Mortal Harvey

Mortal Harvey

Release type: Shareware
Beta date: June 19, 1995
Levels: 24
Author: James Faux
Registration bonus: Full game, personal registration code, cheat codes
Registration price: $20
Related games: Thunder-Snot Johnny

A well-designed, if rather sadistic, platformer, inspired in theme by both “Weird Al” Yankovic and Mortal Kombat. The protagonist has personality, and he moves both quickly and precisely. When he dies, he dies gorily. When he waits around, he gets impatient.

Mortal Harvey is almost certainly the most developed game in the Eclypse catalog, consisting of several varied levels, each full of atmospheric background animation and neat tile tricks -- animation, semi-isomorphic perspectives.

Perhaps most significant is a pair of elevator levels that take the ideas from Ego Force down a different path. From a design standpoint, this level is basically static. The player can run back and forth on a platform, while the background animates, giving an impression of movement. To give the level some danger, obstacles in the form of monster tiles slowly drift downward, into the visible frame at a rate that matches the background animation. The end impression is that the player is hurtling skyward, avoiding objects along the way. Once the player has avoided an entire vertical map’s worth of monster tiles, a timer gives out, allowing the player access to an exit.

Idleness and confusion in Mortal Harvey

The subjective use of monster tiles is just as important here as the false scrolling technique. What Jim Faux does here, that you see only rarely in other Game-Maker games, is he distinguishes between the actual mechanical behavior of the game elements and their apparent behavior. Monster tiles don’t have to be monsters. Character tiles don’t have to be characters. You don’t have to scroll to give the impression of scrolling. Taken to an extreme, active animation can apparently move whole hunks of the scenery at once. It’s all sleight of hand, and yet what else is game design but psychology?

Good luck in seeing all that Harvey has to show, as this is a tough game, full of traps and too-precise leaps. It's deliberate, but it's kind of merciless.

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Harvey series

Story

Level 2 of Mortal Harvey

"Our next target is Earth. This planet is charged of not educating their hamster life Their punishment is ... death ..."

Harvey, the Prison Commander of the SS Hartz, overhears the Prime Hamster's meeting. He finally realizes that by letting the Prime Hamster destroy Earth, his whole family will be wiped out!

Able to do nothing about it, Harvey prays that his family can somehow be saved...

...Finally, his prayers are answered...

Instructions

Level 1 of Mortal Harvey

We STRONGLY reccomend you play Harvey using the Numeric Keypad. All the different movements are based on it, and even though controlling Harvey may be difficult at first, trust me, if you're really destined to play the game in whole, you'll learn!

We didn't bother changing this because using the letters on the keyboard will be too difficult to play Harvey with.

         /-\ /-\ /-\
         |7| |8| |9|              7 - Jump up-left
         \-/ \-/ \-/              8 - Jump straight up
         /-\ /-\ /-\              9 - Jump up-right
         |4| |5| |6|              4 - Squeak left
         \-/ \-/ \-/              6 - Squeak right
         /-\ /-\ /-\              1 - Shoot left
         |1| |2| |3|              3 - Shoot right
         \-/ \-/ \-/

These are only the keys that can always be used during Harvey mode. That is the side-scrolling levels with you controlling Harvey's movements.

There are 2 levels that require Harvey to get into a minipod, where you fly it through space. It has it's own special controls.

Credits

Based on the original idea from: Weird Al

Created by: James Faux

Special Thanks To:

• God - For being alive,
• RSD - For the GM engine,
• [Azurelore Korrigan] - For the positive thinking,
• |\| | |/| - for the GREAT music,
• Mortal Kombat - for the great busts

Availability

During the early 1990s this game was available for download from GameLynk's Frontline BBS.

The game also seems to have been made available on several shareware compilation CD-ROMs. More precise details TBD.

Archive History

This game was provided by its author in c1995, shortly after first contact with the SiNiSTRY BBS.

Links

Interviews / Articles

• Eclypse Games (DIYGamer)
• The Game-Maker Story: Infoboxes (Gamasutra)

Listings

• archive.org entry
• demu.org entry

Misc. Links

• Play Mortal Harvey online

Downloads

• Mortal Harvey (719.9 kB)
• Level 1 map (120 kB)
  • Level 1 Boss map (10 kB)
• Level 2 map (11.3 kB)
  • Level 2 Boss map (7.8 kB)
• Level 3 map (66 kB)
  • Level 3 Boss map (8 kB)
• Level 4 map (12.9 kB)
• Level 5 map (13.0 kB)