Frak!

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Frak! is a scrolling

Frak! is a

Enemies in Frak! come in three forms: the large, hairy Scrubbly, pig-like Poglet and large-nosed Hooter (each static, as "statues"), balloons and daggers. The statues obviously stay still, whereas the balloons fly straight upwards and the daggers fly diagonally downwards. Contact with any enemy will kill Trogg. To combat the enemies, Trogg is armed with a yo-yo that he can launch straight horizontally. The yo-yo will kill any enemy it comes into contact with, even those off-screen and a side scroll away.

Each level also has a time-limit, which can be topped up by the occasionally found light bulbs, but if the time runs out, the level does not end - instead, the game continues in the dark.^[2] After this point, the yo-yo can still be used to remove the static enemies from the level but will not affect balloons and daggers.

Frak! encodes

Ports

When the original BBC Micro version was converted for the Acorn Electron, the screen mode was changed from the four-colour, 20 

In 1998, a version of Frak! was released by RComp Interactive for Acorn's ARM-based series of computers running RISC OS. Although regarded as "an institution" and having "some of the elusive quality of the original", this new version was criticised for not having been updated to compete with more recent platform games, with the background remaining blank and with the non-player characters remaining unanimated just as in the original. This release did, however, reintroduce a level designer, albeit operating as a separate program from the game itself.^[6]

In October 2020 a version for Microsoft Windows was released on Steam. This version stays close to the graphics and sound of the original BBC Micro version, but adds extra levels and gameplay features.

Reception

Acorn User remarked on the "outstanding" graphics and compared its characters to early

Reviewing the Commodore 64 version, Zzap!64 also praised the graphics and said it was a challenging game. It was rated 71%.[8]

References