Designed and written by Nalin Sharma for the Commodore 64.
Adapted for the Amstrad CPC by Paul Johnson.
Adapted for the Atari 400/800 by James Software Ltd.
All versions published by Firebird in 1985.
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GAME STATUS
Happy Valentine's Day 2023, everybody! Since you can't really top Thrust very easily from Firebird's catalogue, I decided to dig a decidedly less exciting game for one reason, and one reason alone: Collapse was the first C64 game that I ever bought with my own money, and I tried valiantly to enjoy the game, without ever managing to do so. Before starting to work on this comparison, I hadn't even bothered to find out, if it had been released on any other platform, and to my utter surprise, I found two other versions.
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DESCRIPTION & REVIEW
Another reason to do a comparison of Collapse is, that there's not all that many comparisons of action-puzzlers on this blog. You control a mole named Zen, and you need to use your magic to "collapse" all the sticks from each level. The way to do this is to paint all the white sticks to blue by touching them, and then push them off while using your magical mode, but you need to build magical bridges in order to be able to reach all the sticks. Doesn't make much sense, but it's surprisingly simple, once you get into the rhythm of it. Of course, there is a time limit, as there always is, and your time is consumed not only automatically, but also in chunks by colliding into two aliens guarding each level. You can try to defend yourself by laying down magical barriers that are oddly familiar to the pepper sprays in BurgerTime. You can also grab a randomly appearing diamond, and refill some of your magical energy (timer). In short, it's like BurgerTime meets Dominoes meets Solomon's Key.
Since Collapse is, in essence, a side-viewed, single screen platforming puzzler with odd gameplay mechanics that keep you guessing and fumbling years after having introduced yourself to them. Too complex for its own good, Collapse has a nice idea done a bit wrong, and it's not particularly attractive, either. But then, it was released as a budget title, and as such, it's not a bad one. Just not impressive or interesting enough to be considered in any way an important part of the C64's history.
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LOADING
Probably the most annoying thing about Collapse is the fact that you need to load the game for quite a long time, regardless of the platform, and then realize the long wait wasn't exactly worth it. Happily, the C64 version was also released on disk, coupled with Gogo the Ghost, and the disk features an optional turbo loader. Even without the turbo loader, Collapse loads up in less than a minute from disk. Anyway, here are the tape loading times:
ATARI 400/800: 8 minutes 24 seconds
AMSTRAD CPC v1: 5 minutes 1 second
AMSTRAD CPC v2: 6 minutes 46 seconds
COMMODORE 64 v1: 5 minutes 1 second
COMMODORE 64 v2: 4 minutes 52 seconds
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| Loading screens, left to right: Commodore 64, Atari 400/800, Amstrad CPC. |
Arguably, the only saving grace of the tape version is, that you get a loading screen, which can be considered relatively nice, on each version, even though they're all very different. Of course, the ATARI tape being the well-established massive time hog that surprises no one at this point, presents us with a small miracle in the form of a loading screen, which you get to see too rarely. Since you can't actually see it properly here, the nice thing about the Atari loader is, that the game title, the stars surrounding the game title, and even the block counter at the bottom all change colour smoothly.
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PLAYABILITY
As if you would be playing an arcade game, Collapse has an attract mode feature, which is entered into after the animated title sequence finishes its course - all the letters of the game title have fallen down and bounced back up in order, that is. Before the attract mode hits in, you can either start the game, select the number of alternating players up to four, or select the sector to start the game from (A to F).
The way to control Zen is a bit tricky. Because the levels are built in grid form, the cross marks for the grid disable you from performing any diagonal jumps. So, in his normal form (yellow on C64 and AMSTRAD, green on ATARI), Zen can only walk left and right and jump straight up, but you also have to use the normal form to turn the grey sticks blue. If a grey stick is under your feet, you need to pull the joystick down to change its colour. Press the fire button to make Zen change into his magical form (red), and you can do two things: build bridges into the grid by keeping the fire button down and pulling the joystick into the wanted direction, and pull down without the fire button to leave behind a small magical field, which will halt an enemy upon contact. Regardless of what form Zen is in, getting hit by an enemy drops 100 units from your timer, but picking up a randomly appearing diamond adds 200 units into the timer. There are only two ways to die in Collapse: either your time runs out, or you fall through the floor.
Logically, there would only be two things that could be notable, if they were different in any way in any of the versions, so I'm focusing my comparison on those: the way the colored sticks collapse, and how exact do you have to be controlling Zen within the confines of the dotted grid.
In the C64 original, Zen walks in clear steps - more specifically, it takes three steps for him to get from the middle of one grid center to another. In the ATARI and AMSTRAD versions, Zen's walk is pixel-based, so it feels like seamless gliding. Because of this, you will have a harder time hitting the exact spot you need to be in to jump. Happily, the jump can be done anywhere within the few pixels' range. Unhappily, Zen's walk is notably slower on the two conversions because of this feature. Even more unhappily, this less restrictive style of movement makes painting the grey sticks more finicky and difficult.
At least the way the sticks collapse has been done the same way for all three versions. The way to beat the game is understanding the logic behind the sticks' progression after having collapsed, and having connected to the next stick. The trick is almost idiotically simple: the sticks always move clockwise, so your best plan is to start with a spot that makes it continue in a clockwise movement, and use bridges whenever a real stick is missing from the chain.
One additional strange thing I noticed about the ATARI version, though: Zen's falling speed is constant and slow, compared to the accelerating falling speed in the C64 and AMSTRAD versions.
I can't be bothered to see if the enemy AI is any different in different stages, since I don't have the ability to notice anything going on in that department. Therefore, the end results for this section are based on the few observations I could make, which pretty much make all the difference.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. AMSTRAD CPC
3. ATARI 400/800
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GRAPHICS
Aside from a few specific titles, puzzle games had mostly been less than adequately interesting in terms of graphics up to around 1986 or so. I'm sorry to say, Collapse falls into the "less than adequately interesting graphics" category, mostly thanks to the fashion of the time. But at least this section shall be quicker than usual.
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| Title screens, left to right: Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Atari 400/800. |
Collapse has a reasonably traditional title screen, with the only vaguely impressive graphical thing about it being the blocky letters in the title logo, which fall down and bounce back up one by one. All three versions use different colours for pretty much all the elements in the title screen, but the ATARI version is the only one to go full Lego style with the logo, and no depth effect whatsoever in the letters. The animation is also different, as the ATARI version's title letters fall down at a steady pace, but bounce with a barely notable slowdown going both up and down; the letters in the C64 and AMSTRAD versions drop down with a gravitational acceleration, and bounce back up with the same rules of physics.
In the title screen, you can also see the info panel at the top, featuring three lines of text and some background colours. The ATARI version is the least colourful, oddly enough, but shares Nalin Sharma's initials both sides of the game title in the middle of the lowest row. The C64 info panel is the most colourful, and has the most meticulously styled fonts.
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore 64 version. |
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| In-game screenshots from the Amstrad CPC version. |
The AMSTRAD version of Zen looks similar enough, but there's something a bit wrong about his jump animation, as if there is no sense of gravity. His magic dust cloud isn't animated, either. The aliens also look okay in a screenshot, but their animation is suspended for up/down movements. Also, the sticks collapsing animation has a few less frames than the C64, so it doesn't look quite as smooth. And still more, all the moving sprites tend to flash a bit. But other than that, it's not as far from the original as you would think.
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| In-game screenshots from the Atari 400/800 version. |
Unsurprisingly, the ATARI version is much further from the original. Zen doesn't look like the mole he's supposed to be, but rather like a blockier variant of the guy from Blagger. All the game's graphical elements use just one colour, and the animations are, for the most part, even less animated than in the AMSTRAD version. Most notably, the sticks collapsing animation only uses eight frames for the whole circle, while the C64 version uses six frames for one quarter. Only Zen's walking animation has a bit more movement in it, but you can barely notice it, since the sprite is such an ugly one.
It's rarely this easy to come to a conclusion about any particular segment in a comparison, but I think the above paragraphs are easy enough to understand.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. AMSTRAD CPC
3. ATARI 400/800
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SOUNDS
If loading Collapse was the most annoying thing about it, then its sounds are probably the most disappointing, unless you're more concerned about the less than stellar graphics. The title screen offers nothing more than bouncing noises, and there is no in-game music, either, but there are some things worth noting.
There is one sound effect that takes precedence over all else, and that is the constantly looping "buoyng-buoyng" sound that the diamond makes at its appearance. Still, you get to hear all the other sound effects in some form while at it. Zen's walking noise is surprisingly noisy, high-pitched and rubbery, the form changing sound is an ascending beep, his jumping and falling sounds change pitch according to your altitude, and the only thing to make a non-melodic sound is the muted clash of the collapsing sticks. All the aliens also make some noise, which changed for each new level / each new alien. Whenever a diamond appears on the screen, the sound of the diamond and the aliens are what stay the same, but any sound attached to Zen's actions is diminished to tap-based sounds - similar to something what you would hear on most early ZX Spectrum games. And then there's also the bonus counting effect, just as difficult to describe as the others.
For the AMSTRAD version, they took out all the alien sounds, as well as the diamond sounds, so it's much quieter. Zen's walking sound is a composite of a couple of different types of tapping noises, one low rumble and one higher pitched tap. His jumping and falling sounds are similar to those in the C64 version, and the sticks' collapsing clash noises are a bit more pronounced. The bonus counting sound has been changed to a quick swoosh type thing.
For once, the ATARI version goes somewhere between the C64 and Amstrad versions, by featuring the diamond sound, but there are no alien noises. Zen's walking sound is more sedate than on the C64, but ultimately very boring and unimaginative "pip"-noises. The collapsing sticks make even bigger a racket here than the AMSTRAD version, and the bonus counter alternates between two notes. All in all, not as bad as expected, but still not particularly pleasant, but better than the CPC.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. ATARI 400/800
3. AMSTRAD CPC
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OVERALL + VIDEO
Although Collapse seems like one of the most basic puzzle-action games, the key is really in gameplay. The graphics and sounds were woefully outdated by the time the game was released, and with slow tape loaders across all three versions, there's not much positive you can really say about the game, unless you found its hidden beauty. For it is a good game, it's just hiding underneath a lot of garbage. Well anyway, here are the official mathematical FRGCB results:
1. COMMODORE 64: Playability 3, Graphics 3, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 9
2. AMSTRAD CPC: Playability 2, Graphics 2, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 5
3. ATARI 400/800: Playability 1, Graphics 1, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 4
In case you want to know, how bad the gameplay actually is on the two conversions, you're going to have to find out for yourself, but for better understanding of the quality of graphics and sounds, here's an FRGCB original video accompaniment:
So that's Collapse for you, and that leaves only one more entry for this month to be finished up and posted before marching on to whatever we have stored for March. Until the next time, pip-pip!
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