** Maggie review / 518 words **

A "Cymvention" 24 hour game

Bunion Canyon by Reservoir Gods 
Falcon 030 only
Entertainment - Freeware

** BUNION.GIF here **
** BUNION2.GIF here **

This game probably stretches the definition of "24 hour game" beyond any reasonable breaking point. Not only does it defy the strict time limit, it also manages to be a year late, and is in fact a game that should have appeared from the previous years Cymvention! Still, there are even later ones than that, such as Arnel's "Worms" game from about two or three years ago... I blame the ASCII Art "Jazzclub" demo myself.

Bunion Canyon is a very simple concept immediately familiar to those people who hung around with 8-bit Atari's a lot. The very simple objective of the game is to get to the top of the screen before any of the other four players. In your way is a series of lines blocking your way, small gaps intermittently appear from time to time allowing you to jump up to the next level. That is basically the main part of the game.

Of course, being the Reservoir Gods, there are several enhancements to the basic jump-em-up concept. The four protagonists can be any combination of computer or human player, even going to the extreme of allowing for apathetic mode, or four computer players at once! There are several power-ups which appear from time to time in egg-shaped containers, which give the lucky players certain powers over the others, including knocking them down a level, or just plain knocking them out (temporarily).

There is also an added incentive to move quickly in the form of a walking hammer that chases the players around the level, again to try to stun them, but there is a power-up which can temporarily defeat this problem.

For a twenty-four hour game, this has had a lot of effort put into the presentation side, indeed it was suggested that release of this game was delayed as none of the RG artists wanted to draw a logo for a game with such a stupid name! This game is notable for a contribution from one of the PC members of Reservoir Gods, some very nice rendered title graphics. The rest of the game lives up to the high standard of current RG productions, with a bunch of Ripleyesque sprites and status panels on the main game itself. As for that problematic logo, it was suggested that someone of feline stealth and Liverpudlian characteristics got involved (For a small fee?).

The music is almost instantly recognizable as one of MSG's, thus confirming his continued participation on the Atari scene, and denying rumours of his departure.

As you might expect, it is a simple game, it is also infuriatingly playable, especially against computer opposition. Against human (Wessex Atari group) players, I managed to salvage some credibility by finishing first for part of the time. (The all-powerful computer players did for us the rest of the time!)

Although this game is a year late, it has been worth the wait, the time spent in storage not doing it any harm at all.

Overall: 75%