Calimero II

Calimero II

Creating an apple wave in Calimero II

FULL ENTRY COMING SOON!

The first Calimero game, Calimero against the Black Empire, was the Martins’ first ever attempt at a platformer, developed in BASIC some four or five years before they discovered Game-Maker. The game involved a black-feathered bird wearing half an egg as a helmet.

Somewhat late in their Game-Maker career, they chose to take advantage of a design cul-de-sac and insert the character into the skeleton of Panzer III. The result, Calimero II, comes off as sort of a cross between Wonder Boy and Sonic the Hedgehog (particularly the latter's Marble Zone), with maybe a bit of a Codemasters flavor.

Zone 1 - Level 2 : design sketch

Although again they chose not to pursue the game to completion, the game does exhibit several advanced — or at least fascinating — techniques. To facilitate a Sonic-style vertical spring, they employed a complex lock-and-key system that momentarily flipped the gravity on all the background blocks. The character can throw apples along a wave pattern, and can do it quickly enough to establish a sort of an unbroken wave beam.

With a bit of adjustment, and some improved jumping behavior, Calimero II could have really gone somewhere. You can feel that this game was never a priority, though — not in the same way as some of PPP Team's other projects.

Gameplay comparison

RSD's engine resulted in several technical changes over the previous Calimero game. To wit:

• Calimero can now take several hits before dying (versus the one-hit kills of the original).
• A gravity-affected jetpack (keys .,1,3) replaces the gravity-cancelling helicopter from the original. This means, among other things, that you have to sacrifice a life to get out of the cave where you found that power-up.
• Once acquired, power-ups (particularly the jetpack) are retained for the duration of the game, as compared to power-ups that only last as long as you're alive in the original.
• There are now little matches and flame monsters strolling around.
• You can dispatch some monsters by throwing apples (keys /,*).
• You can now control your flight after touching a "bumper".
• If you fall from the sky, you now safely land on the ground. In the original non-scrolling 8-bit scenes, falling in the wrong section of the screen could kill you, making the clouds much more hazardous to navigate.

Zone 1 - Level 1 : note the fake lava you need to cross to reach the end

Links

• Cyborg Jeff's download site
• the story of Calimero I in EP/QuickBasic
• The Brussels Spout, Book 2 (DIYGamer)