Post by I.M.Gibbon on May 2, 2017 15:19:18 GMT
Discovered this little gem yesterday.
Sometime in 1983 (still trying to track down more specifics) a game was released for the Commodore 64 called Super Pipeline.
It features a little Itallian-looking man, "Foreman", protecting sewer pipes from baddies and critters and making sure continued water flow went through to fill up barrels. Of water. I'm not sure. Basically, it's a mashup of concepts from the early Donkey Kong & Mario Bros arcade titles. Things are a little different; Foreman has a (nail?) gun of some sort, you can get little crewman that you both use to repair pipes and take hits for you, you climb around pipes. It's a little like a platformer bolted onto a tower defense, now that I look at it. A lot more innovative than the Jumpman series, which basically just removed DK from Donkey Kong and ran with it before Nintendo had solid trademark lawyers.
The story, roughly, quoted from the little manual card I was able to track down: "All you have to do is keep the pipeline in good condition until the barrels are full. The water tank holds enough water to fill all barrels and then some spare. Simple eh! If the pipeline develops a leak, the water will spill out and be lost. You play Foreman who's job it is to defend the pipeline and get any leaks fixed by a workman who needs taking to the site before he'll start. The pipeline runs through many hostile lands populated by evil insects and terrible tools. You have the only gun, so the workman looks to you for protection."
"You, as Foreman, must now begin your task of defending the pipework supply line against the attacks from the manic power drills as they cause leaks and protect your workmen from gnawing caterpillars and ferocious hammers. Fix any leaks as quickly as possible by taking (at least) one workman to the leak.
Protect him until he's finished hammering and the flow will be restored. If you fill the barrel you've won this stage."
Two years later, in 1985, Super Pipeline II was released.
It basically improves the formula in every way. Gone were the ladders on the right side of the screen, allowing the full playing field to house the pipes. The array of baddies & critters was increased, there were now visual indicators on how full your barrel(s) were, there were neat little level transition animations, the art was slightly improved (as much as it could be on the platform), the works. All in all, a much better experience.
I should note that if these seem impressively robust for C64 games, it's because they were tapedeck releases, which could hold a ton more data than floppies.
These do both have two-player modes, but I have no idea what those entail.
Anyway, I thought this little series of games was pretty neat, and was a nice change of pace from the outright Mario/DK clones that popped up during that era. Also, the main character being an Itallian-looking Foreman who fends off living tools puts me in mind of one Foreman Spike, so perhaps we could class this as an early appearance
I found online that someone had got authorization to make a modern version of the game, and they even put up some videos back in 2012, but I don't know if it ever got finished or released.
Anyway, yeah, cheers!
~Gibbon
Sometime in 1983 (still trying to track down more specifics) a game was released for the Commodore 64 called Super Pipeline.
It features a little Itallian-looking man, "Foreman", protecting sewer pipes from baddies and critters and making sure continued water flow went through to fill up barrels. Of water. I'm not sure. Basically, it's a mashup of concepts from the early Donkey Kong & Mario Bros arcade titles. Things are a little different; Foreman has a (nail?) gun of some sort, you can get little crewman that you both use to repair pipes and take hits for you, you climb around pipes. It's a little like a platformer bolted onto a tower defense, now that I look at it. A lot more innovative than the Jumpman series, which basically just removed DK from Donkey Kong and ran with it before Nintendo had solid trademark lawyers.
The story, roughly, quoted from the little manual card I was able to track down: "All you have to do is keep the pipeline in good condition until the barrels are full. The water tank holds enough water to fill all barrels and then some spare. Simple eh! If the pipeline develops a leak, the water will spill out and be lost. You play Foreman who's job it is to defend the pipeline and get any leaks fixed by a workman who needs taking to the site before he'll start. The pipeline runs through many hostile lands populated by evil insects and terrible tools. You have the only gun, so the workman looks to you for protection."
"You, as Foreman, must now begin your task of defending the pipework supply line against the attacks from the manic power drills as they cause leaks and protect your workmen from gnawing caterpillars and ferocious hammers. Fix any leaks as quickly as possible by taking (at least) one workman to the leak.
Protect him until he's finished hammering and the flow will be restored. If you fill the barrel you've won this stage."
Two years later, in 1985, Super Pipeline II was released.
It basically improves the formula in every way. Gone were the ladders on the right side of the screen, allowing the full playing field to house the pipes. The array of baddies & critters was increased, there were now visual indicators on how full your barrel(s) were, there were neat little level transition animations, the art was slightly improved (as much as it could be on the platform), the works. All in all, a much better experience.
I should note that if these seem impressively robust for C64 games, it's because they were tapedeck releases, which could hold a ton more data than floppies.
These do both have two-player modes, but I have no idea what those entail.
Anyway, I thought this little series of games was pretty neat, and was a nice change of pace from the outright Mario/DK clones that popped up during that era. Also, the main character being an Itallian-looking Foreman who fends off living tools puts me in mind of one Foreman Spike, so perhaps we could class this as an early appearance
I found online that someone had got authorization to make a modern version of the game, and they even put up some videos back in 2012, but I don't know if it ever got finished or released.
Anyway, yeah, cheers!
~Gibbon