Once upon a time games were hard.
I don’t want you to think that this is one of those ‘when I was your age’ granny conversations. There are no rose tinted specs on this ugly face. This is a fact. I shall reiterate.
Once upon a time games were hard.
If you speak to anyone from back in the day they’ll tell you too.
Games used to be hard. Once upon a time.
This is not, by the was, a criticism. The very reason we played games was because they were hard. Alright, and the fact that your dad’s best mate had a twin deck tape recorder, that was a good reason too, but mainly because we wanted to get just one level further. Just one maze more. The high score table proved who was king and didn’t we know it. I once lost a very good friend over a game of Double Dragon because we ran out of 10p pieces and I’d lost the last life.
Alright, I know that most games these days are hard, but only if you want them to be. Turn on Skyrim, go on, do it. I’ll wait. Now, go find a Giant. They are everywhere, go on find one. Now kill it. Oh, save first. Too late? It’s ok, you might have lost 5 minutes, but you’re back where you were aren’t you? Go do it again. Remember to save this time, I don’t have all day! It’s a right nasty thing is your Skyrim Giant. But you know what, you’ll beat it. It’ll be difficult, but you’ll get there in the end.
Still struggling? Go into the options, there’ll be something in there about turning the difficult down. I’ll eat my hat if there’s not.
That’s not hard. It’s just repetitively niggly.
Now go find your favourite Spectrum emulator and load up Spellbound. I can’t guarantee it, but it might just be quicker than loading the bleedin’ PS3 version of Skyrim!
Good, sort out your controls and start a game. Nice, you’re in The Start Room. Super dooper. Now go left. Say hi to Florin for me and go left again. Jump those steps. You can do it. And down the other side. Left again…. Oops!
Ok, you are only three screens in, but that’s Instadeath right there for you. Spellbound was full of these. Welcome to The Gas Room…. the Big Bottle…. Go on, try to jump that pit. Hell, just wander around for a little while, I can guarantee that you’ll get somewhere interesting looking and then just…. Die. Not only do you die, but you DIE. Game Over. Gone. Want another chance? No problems, just do everything you did again only, don’t do it wrong this time.
Back then this was no big thing. It taught you a lesson, go find Elrand and feed him you fool. Keep Rosmar happy! Never ever take THAT away from HIM…..
These days though, I really don’t think we’d get away with it. It’s a sad state of affairs I know, but modern gamers just don’t want Instadeath. I dislike the term ‘modern gamers’ by the way, but it works here.
Spellbound OUYA aims to be as user friendly as it possibly can be. You don’t want Instadeath? That’s fine, you can turn that off. NPCs that feed themselves? Well, if you so desire… A pit you can bounce out of? Actually, no, if someone is stupid enough to jump in the pit then they deserve everything they get, but you see the point.
Spellbound OUYA is customisable. You play the game you want to play. You play the map you want to play. You play the difficulty you want to play.
Just don’t ask me for a hand holding tutorial section. I ain’t that nice!