Intellivision Exclusives: Beauty and the Beast

[Rev]

 

 

Beauty and the Beast is an old Intellivision game, drawing on Donkey Kong game mechanics with it's own little sense of style and overall flow. You play as Buford, trying to scale a tall building, chasing after the villain that has kidnapped your lady friend or mother or whatever she is.

 

Each screen is comprised of a bunch of floors, and you scale to the next floor by climbing up and open window. The windows open and close randomly, so you have to think and act on the fly. This leads to the game playing out different every time, which is nice when compared to other games from this time.

 

Ascending to the top floor on a screen brings Buford up to the next screen, and somehow the villain has moved to the top here. Along the way, rats, birds and boulders (and exploding boulders) can kill Buford. He also can gain hearts which make him temporarily invincible and able to destroy these obstacles and gain points. The boulders looked like butterscotch candies, but everything else was all right. Buford was a bit too yellow overall but how demanding can you really be of these games. You sorta take what you get back in 1982 - very few games before the 16 bit era are worth criticizing for their graphics.

 

As you climb, the floors get narrower and narrower, like a normal building. Falling off the edge dumps you clean off the side of the building, all the way to the bottom, in what is somewhat of a classic memory for most people that have played the game, complete with the slide whistle sound of plummeting to the bottom.

 

At the top, the level is small and once you reach the villain, he ends up being tossed off the building somehow, and Buford and his lady friend (or mother) are reunited. Then, you start all over again.

 

Edited January 29, 2010 by revolutionika

[wccw mark]

this game is very fun.i never had it back in the day but i just recently got another intellivision system a few weeks ago and won this game in a 3 game lot.i actually thought it had something to do with the disney movie lol.im glad it didnt,and beauty and the beast is a great game.its one of my better games for the system.

[Rev]

this is also one of my favs from back in the day,i just played it a few weeks ago.great game!

 

imagic is easily one game makers from the era.

[IntellivisionDude]

I have this game, but now i want to check out the sequel, Tropical Trouble. There is one Youtube video of it out there.

[+Ransom]

I have this one, too, but my goal is to get all the Imagic games for the Intellivision some day. Tropical Trouble, Truckin' and Whitewater have eluded me so far. (I had Dracula at one time, and found it to be boring, so I think I'll make an exception for that one.)

[Rev]

I have this one, too, but my goal is to get all the Imagic games for the Intellivision some day. Tropical Trouble, Truckin' and Whitewater have eluded me so far. (I had Dracula at one time, and found it to be boring, so I think I'll make an exception for that one.)

 

 

you mean complete like these?

 

[+Ransom]

That would be them! Very nice.

 

(I just wish they'd done them all with the foil look....the colors kinda spoil it<G>).

[cparsley]

I never liked the “sequel” of the game, as it just seemed it was rushed and to get it out the door, they just lifted the Beast graphics so they could have a tie-in to a game that was going to be unrelated.

 

As for Beast, it seems simplistic at first, giving you an extra life every 2 segments, but in the higher buildings, good luck on getting more than 1-2 per entire building (Also the game loves giving you “Awesome” skyplane remarks after the 3rd building afterwords, and a 1 word encouragement above the building counter that changes after every 5 buildings.

[Philflound]

I actually have all of the Imagic games, but don't have all the boxes.

 

Need boxes for Fathom, Truckin' and White Water. Have all instructions and overlays though!

 

Actually, is that Wing War in the photo? Don't remember seeing that in guides and sites.

 

 

Phil

Edited March 20, 2010 by Philflound

[jaybird3rd]

I've been playing Beauty and the Beast for the first time this past week, but so far, I can't say that I like it well enough to invest more time in it for the current high score contest. It's an interesting take on the Donkey Kong game idea, and the opening and closing of the windows adds a challenging element of randomness to the gameplay. But the game also has a few annoying qualities which prevent me from being too big of a fan:

 

First of all, the sounds and music are only sub-par, on the order of what you might expect to hear from a 2600. The Intellivision was capable of much better. It was also capable of counting higher than six, so the game should have allowed you to have more than six lives at any one time. As it is, there is no way to stockpile a bunch of lives during the early levels in preparation for the more difficult levels, which would have been a powerful motivator for the player if the game had allowed it.

 

Second, I really could have done without the Barnstorming biplane fly-by after every little tiny section of the building. If the game simply scrolled vertically up to the next section after Buford reaches Mabel (the hardware was perfectly capable of doing this), and showed the fly-by only at the end of each building, it would probably have reduced the time required to complete each building by about 50%. The use of vertical scrolling also would have strengthened the impression that Buford is actually climbing to the top of the building, instead of playing disjointed sections that don't visually relate to one another.

 

Third, Buford jumps like he has rocks in his pockets: he goes up too slowly and comes down too quickly, usually landing with a heavy thud right on top of whatever I was trying to make him jump over. Granted, we're all coming back to this game long after being spoiled by smooth Super Mario Brothers jumping physics, but even compared to the original Donkey Kong (which this game certainly draws inspiration from), the jumps are pretty pathetic. Having the ability to duck under the birds and bats would have been nice, too. I think Pitfall II used up what little patience I had for getting repeatedly hit in the face by unavoidable birds in a video game.

 

Fourth (and this may be a limitation of mine), the audiovisual effects that accompany the brief period of invincibility after Buford catches a heart are confusing to me. First, he starts flashing and the "music" begins to play, then he turns red as the music continues to play, and then the music stops playing, and he turns yellow again a fraction of a second later. But his invincibility seems to end when the music stops, not when he returns to his normal color. I initially relied on the visual color-changing cue to determine when it was still safe to touch the enemies, and I would find myself inexplicably getting killed repeatedly. I'm almost positive it was because I was touching the enemies during that brief period between the end of the music and the return to normal color. Whether that's true or not, it would have been better if both of those events took place at the same time.

 

And fifth, the movement of the rolling boulders--and especially the boulder pieces--is too erratic and unpredictable. There was a certain discernible pattern to the movement of the barrels in Donkey Kong, which made them feel like real falling objects, but I haven't detected any pattern to the way the boulders and pieces change speed and direction. They seem to have a mind of their own, bouncing and shooting all over the place, and the bumpers (the points at which they change speed or direction) line up perfectly with the spaces between the pairs of windows. This leaves Buford with too many points of exposure, because if he happens to be standing at the windows on either side of the bumpers when the boulders hit (not just on one side, as with the ladders in Donkey Kong), he has a good chance of getting killed, even if there aren't any enemies on the level with him.

 

Maybe I'd get to like it more if I played it more, but for now, I'd have to give the game a 5 out of 10 overall. The ideas are all there, and perhaps with more time and tweaking it would have been less frustrating, but it's not something I can see myself coming back to very often.

[cparsley]

Hmmm Jay, where to begin...

 

1) If your playing Beast for the music, wrong place... This game is a great showing force that better technology doesn't automatically equal a greater game, it's what is done in it's programming/code. The core of the game is there, and that is what brings it thru. As for the lives I love the limit as it gives you an artificial scarcity, especially when you start getting only 2 lives per entire building.

 

2) Since when was the object of a game to see how quickly it can be played? (Ok, Twin Galaxies speed runs aside)... Also, how else can you go from "Lucky" to "Awesome" by the 3rd building!

 

3) The jumping seems fine to me, but thats not a point anyone's going to win on an arguement, so let's move on.

 

4) I haven't had a problem hitting in that point as long as your red, you get the kill(and points). Case in point right out of the game, grab the first heart, stand on the left rivit on the 2nd level of the building, and jump when the white bird flies by. Youll get the bird and the barrel right in that "split second", and receieve the points.

 

5) So you want the boulders to behave normally? Are we trying to make the game easier on purpose. The boulders DO HAVE PATTERNS, but there are more complex and of number compared to DK for instance, to make it an easy one fix solves all approach.

 

 

I do hope you come back to Beast, and while challenging, can be great fun and a great test of your playing ability on the INTV. AND yes, Imagic did rock back then, see Mattel Marketing, games CAN be different on each system and still rock.

[jaybird3rd]

1) If your playing Beast for the music, wrong place... This game is a great showing force that better technology doesn't automatically equal a greater game, it's what is done in it's programming/code. The core of the game is there, and that is what brings it thru.

Point taken. But remember that, while better technology may not automatically equal a greater game, the technology that is there has to be used well, even if it is used sparingly. Not every game has to sound like Thunder Castle, but if the audio is annoying to the player, or even noticeably mediocre, it can legitimately impact the player's overall enjoyment. Good music and sounds contribute a lot more to games than many of us are consciously aware of, even when the available technology to create them is limited.

 

 

2) Since when was the object of a game to see how quickly it can be played? (Ok, Twin Galaxies speed runs aside)... Also, how else can you go from "Lucky" to "Awesome" by the 3rd building!

I'm not saying that speed should be the object. I'm saying that the biplane "intermissions" use up time without adding anything to the gameplay. Let's say you have to reach a certain high score in order to win a contest, or to beat your previous score. If you were given a choice between being able to reach it in three hours, or being able to reach it in two just by removing one unnecessary feature that could come out without affecting the gameplay at all, which would you pick? Do you have unlimited free time?

 

But that's really a secondary issue. The main problem I have with the intermissions is that they choke the game's momentum for no good reason. If a player is coming off of completing a challenging section of the building, all worked up and ready for the next one, the best way to kill that momentum is to make the player wait through an eight-second intermission (or however long it is). That may not sound like a long time to wait, but imagine how frustrating Robotron would be if it made you wait with nothing to do for eight seconds between every level. That eight seconds would feel like an eternity, especially during the higher levels when the game gets really frantic.

 

 

4) I haven't had a problem hitting in that point as long as your red, you get the kill(and points). Case in point right out of the game, grab the first heart, stand on the left rivit on the 2nd level of the building, and jump when the white bird flies by. Youll get the bird and the barrel right in that "split second", and receieve the points.

I must be mistaken, then, because I could have sworn the enemies were killing me off as soon as the music stopped.

 

 

5) So you want the boulders to behave normally? Are we trying to make the game easier on purpose. The boulders DO HAVE PATTERNS, but there are more complex and of number compared to DK for instance, to make it an easy one fix solves all approach.

My issue with this is that, if the patterns are that complex, you either have to stop and figure out what the boulders are going to do, or you have to take your eyes off of Buford to look at them. There isn't time for either in a fast-paced level; one has to be able to "feel" what the boulders are going to do.

 

Again, maybe I'd feel it if I played the game longer--I can play a pretty good game of BurgerTime, so it's not as if I've never figured out game patterns before--but for now, the "patterns" in Beauty and the Beast seem to be completely unpredictable. I'm aware that a boulder can either bounce in the opposite direction or fall when it reaches a bumper, and I'm aware that it may also break into pieces, but that isn't enough to be able to anticipate the boulders' movements. Do they bounce or drop only under certain conditions? Are they more or less likely to break after they drop or after they bounce? If there isn't any way to anticipate their movements, then there is no pattern; it's completely random. Perhaps you can share some strategies, since you've played this game a lot more than I have. I'd be curious to know whether the boulders' movements are random or not.

[cparsley]

The boulder actions are random, based on a set of rules, like DK is random is to whether a barrel would go down a ladder or continue on the girder.

 

As for what it does, building one, a flat fall (until the top 3-4 sections, in which diagonal falls are allowed).

 

Building 2+ the falls are a random toss as to whether the boulder will break or not, and its allowed either a straight or a 45-degree angle movement off the platform.