Tiny Quest – C64 Review

Poor Mr.Cube. Despite living in a wonderful world consisting of right angles and crazy geometry – his mind can’t help but wonder to the either side of the world where his true love resides. Deciding that his life is meaningless without her, Mr. Cube readies himself to go on a Tiny Quest to bring his girlfriend back home to live with him in loving bliss.

Tiny Quest, developed by Real Bytes of Digital Monastery will be released during the first part of 2021, this review is an early access look at the finished game. So Tiny Quest is a flick screen platform game that requires lightning-fast reflexes, advanced planning skills and perfect timing to guide our little hero across a world consisting of 60 screens filled with many dangerous hazards, obstacles and critters.

As you load up Tiny Quest, you take a moment to appreciate the art style on offer within the game – with its simple but highly effective use of ‘cubism’ style of graphics mixed with a very nice balance of the C64 palette giving the title a somewhat unique console like look and feel. The in-game music is pleasant and that fits in with the theme of going on a journey, even though I’m not convinced that it is total fit for Mr. Cube’s world.

Going back to the game play on offer, the premise for each screen level is simple – get. Mr. Cube across to the right side of the game area and to the exit. While our hero can run fast and is quiet proficient at jumping, he doesn’t have the greatest of stamina, and as such, he needs to get to the next screen before his quickly depleting energy is all gone. In general, this means you have about 8 to 10 seconds to complete a screen otherwise you will end up losing one of your five lives. Coming into contact with traps and enemy critters or falling into pits will also result in a loss of life.

Oh by the way, in order to secure a safe passage home for both himself and his sweetie, Mr. Cube needs to raise enough cash during his quest. Each screen will contain a coin to collect and it is only then that the exit sign is activated and Mr. Cube can flee to safety.

The fast paced nature of gameplay within Tiny Quest is quite exhilarating as the controls for Mr. Cube is quite fluid and responsive. Jumping around the game landscape, narrowly avoiding instant death and getting to the exit point with a second to spare is immensely fun and addictive. If you end up losing a life, the screen resets and the action starts up again almost instantly – which goes a long way to sucking you in to giving it another shot without giving a thought as to whether you have something else in real life that you need to attend to, even when you find yourself stuck on a screen that looks seemingly impossible to complete within the limited time constraints. And for this reason, we are thankful for the game’s built in checkpoint system as you are provided with a password (a combination of directional pushes on the joystick) for every set of 15 screens that you complete. But note that these passwords only last for the current play session and reset when you reload the game.

From time to time, you will come across a red mushroom during your quest. You will want to jump onto these in order to be taken to secret areas of the game world that will allow you to access extra lives and critical items that are required to successfully complete the game.

Tiny Quest doesn’t offer anything too in depth with its game play but what is there is a lot fun and the challenge within the game is balanced well enough to make it somewhat addictive. If you enjoy fast paced arcade style action then this one is going to be right up your alley.

Tiny Quest (disk and cassette edition) can be ordered from Bitmap Soft.

Digital Version available from itch.io for $2.99 HERE

Cart version available at RGCD HERE

Review Score
  • 8/10
    Gameplay - 8/10
  • 8/10
    Graphics - 8/10
  • 7/10
    Sound - 7/10
8/10

Summary

Simple but very addictive arcade platform game with some wonderful graphical art makes Tiny Quest a compelling game to try out.

Louie Dimovski

Retro gaming journalist promoting NEW C64, Amiga, Amstrad CPC & ZX Spectrum games. Runs the Retro Gamer Nation YouTube channel and is a contributor to RVG and Vintage is the New Old blog sites, Komoda & Amiga Plus magazine and various other publications. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/retrogamernation Website: http://retrogamernation.com Email: retrogamernation@gmail.com

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