Mayhem in Monsterland Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]

Developed and published by Apex Computer Productions in 1993.

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Apex Computer Productions were undoubtedly one of the finest development teams around during the lifetime of the Commodore 64, creating smash-hits such as Creatures and Retrograde.

This time, John and Steve Rowlands were joined by Andy Roberts in creating one of the most technically refined and polished games that would be released on Commodore's ageing home computer. Not only was Mayhem in Monsterland the final game that Apex would create for the C64, but it's also one of the final top-tier releases during the machine's commercial lifespan. Such was the drought of games for the system by this point that Commodore Format, somewhat controversially, awarded the game a perfect 100% score upon the game's release.

Theo Saurus, an apprentice magician, unwittingly plunges the five worlds of Monsterland under a veil of sadness when a spell he was casting goes awry. Mayhem, the titular hero of the game, dioscovers Theo in a cave, hiding from all of the angry monsters outside.

Mayhem must first locate bags of magic dust being held by the monsters outside, defeat them and then return the bags to Theo. Once this is done, happiness is restored to level and Mayhem must then collect the requisite number of stars before proceeding to the next level.

Mayhem's signature move is a high-speed charge that allows him to defeat almost any enemy he comes into contact with. The player must master this ability as there are plenty of stars and bonus items located on platforms that can only be reached by using the dash.

Overall, the premise of Mayhem in Monsterland is much simpler than Apex's previous games. Mayhem is the pure distillate of a platforming game, and possibly the finest example in the genre for the C64 as the time of it's release.

The game boasts parallax scrolling, huge wonderfully animated sprites and silky-smooth scrolling. The game boasts the same attention to detail as you would expect to find in the top 16-bit platform games from the era, such as incidental animation when Mayhem stands right on the edge of a platform. I particularly loved the way that enemies disintegrate into a little pile of stars when defeated.

Is the game perfect though? No.

Mayhem's dash can often lead to him plunging over cliffs to his doom and takes quite some time to master. Speaking of which, the difficulty of the last two levels spikes perhaps a little too sharply as there are many occasions where a mistimed jump will prove fatal.

I also noticed a couple of glitches such as power-ups that didn't appear until I'd scrolled away and come back to the place where they were supposed to be. On one occasion I also fell through a diagonal slope to my death. I really am nitpicking here though as the standard of presentation is so high that any blip is noticeable.

These issues aside, one can't help but look on the game with a sense of wonder as to how Apex managed to get the C64 to run this at all; they must have squeezed every last drop of performance that the machine was able to offer.

As the the final credits rolled and the words "The End" appeared, I couldn't help but think that not only did this mark the end of a remarkable game, but also the end of an equally remarkable machine.

Whilst this thought made me slightly sad, I was cheered up by the fact that John and Steve made sure that everybody's favourite breadbin went out with a bang, not with a whimper.
#retrogaming