Deflektor

From C64-Wiki

Deflektor

Game No.	41
Developer	Jason Perkins, Steve Kerry (Grafik)
Company	Vortex Software
Publisher	Gremlin Graphics
Musician	Ben Daglish
HVSC-File	/Daglish_Ben/Deflektor.sid
Release	1987
Plattform	{{{Plattform}}}
Genre	Logic, Arcade, Miscellaneous
Gamemode	1P only
Operation
Media
Language
Information

1 Voting
2 Description
3 Design
4 Hints
5 Critics
6 Solution
7 Cheats
8 Miscellaneous
9 Highscore
10 Links
- 10.1 Websites
- 10.2 Videos

[edit] Voting

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
7.69 points at 16 votes (rank 106). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	7	31. July 2007 - "very good" 2284 downs
Lemon64	7.6	31. July 2007 - 25 votes
Zzap!	81%	February 1988 - Edition 34, page 20
Kultboy.com	7.8	31. July 2007 - 5 votes

[edit] Description

The aim of the game is, to direct a laser beam towards a reveicer. For this the player has several mirrors, whose angle (and therefore the direction in which the laser is reflected) can be changed.

To make the whole thing a bit more challenging there are also other objects on the screen: mines, "cells" (look like balls), polarisation filters, fiberoptic feed throughs, random deflectors and simplistic obstacles which block the beam. Every now and then enemies appear (the "Gremlins"), which alter the mirrors you have adjusted with effort. You can destroy these enemies with the fire button, if you position the cursor onto one (it is done easiest, when you get them on a mirror).

At the start of a level the way to the receiver is blocked by obstacles, which disappear, when all "cells" have been destroyed by the laser beam.

The laser is equipped with limited energy; if it is used up, the player will lose a life. As the energy is reducing constantly, the time which is available to finish the level is limited. Another possibility to lose a life is an overload of the laser. This happens, when the laser beam is reflected into the laser source, hits a mine or the laser beam is too long. If the state of overload is not resolved within a few seconds, you will lose a life.

[edit] Design

Clear and well defined objects make for a good playability. The endless background music is nice... but endless - fortunately you can switch it of before the start.

Useless statistic information: Deflektor uses 15 of the 16 colours of the C64.

[edit] Hints

All 60 levels of the game

The game has 60 levels. I don't know if anyone ever made the last level, as the player obviously has no possibility to interfere - the laser is solely controlled by random deflectors. As the random generator of the game is seemingly not really working randomly, it could be that the laser will never reach its aim. However, the results of the random generator are to a certain extent dependent on the position and the movement of the cursor (and if the fire button is pressed).

Deflektor was also available for Atari ST, CPC and Amiga.

[edit] Critics

Klaws: "The game is based on a simple concept, which you can see through after a few seconds. At the beginning the game is very gripping, but after a while it gets rather boring. The difficulty level is low and does not really grow during the game. When I played the game for the first time, I already made it rather far, until I lost interest somewhere between level 40 and 50 (I didn't know then that it was not far to the end). As there is no save function, I would have had to play through all the already known levels the next time. So there was only this one round for me, which was, however, great fun.

So if you want to spend some time with a gripping game, you should in any case try Deflektor. But one will play it only a few times."

Guybrush "At the beginning it is a nice tossing, which soon bores. It reminds my -by the concept- of The Incredible Machine which was later successful on the PC. Due to the missing long time motivation I can give Deflektor only 4 points."

Darkstar: "At that time an innovative, new game principle, which made it to captivate me for a long time."