Murtop

Review

Murtop reminds me of those days in the 80’s, many moons ago, when I played games in the arcades. A pocket full of ten pences, losing hours of time as I tried to beat not only my high scores but other people’s as well. Reaching that Number 1 spot and being crowned King made you feel great, at least until you found out that an arch enemy had set a higher score after you had gone home for your dinner.

Starting a game requires that you enter credits; you can enter up to nine credits at a time.  Once a credit has been entered you can then start the game, which will load the loading screen which gives you a brief look at some information. One coin will give you one credit and that credit will give you three lives. You can earn an extra life for every eighty thousand points you earn and there is a bonus level every five stages. There is also a screen which tells you how to play, how the scoring works and the characters you’ll come across in the game.

The game is played out over a fourteen-by-fourteen grid; you (Murti, a rabbit) begin at the top left of the screen above ground, while below are a bunch of enemy characters in tunnels that you must remove from play to finish that stage and allow you to move on to the next. As Murti you will move around the screen and as you do you will unearth the ground as you move about. This will then allow you to poop a bomb behind you in the opened grid created as you move around or in those created by the enemy characters.

Once you have pooped a bomb you will have a second or two before the bomb explodes. This will kill any enemy in its explosion range along the X and Y Axis, and it will kill you too if you don’t get out of its way. You can also kill the enemies by having rocks fall on them.  You do this by digging below a rock and then moving out of its way, the rock will then fall, and with any luck, land on an enemy and kill it. Using a bomb or rock can kill multiple enemies at a time and you will gain bonuses for killing multiple enemies at a time. There are Carrots around the screen which you can collect, and you’ll gain points for collecting them.

In principle, the game is easy to play but it can get quite frustrating as you progress through the stages. There are three types of enemy: the Chaser (who goes by the nickname “Baldy”; these enemies will chase you if they get the chance, and if they catch you then you’ll lose a life), the Thrower (“Talpy”; this will throw a ball at you and if it hits you then you’ll lose a life), and finally you have Pesky (“Star-Nosed”; this character stays above ground and drops a large round stone that works its way down through the grid in the hope that it hits and kills you). With all three enemies working against you, the stages can become hectic; one mistake and it’s game over.

As well as dealing with all the enemies you are also pitted against time. Each stage has a one-minute limit in which you are required to complete the stage. Time will continue to count down even if you lose a life; it doesn’t reset so once time starts getting close to zero, try not to panic as it is easy to make a mistake.

Completing a stage, you will gain bonus scores on Time (remaining time left), Carrots (collected) and Lives (number of lives remaining). You can also gain a five thousand bonus for completing a stage in under fifteen seconds. Once you have lost all your lives, it is game over and if you have managed to get a decent score you may be able to add it to the leaderboard where you can add three initials indicating the score you earned. The leaderboard isn’t an online leaderboard, so the only scores you’ll have to beat are your top ten high scores once you have beaten the current top ten scores of the game.

Every five stages there is a bonus stage.  The bonus stage shows you along the bottom of the screen while falling from the top are rocks and carrots. You must avoid the falling rocks and catch the carrots within a time limit, and at the end of the time limit you’ll gain one thousand points for each carrot collected.

After losing all your lives and entering your initials if you have earned a high score, you can continue from the stage you died on. You’ll have to make sure that you have credits, which isn’t a problem as you can add them with ease, but you will have twenty seconds in which to continue your progress. When continuing a game, you will only continue from the stage you died on.  Your score will not continue, but it will reset to zero when you continue a game.

Murtop is a fun game, although it is also challenging; it will have you pulling your hair out as you make a silly mistake and then die, but that’s the fun of it! The graphics look great and the sounds and music are fantastic.

While I do enjoy playing Murtop, it isn’t one of those games that I would play for hours on end. I would play it for a quick ten, twenty minutes or so here and there, though, depending on how frustrated I became with it. Trying to beat my own high scores keeps me wanting to go back and play it once more, which is a good thing.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

Murtop Steam Store Page