Slurpy
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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"A green blob with a trunk and a very big stomach"

OVERVIEW 

Once, long ago, not all computer games were about killing people or blowing stuff up. Many games were about a much more harmless activity: eating. It was hunger that drove Pac Man to brave maze after maze, chased by horrifying monsters, only to eat all the dots before he was ultimately cornered. 
Slurpy is similar in that respect, though the comparison ends there. You control a strange green blob of a creature with a long trunk sticking out the front, moving it around in a one-screen, non-scrolling, open cave. In every level, your goal is to eat ten floating seeds. Meanwhile, of course, the game does its best to prevent you from doing so, by throwing a multitude of different monsters against you. Fortunately nearly every monster in the game can be eaten as well. If an enemy touches Slurpy, you can kiss one of your precious lives goodbye; but woe to the enemy that strays in front of Slurpy's trunk and is caught by his amazing suction power! 

NOTE: Despite claims to the contrary on the local Slurpy messageboard, this game has nothing to do with a certain cocktail sharing its name. 

GAMEPLAY 

A level of Slurpy takes up exactly one screen, on which Slurpy can move in all four directions. Ten seeds of varying colours float around the screen as well, and to complete the level, Slurpy must eat them all. Eating seeds is accomplished by moving Slurpy so that the seed is in front of his trunk. Slurpy will then suck up the seed and swallow it. 

The bottom part of the screen is filled with monster eggs. From time to time, one of these eggs will hatch and spawn either a bat or a troll. These will then chase Slurpy around the screen, trying to touch and thereby kill him. Slurpy can turn the tables on them by sucking them up just as if they were a harmless seed. The key here is to try and catch them in the suction beam projected from your trunk without letting them touch your body. 

Other monsters can come into the screen from the top or the sides. Each of these monster types behaves in a different way. In later levels, when the screen tends to be full of different monsters types, it gets really difficult to keep an eye on them all. 
At first, of course, dealing with all these opponents and eating seeds at the same time is easy enough. In later stages, however, everything becomes faster, and monsters become more aggressive. Seeds float away from you at every opportunity, forcing you to chase after them. Monsters come from all directions, trying to corner you (and usually succeeding). 

If you don't act quickly enough and eat all the seeds within a certain time frame, the cave will slowly start to collapse. Debris will fall from the top of the screen, and you will have to dodge it and get to the last seeds quickly. Eventually debris will fall so quickly that it can barely be avoided, and you will die quickly if you cannot finish the level. 

One other complication is that some seeds or foes can be poisonous. From time to time, a monster or a seed will turn red. If you eat it now, Slurpy will be poisoned and killed. Fortunately there will always be at least one non-poisonous seed on the screen, and the last can never be poisonous. You will never have to wait for the last seed to become edible again. Monsters, however, are frequently poisonous, making it harder for you to dispatch them. If you do accidentally eat something poisonous, you can spit it out by pressing the fire button just before swallowing it. In the first levels you get plenty of time to spit a poisonous monster or seed out before it is swallowed, but later on...you get the idea. 
Occasionally, seeds can also turn into brown 'power seeds'. Eating one of these will allow Slurpy to survive one poisoning or one hit by an enemy. 

CONTROLS 

Slurpy is controlled simply with a joystick and a single fire button. By moving the stick, you move Slurpy in all four directions. By pressing the fire button, you can turn him around to face either left or right. Also, the fire button is used to spit out a seed or an enemy just before swallowing it. This also means that you cannot turn around while you are eating something (since the fire button can do only one thing at a time), something which has cost me a lot of lives over the years that I've played this game. Often, enemies would strike me in the back while I was busy swallowing another. 
It can be awkward to catch an enemy in the suction beam that is projected from Slurpy's trunk. Although the controls are not complicated, moving Slurpy around quickly and effectively is one of the main challenges of the game. 

GRAPHICS 

Slurpy's graphics are simple, but easy on the eyes. Every level, the cave changes colour. Slurpy himself is normally green, but turns yellow if he has eaten a power seed. Monsters come in various colours. The colour red equals poisonous, so red enemies are always the ones you should avoid. 
In the later levels, when the screen is typically filled with enemies of different kinds, the game unfortunately slows down. Clearly, the later levels of Slurpy push the Commodore 64 to its limit, causing this drop in frame rate. It doesn't really ruin the game, but it *is* noticeable, and slightly irritating. 

SOUND 

Slurpy does not have any music. Sound effects are mostly there to help you keep track of the situation. Since it can be hard to keep track of everything that's going on in a level, listening for the specific sounds of monsters is important. The hatching of a monster egg, the appearance of the dreaded phantom, the hiss of a snake that just entered the screen, all of these sounds can be easily distinguished from each other. Unfortunately some monsters are completely quiet. Whether that is because they ran out of good sound effects, or to make it easier for them to sneak up on you, who knows. 

DIFFICULTY
 
Like many Commodore 64 games, Slurpy starts off very easy. Often, you won't encounter any opposition in the first level as you slurp all the seeds. From there on, the pace will pick up slowly. Every level runs a little faster than the one before it, and monsters activity will slowly increase. Eventually, the game runs at a very high pace, the screen tends to be full of monsters, and getting to the seeds has become a secondary objective - staying alive is hard enough. 

For those who wish to start out with the hard parts, the game offers the choice of starting at a higher level than the default. Personally, I prefer just to start out easy, because you'll need to get into the rhythm of the game before you can hope to survive the later stages. And even then, every player will eventually be overwhelmed. Since Slurpy does not have a real ending or final level, the only question is when you will lose your last life. 

FEAST 

The good points of Slurpy can be summed up as follows: 

- Original concept; no laser shots in this one, just a big hungry slurping creature. 
- Good learning curve; difficulty goes up between levels at just the right pace. 
- Challenging; easy to learn, but hard to master. 

FAMINE 
Slurpy's weak points are: 

- No music; a background tune is always nice. 
- Simple graphics; but at least they are colourful. 
- Simplistic; once you've mastered the controls, the game's a no-brainer. It just takes very quick reactions. 

REVIEW BY SASHANAN

http://www.gamefaqs.com/c64/581989-slurpy/reviews/review-17881
