Flood.

Flood I remember getting the demo of Flood on a CU Amiga cover disk, and back then, it felt pretty unique and original compared to many platform games that were doing the rounds in the early 90s.

Yet, I never bought Flood. I didn’t even know anybody who had a copy, so it was a game I always fondly remembered, but never played – until 28 years later, thanks to http://gamesnostalgia.com  – so it feels a little funny to only be fully discovering the whole game now.

You control Quiffy, a small overweight green creature whose mission it is to escape from the sewers he inhabits, that are gradually flooding. Each level is a race against the flood – you control Quiffy, who can climb in all directions, which makes for a very playable and dynamic game. The challenge on each level is to rid the sewers of all the rubbish at the same time as solving various puzzles by means of button combinations that move walls or portals that take you to other parts of the level.

The game is large – 42 levels in total; some longer and more complicated than others. In fact, some are really difficult, while others are an absolute breeze. And it is good fun.

Gameplay is generally good, although Quiffy is sometimes frustratingly sluggish. There are also other gripes, such as when you get to control a much-needed space hopper (for jumping over lava pools or chasms), which you can accidentally dismount in mid air, leaving it out of reach and killing yourself in the process.

Flood is essentially a puzzel platformer more than a shooter, and there are only 4 level ‘designs’, so despite the large number of stages, the game does begin to feel repetitive with nothing new to see, and there aren’t even any bosses to battle it out with. It’s a quiet game, minimal in sound – no in-game music – but the sound effects themselves are excellent and cam be quite atmospheric.

With that in mind, Flood does feel like it had a lot of potential that it fails to live up to. The concept is good, the graphics are nice and the dynamics of Quiffy are really good, but once you’ve completed a dozen levels or so, there’s little to draw you back.

Flood is playable and original, and despite never owning it, is a game that made an impression on me playing the demo in 1990, that I never forgot. It’s easy to criticise in hindsight and by today’s standards for it’s lack of variety, but it is still enjoyable. And if you complete the game, you are rewarded with a short end-of-game sequence where Quiffy finally escapes the sewers, to be promptly flattened by a car!