Chinese Juggler

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 1/5 MISS

Roger Willis 2/5 MISS

Ross Holman 2/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY All the latest software from around the houses! Passing judgement this month are Dave Nicholls, Ross Holman and Roger Willis. Our regular crew of software screw balls are in fine form this month. Draining the dregs of Christmas spirit are Dave Nicholls, the hairy hacker; JSW champion Ross Holman; and our own two-wheeled terror, Roger Willis. 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. CHINESE JUGGLER Ocean £6.90 Roger: To be honest, my lack of infatuation with this oriental variety act is probably connected to personal taste. Legendary inscrutability, or objectivity, or something, must be maintained however. Players are required to rush around with plates of various colours. The purpose is not to serve up two 19s, a 43 and a 27 with extra sweet-and-sour sauce, though. It's all about spinning 'em on top of sticks and keeping one's past successes going whilst doing it. Other juggling tricks can be performed so as to change the colour of plates and increase score. Success with all eight plates spinning apparently leads to more difficult screens and less valuable dishes of a darker hue can be dumped off the back of the stage... With all the ingredients of success, Chinese Juggler doesn't really make it, however you look at it. It requires skill and tactical planning, sure enough - but I found the fear, panic and aggression of good arcadia to be missing. It doesn't even possess the saving grace of being weird.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Crash

Use of Computer 74%

Graphics 79%

Playability 84%

Getting Started 73%

Addictive Qualities 79%

Value For Money 82%

Overall 79%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Ocean Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.90 Language: Machine code Author: Chinese Juggler is one of those games that has been translated from the original Commodore version, and done very well. As a game its success lies in the manic panic it inspires as you try to keep all the plates spinning at once - or is this getting ahead too fast? The object of the juggler is to set eight plates spinning on top of eight poles and keep them spinning. This isn't so very easy as each plate has to be set in motion one at a time, so by the time you have got five or six going, you are too busy keeping up the spin pace of the first ones to have time to get the remaining plates up and going. The screen shows the juggler's stage and the eight poles waiting. At the front of the stage are four small chinese pagodas on which the coloured plates appear. The juggler can be directed around the playing area to collect a plate and then back to a pole to set the plate spinning. Returning to the same pole and using the activate button will cause the slowing plate to speed up again. Of course, if you don't get to a slowing plate in time, it will eventually fall off. On the first screen all you have to do is get all eight poles filled with plates of any colour. But on subsequent screens there are further complications, such as setting a plate of specific colour spinning, the colour determined by the border colour. If no plate of the required colour is available, then you must throw the plate in the air and catch it again. This will alter the plate's colour - though it might not be the right one. COMMENTS Control keys: B - SPACE for actions on the plate, Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, D/E dis/enable music Joystick: Kempston Keyboard play: responsive, sensible positions Use of colour: good Graphics: very good, nice animation especially on plates Sound: excellent tune Skill levels: progressive difficulty Lives: 1 Screens: 10

Lets twist again like we did last summer.

Sinclair Programs

Rating 60%

June Mortimer 60%

PRICE: £6.90 GAME TYPE: Arcade In the rush to provide games with as many playing screens as possible, it is sometimes forgotten that some of the best thought-out games can be played in very few screens. Chinese Juggler, with its ten levels of play but effectively only one playing screen is a good example of this. You play the Chinese juggler of the title, and it is your aim to set a plate spinning on each of the eight posts shown, within the time limit, without allowing any to fall if it can be avoided. The game is, perhaps, a little too easy and, once you have completed the first levels, the middle levels are relatively easy. Only the last levels, in which you have to match changing border colours, are very difficult. Produced for the 48K Spectrum by Ocean Software Ltd, [redacted].

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 5/10

John Gilbert 5/10

INSCRUTABLE PLATES Memory: 48K Price: £6.90 Throwing plates into the air and balancing them on poles might not be your idea of fun but obviously somebody at Ocean thinks that a Chinese Juggler makes a smashing game. Your performer must take the plates from the piles set at the front of the stage and toss them into the air until they are the correct colour to go onto one of the poles. Once you achieve the correct coloured plate you can spin it on one of the poles and return for another. That continues, together with odd intervals where you must re-spin plates which are threatening to fall, until all of the poles have been used. After initial interest wanes the game becomes slightly boring and then excruciatingly so. Each level is easy and once you have been past the eighth or ninth level there is not much left to do. The game has proved popular for the Commodore 64 which probably confirms what you have always suspected of Commodore users

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Personal Computer News

Overall 9/10

Bryan Skinner 9/10

PRICE: £15.90 PUBLISHER: Ocean [redacted] Fancy your hand at reckless feats of prestidigitation? Well here's your chance. If you've ever played Chinese Juggler on the Commodore 64, then you've probably been waiting for the Spectrum version, and you won't be disappointed. Chinese Juggler is one of the few truly original games. None of your platforms or shoot-em-up variations here. The idea is quite simple, the game itself difficult and appealing. You control a rather nicely animated Chinaman, complete with pointed hat. The action takes place on a stage and there are eight stands at the front, some of which have a coloured plate resting on them. There are also two rows of white canes. All you have to do is take plates from the front stands and keep them spinning on the canes. You have to be right next to a stand ,to pick up a plate. Positioning is equally tricky. Actions also include rocking canes to speed up the spinning plate and thus keep it aloft. There are tricks you can perform with the plates, like throwing them over your head and making them change colour, thus earning bonus points - the white plate gets the most points and spins longest. The animation throughout is superb, with very few attribute problems and smooth movement. There's a time limit so you can't take it easy, and as time passes the plates slow down, becoming increasingly unstable and eventually falling off. The first screen is really for practice. You're through it as soon as you manage to get plates spinning on all eight canes. The second and subsequent screens are essentially the same, but harder. For a start, the action's faster, and the Chinaman makes more mistakes. It gets to be quite a feat of attention, keeping an eye on the canes, dashing for another plate and getting in as many tricks as possible. It's fantastic fun at first, but this tails off as all the screens are more or less the same and all that changes is the speed and difficulty. Even so, the animation's good, the theme original, the game difficult - what more could you ask?