time at the in April 1983 Atari 2600 was released and in later versions on the Atari 5200 , the ColecoVision and on the 1984 MSX has been released . In 2019, a homebrew port was also released for the Commodore 64 .
The game comes from the pen of the programmer Garry Kitchen , who was responsible, among other things, for the implementation of the arcade game Donkey Kong on the Atari.
Gameplay
In the game, the player controls the sergeant Kelly (originally Constable Kelly) in order to chase the fugitive crook Flash Harry Hooligan through the fictional Southwick department store (or Southwicks). The player always starts on the right side of the lower floor. His task now is to chase the fugitive crook, who is always a certain distance ahead of the player, through the department store within a time limit of 50 seconds and to touch him. The building is divided into several levels, which can be changed using various escalators at the respective outer ends of the individual floors or an elevator. The elevator drives to the floors in a fixed order, which is why it can be more effective and faster to use the escalators instead. However, these only go to the floor above the current floor, i.e. upwards.
On the way, the player has to avoid numerous obstacles such as bouncing beach balls that move up and down, rolling shopping carts or model airplanes by skillfully crouching and jumping by pressing the red button on the joystick . Touching an obstacle results in the loss of a variable amount of time and the disappearance of the respective object, as time passes, the loss of a life follows. There are three lives available to the player per level.
On the way to the fugitive, various stolen goods in the form of suitcases and money bags can be collected, each earning 50 extra points. The time remaining after catching the thief is counted towards the player's point account: if there are still between one and eight seconds, there are 100 extra points per second, with nine to 16 remaining seconds 200 and with over 16 seconds 300 extra points are awarded. The level or the game is lost if the player collides with a model airplane, all lives have been used up, the time has run out or the thief has reached the top floor and flees over the left side.
During the game, the player's current life is displayed in the upper left corner of the screen in the form of police hats, the score and the remaining time for the respective level. Under the actual game screen there is a reduced and simplified version as a kind of map, referred to in the manual as 'Southwick's security system'. The fleeting crook is shown as a white line and the player as a black line.
variants
While the two Atari versions of the 2600 and 5200 are exactly the same, the version for the MSX was designed to be much brighter and, above all, differs significantly from the two older versions with this look. The gameplay remained the same, but in contrast to the previous editions, the sound effects and the level of detail of the environment also changed. For example, individual shops were indicated by various applications in the background of the respective floors.
Under the name Wachroboter hunters Jupy , a German version of the Quelle department store was brought onto the market in 1983 and marketed there. In principle, it is a visually simplified copy of the original, in which the player, instead of a security guard in the department store, controls a security robot on the hunt for an escaped green alien from Jupiter , the eponymous Jupy , in a space station . Nevertheless, an escaped prisoner can be seen on the title page of the Quelle game.
reception
Keystone Kapers received consistently positive reviews after their release. At the Arcade Awards of the US-American video game magazine Electronic Games it was awarded a Certificate of Merit and received a three-star rating in the ColecoVision version in the May 30, 1984 issue of Deseret News due to graphic improvements , a local Salt Lake City newspaper .
The game was also published on various Activision Anthology compilations for various systems such as the PlayStation or the Game Boy Advance .
Trivia
- Players who hit the 35,000 mark at the time the game was released could send a photo of the screen to Activion and receive a special Billy Club badge in the shape of a police badge with a picture of a jumping constable.
- The game's name alludes to the Keystone Kops , who appeared in numerous slapstick comedies between 1912 and 1917 .
- The game was also distributed in German-speaking countries via Ariola and was also referred to there on the cover as 'Räuber und Gendarm' after the terrain game of the same name .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Note in the manual of the game, to be found under 'Scoring'
- ↑ MSX version with picture at retroplace.com, accessed on June 14, 2020
- ↑ Here are ColecoVision's jewels in the issue of Deseret News on Google News , accessed on June 14, 2020
- ↑ Activision Anthology for Playstation 2 on mobygames.com, accessed June 14, 2020
- ↑ Selection of Atari patches at atariage.com, accessed on June 14, 2020
- ↑ Entry at qwant.com, accessed on June 14, 2020
Web links
- Overview at retroplace.com, accessed on June 14, 2020