Stay Kool

ZX Computing

Graphics 3/5

Addictivity 3/5

Overall 3/5

Bug Byte £6.95 Chuckie Egg 2 managed to add a couple of new features to the standard platform format, but Stay Kool is about as unoriginal an addition to the hordes of JSW clones as you can get. In fact, you could even say that it's more of a Manic Miner clone than of the more modern JSW. There is one room in Stay Kool that is more or less a straight copy of one in MM (I think it was called Return of the Kong Beast, or something like that). Even the graphics are a step backwards, for although the various 'monster' sprites are animated adequately the figure of Luke Warm (the hero of the piece) is pretty slow moving, and very flickery. The plot of the game, such as it is, is that Luke's spaceship has been damaged in a battle and that Luke, in order to launch his escape pod must rush around the ship collecting fuel pods before the ship overheats. The logic of all this seems pretty dubious when you actually see the sort of rooms that the ship contains, but what the heck, it's only a game. Most of the rooms are quite well designed, being hard enough to require a bit of thought, but not so hard that you die instantly. And, as in JSW, you don't have to collect the objects in each room before moving on to the next, so if an object seems too hard to reach you can carry on exploring and come back later. And, as a matter of fact I did find the game interesting enough to want to carry on wandering through the rooms. Despite the simplicity of the game it is well enough designed to hold my attention. In fact, it's not a bad game at all really, it's just that it's so clone-like that I can't really get very excited about it. If it were a budget game say, £1.99/£2.50 it would be excellent value, but for £6.95 it's not top of my shopping list.

Your Computer

Overall 2/5

ZX Spectrum £6.95 Arcade Adventure Bug-Byte Everyone raved about Manic Miner but what Bug-Byte seem to have forgotten is you must put some oomph into the graphics if you want to get away with this sort of thing. Silly jokes about police boxes and doctors are not enough.

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 2/5 MISS

Roger Willis 2/5 HIT

Ross Holman 1.5/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY Up before the beaks - Dave Nicholls, Roger Willis and Ross Holman - comes all the new games software, from the greatest to the grottiest. Back on the bench again, our joystick jurors are here to pass judgement on all the latest software. Read their sentences before you commit your cash. WARNING! Just in case you find our scoring system too confusing, here's what it's all about. The score out of five at the end of each person's review is based on their own experience of the game. But that's pretty subjective... so they also use the HIT and MISS system to indicate its potential as a commercial success. STAY KOOL Bug Byte Software £6.95 Roger: This curious melange of mystic, prehistoric and scatological imagery, varying from a pterodactyl's lair, vampire lemons and the occasional sewage processing installation is really just one more competent multi-screen platform game. Trotting from room to room and jumping are both accurately controlled. There's a well-defined geography and a huge assortment of life-depriving nasties. As usual, the purpose is, to collect objects and accrue an even higher position on the 'Hall Of Scum' chart. It's entertaining to play, I suppose, but stunningly short on originality. You can almost imagine some programmer discovering a mixed bag of graphical leftovers discarded in his machine memory and deciding that it would be a pity to waste them. If lack of some consistent theme doesn't bother you very much, then by all means attempt to avoid that final plunge into the cess pit.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Sinclair Programs

Rating 35%

Colette McDermott 35%

PRICE: £6.95 GAME TYPE: Arcade What has happened to Bug Byte? There was a time when you could rely on them for excellent games. Their latest one, Stay Kool, is no fun at all. In the face of the excellent new releases on the market this month it is worse than no fun, it is pathetic. In another lame take off of the Jet Set Willy theme you move from room to room collecting objects. The problems are ingenious, the rooms are nicely named, the graphics are not bad, but the idea is stale, stale, stale. Stay Kool is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Bug Byte, [redacted].

Crash

Use of Computer 76%

Graphics 69%

Playability 64%

Getting Started 72%

Addictive Qualities 54%

Value For Money 63%

Overall 59%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Bug-Byte Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £6.95 Language: Machine code Author: Leigh Hugill Space Pilot Luke Warm is stranded on his crippled spaceship after one of his less successful space battles. It isn't his day either; although the emergency space shuttle is ready to go he has neglected to keep the fuel rods on the shuttle. They are scattered about the stricken ship and Luke must be guided around to collect them all. Unfortunately (the key word in any computer game) the damaged ship has sent the various automated devices wild. Can Luke avoid the nasties, collect all the rods and be ready in the shuttle bay before the damaged ship falls into the nearby star? Stay Kool is another JSW clone, but this one does not aim to let Willy go, even providing a room called 'We must perform a ... WHAT?' as part of the clone effect. The ship is formed of a series of interconnected rooms containing platforms, and varied nasties that bounce up and down or slide from side to side. Luke is a small white figure in a large fishbowl helmet with a healthy jumping ability. Items to be collected flash. Below the playing area can be seen the title of the room, number of items collected, rising temperature and lives which convert into winged angels after deaths. Among the features of the game there are tractor beams which force Luke to rise along with them, teleport rooms and amongst all of this 50-screen game there is a Loch Ness Monster! COMMENTS Control keys: Q/W left/right, B to SPACE to jump Joystick: Sinclair 2 and Kempston Keyboard play: responsive Use of colour: good Graphics: above average Sound: poor and not much in the way of spot effects Skill levels: 1 Lives: 5 Screens: 50

Personal Computer News

Overall 7/10

Bryan Skinner 7/10

PRICE: £6.95 PUBLISHER: Bug-Byte [redacted] Manic Miner clones such as Stay Kool, the latest from Bug-Byte, are still being released even though there are almost more than enough already. As Luke Warm, space pilot, your task is to find and collect fuel rods for your shuttlecraft so you can leave your crippled spaceship which is hurtling into a nearby star. This puts a time limit on the game represented by the rising temperature - stay cool, Luke, it all boils down to a platform game in the classic tradition. There are levels which dissolve as you traverse them, tiny platforms which require skill and patience to reach and, of course, a host of hazards. These vary from deranged robots to escapees from Luke's space monster menagerie. The mobile problems take predictable paths, so learning a new screen is not difficult. You can brush against a lethal nasty in mid-leap, only to find you're still okay, thanks to the generous collision detection. Similarly, you don't have to be perfectly placed to climb ladders or use the transporters. As with many of its predecessors, the locations have wacky names, eg The Surgery, The Sewage Fermentation Plant and The Pteradactyl's Lair (why is it that programmers are so poor at spelling?). The animation is good, there are chomping monsters, bubbling test tubes and rippling thingumibobs; even Luke swings his arms as he hastily seeks out the flashing But what more can you say Stay Kool is a competent, not too tricky, version of something you've probably played a hundred times.