Adventure 8k. It's an epic tale about adventuring, obtaining a magic goblet, slaying mighty dragons in mortal combat, finding your way in dreadful mazes, and......squares. Yeah.
The Graphics
Nah, it's about more than squares, but, frankly, squares are the things you'll be looking at the whole time you'll be playing Adventure 8k. This is where Adventure 8k gets it's sense of addiction from, a lot of stuff you find on your journey looks so unlike anything it's supposed to depict that it leaves a lot to your own imagination as to what it is. And that's fun, you can make up your own little story about it. There's a sword too, which looks like an arrow to me. The most impressive thing I find about Adventure 8k was the maze you travel in, which is quite interestingly designed. There's a bit of a glitch is in the lower-left corned of the screen when you touch the right corner of the screen, but that's no biggie. Oh, and there's also an interesting big, pink-coloured item which I haven't figured out what to use on.
Also the dragon looks like a seahorse, but that's alright. I still got a kick from defeating it.
The Sound
The game is completely silent, other than the times when you obtain an item, defeat a dragon, and beat the game. The fading chime you hear when defeating a dragon is pretty cool, it sounds as if the dragon is falling down to its doom. However, there's still the fact that there's no background music... I remember playing Atari 2600 games which actually had background music, so this feels a little underwhelming.
The Addictiveness
Even though Adventure 8k is quite short, even for an Atari 2600 game, I had fun while it lasted. The maze you have to travel through in order to get to the other castle is sort of confusing to get through, but honestly, I enjoyed finding my way, even if the maze only consists of blue walls. And slaying the dragons is good fun, trust me!
The Story
You're a king, or a knight (well, you're a square, but I like to imagine you're one of those), and you're out to venture to the other castle, and steal a magic goblet, to take it back to your castle! But beware... There are dragons you must fight in the maze you have to go through in order to reach the castle! Once you find the goblet and take it into your castle.... well... Congratulations, you win. Whoops, those weren't spoilers, where they?
The Depth
Adventure 8k is not a long game. You need to get to the other castle, and bring the goblet to your castle. But reaching the other castle isn't as straightforward as it seems. You need to find keys, and use these on specific places, in order to get other stuff to do lots of other things! … Really though, there's quite a variety of stuff to find and use, like keys, a sword, a magnet which draws objects in, even bats as a sort of... power-up, I guess? Oh, what's more, before you actually start a game, you get to choose to start game '1', '2', or '3'. Which one you choose has influence on specific things hidden in the game for you to find!
The Difficulty
The biggest challenge in Adventure 8k is finding your way through the maze, and figuring out which items you need to use on what thing. This might take a while to figure out, but other than that, the game poses no challenge. The dragons are slain when you run into them with your sword aimed towards them, and if they manage to hit you, you'll freeze temporarily, but they'll never kill you. You never really die, and that alone destroys the feeling of adventuring. It's supposed to be dangerous, and you're fighting dragons!! I want them to be a threat to me, but they're not...
Adventure 8k is a fun little time-passer. Even though you can't really get a game over, finding your way through the maze is good fun. There isn't much more to be said about it than I already said, really. Just, try it out if you feel like it!
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