This game has to be considered as a tribute. It's inspired by the unreleased Mire Mare game & characters created by Ultimate Play The Game in golden 80's.
Finally, even if not officially, the legend has seen the light of day. Sabreman's last adventure, announced by ending credits seen in Underwurlde, Knight Lore and Pentagram, takes place in the Land of Mire Mare, where three volcanoes are on the brink to burn the whole territory. In order to avoid a disaster, Sabreman will have to find and use three magic jewels.
THE LEGEND OF THE THREE JEWELS
The mission is to find three enchanted jewels which have the power to turn off volcanoes, then throw them into the Well of Mire Mare, in order to break the curse.
Sabreman's vital energy is represented by a water bar, which will decrease when a collision occurs with an enemy.
Each jewel is defended by a Deadly Guardian: a Knight, a Gargoyle and a Fire Eagle. Watch out for the Guardians, because they are invulnerable!
In order to pick up a jewel, our hero has to leave a pledge, which can be found around the land. Once a pledge is exchanged with a jewel, it will be no longer possible to pick up the same object. If Sabreman has no items to be exchanged, jewels cannot be collected.
Rising enemies can be defeated by weapons. Three main weapons can be collected: a Sword, an Axe and a Staff.
Sword - kills all enemies except fire flames and Jewel Guardians.
Axe - is useful to extinguish moving fire flames, but can also be used to open wooden doors instead of keys.
Staff – can defeat all enemies including fire, except Jewel Guardians.
Along the way, our hero can collect some bonuses: water glasses and bottles restore the energy, keys open wooden doors (each key works only once, opened doors will close again). The keys are not unlimited, so use them sparingly! If Sabreman is running out of keys, he can use the Axe to open wooden doors.
Be careful and... good exploration!
CONTROLS (KEYBOARD)
Q - Move left
W - Move right
E - Move down
R - Move up
T - Use weapons / Pick up / Exchange objects
The game uses Kempston & Sinclair Interface II joysticks as well.
CREDITS
· Authored with Arcade Game Designer by Jonathan Cauldwell.
· Programmed by Luca Bordoni.
· Very special thanks to BiNMaN for graphic support and Mister Beep for having provided a splendid soundtrack!
A while back I was contacted by a couple of folks regarding the mock ups I did for Martyn Carroll's Retro Gamer article on Ultimate. One for the Spectrum and one as a spectrum style pc game.
The Spectrum version has been written by Luca Bordoni using Jonathan Cauldwell's AGD. I must say what a splendid job he has done too. Luca contacted me to ask if he could use some of the graphics in his tribute to Ultimate and the Sabreman series of games. So he used the frame, a slightly altered loading screen, a couple of small graphics and I did an original sabreman sprite. Everything else he has put together (except for the music and some help with the menu). And over the last month or two we have struck up a really good friendship, which I hope will continue now his project is over.
His dedication to the game and the Ultimate legacy has been such that he has even produced cassette inlay artwork and cassette labels.
It has been a wonderful time discussing the in's and out's of AGD, how to achieve his goals for the game using AGD. This is his first game using AGD and initially he spent many nights picking my brains about how to do things in the AGD scripting engine, working around bugs and strange crashes. In fact I think I have learned more during our problem solving conversations than I have on my own over the last 6 years!!
He has inspired me to dig out some old projects and make more use of this great utility.
A great guy, I hope you enjoy his presentation.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/binman/Land%20of%20Mire%20Mare.zip
BiNMaN