» [Amstrad CPC] Like
Batman, Head Over Heels
has a few rooms that span
t wo or three screens.» [Atari ST ] The Atari ST Head Over Heels retains the 8-bit original’s gameplay while making aesthetic improvements.» Paul Machacek still works for Rare,
but is now a test manager rather than
a developer.the Game Boy! You didn’t have a high-resolution
screen, and you just had four shades of green.”D
espite the Game Boy’s limited palette,
Jon took ideas from Head Over Heels far
further in Monster Max, such as the size
of its multiscreen rooms. “I could have
done larger multiscreen rooms in Batman and
Head Over Heels, but they both completely filled
my available memory,” Jon concedes. “Where as
in Monster Max, I had tons more memory. I knew I
could make the gameplay better by having bigger
rooms, because more variety in the shape of the
environments meant you could do more stuff.”
Another evolution of sorts saw Max given
lethal weapons, where Head had fired harmless
doughnuts and Batman had been unarmed. Was
Jon making his isometric games more violent? “Idon’t think you could call Monster Max violent,”
Jon argues, “and you could just freeze things for a
bit with the doughnuts in Head Over Heels. I was
just trying to come up with things to use as tools
to give as much variety as possible, so I could
create different problems for players to solve.”
There were also problems getting Monster
Max released, but as Paul explains, it was warmly
received, despite its delay. “By the time Monster
Max was being written, isometric games had
run their course in the UK, but by doing it on a
Nintendo platform it got a wider world release and
introduced isometric to new audiences.”
Bringing isometric adventures to the wider
world was something that Nintendo was keen on,
so much so that it showed interest in Monster
Max being reworked around its characters,
although Bernie wasn’t aware of this at the time.
“It would’ve been a great opportunity to go further
in the industry, so I would’ve gone along with it,”
Bernie says. “The problem was that I had suffered
at the hands of other people’s graphical demands,
and I would’ve hated doing the work.”
When asked about the possibility of pitching
Nintendo an follow-up to Monster Max based
around Mario, Jon Ritman is typically self-
deprecating, and he finishes by strongly hinting
that perhaps that would have been one evolution
of Head Over Heels too many. “Yeah, what an
idiot, eh? Why didn’t I go for that?” Jon laughs.
“It didn’t cross my mind. I think it was because
Domark were offering me quite a lot of money
up-front to work for them! Also, I thought: ‘I’m
done with this sort of game.’”I had suffered at the hands of other people’s
graphical demands, and I would’ve hated
doing the work
Bernie DrummondHow collectibles evolved across Knight
Lore, Batman and Head Over HeelsSTAGES OF
EVOLUTION:
Collectable Objects
KNIGHT
LORE
QBesides being
useful for standing
on in order to make
jumps to high-up
positions, the
collectible objects
in Knight Lore have to be taken to the wizard’s room in the
order dictated by a magic cauldron and dropped in. The
cauldron requires 14 objects in total to lift the lycanthropic
curse put on Sabreman by the wizard.BATMAN
QRather than
collectibles, Batman
has four distinct
power-ups that are
required to solve
puzzles, which is
essential to making
progress through the game. There’s a Batbag for storage,
Batboots for jumping, a Bat-thruster to switch directions
mid-leap and a Batbelt to facilitate longer jumps.HEAD OVER
HEELS
QHead Over Heels
takes Batman’s
collectible power-
ups further by
restricting Head to
using a doughnut-
firing hooter and Heels to using a bag. Solutions to some
puzzles depend on Head and Heels using the abilities
these objects give them, which makes swapping back and
forth between the heroes an essential part of the game.RETRO GAMER | 41THE EVOLUTION OF: HEAD OVER HEALS