Crush, Crumble and Chomp!
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| Crush, Crumble and Chomp! | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Epyx |
| Publisher(s) | Epyx |
| Designer(s) | Jon Freeman & Jim Connelley |
| Engine | Custom |
| Release date(s) | 1981 |
| Genre(s) | Strategy game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | N/A |
| Platform(s) | Apple II, Atari 400/800/XL/XE, Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20, DOS, TRS-80 |
| Media | One 5¼" disk |
| Input | Keyboard |
Crush, Crumble and Chomp! is a 1981 strategy computer game from Epyx. In this game, the player takes control of a movie monster and attacks a famous city, such as New York or San Francisco.
Contents |
[edit] Description
The game allows the player to recreate a movie monster, any movie monster, and attack a city, much in the manner of the classic horror movies of the 1950s. Specifically, the player can create:
- Goshilla, a giant amphibian like Godzilla
- The Kraken, a terrible sea monster
- Arachnis, a giant spider
- The Glob, akin to the monster in The Blob
- Mechismo, a towering robotic menace
- Mantra, a giant flying monster, like the infamous Mothra
The player can terrorize one of four cities, pursuing one of five objectives. Each monster has its own unique abilities.
The amphibious Goshilla can stomp on buildings, atomize aircraft with its breath and leaves a corrosive trail of radioactive waste.
The Kraken, a giant octopus or squid-like monster, can attack bridges and seaside ports and buildings and then slip into the murky depths to hide from attack.
Arachnis, the giant spider, can also attack buildings, but can also clog roads with its web and can escape underground via its network of secret tunnels.
The slimy Glob oozes out of the city's sewer and absorbs obstacles in its path, including skyscrapers. It also leaves a flammable trail of slime in its wake.
The robotic Mechismo sports an exotic array of alien weaponry, such as ray guns. With them he can vaporize almost any obstacle in his path.
The game also allows the player to "grow" their own monster, with custom abilities they choose. When doing this, the player is given 120 "crunch credits" to spend. Each ability costs a certain number of credits. For example, the ability to "leap tall buildings in a single bound" costs 8 crunch credits. The player can add a number of abilities until their credits are exausted.
Crush, Crumble and Chomp! features four cities to attack: San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and Tokyo. Combined with five possible objectives and the six (or numerous ones, counting the custom) monsters, this game has robust replayability.
After attacking a city—the main activity of the game—players are rated on how well they did. Players are rated even if their monsters die in the attack and can achieve a high score for what they accomplished before expiring.
This is one of the few games of the home computer era that allowed the player to control a classic movie monster. The only other notable home computer game of the era that featured player-controlled monsters was Electronic Arts' Mail Order Monsters. However the game featured a different premise—monsters battling one another—instead of monsters attacking an unsuspecting metropolis like the classic monster movies of the '50s.
It might have been inspired by SPI's 1979 boardgame, The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, though there is no direct evidence to support this.
[edit] Ports
Like many of Epyx's games of this period, it was released for several of the popular home computers of the era. It was originally released for the Apple II and Atari 8-bit series, but was soon ported to the VIC-20, Commodore 64 and DOS. Interestingly, the first two versions were marketed under the name "Automated Simulations", the name of the company that would eventually become Epyx. The two later versions, released in 1983, were released under the Epyx name.
[edit] Legacy
Besides being the single game that allowed the player to take control of a classic movie monster, this game may have served as inspiration for the arcade game Rampage. Bally Midway's Rampage lets the player take on the role of one of three classic movie monsters, a giant Godzilla-like lizard, a giant werewolf or a King Kong-like ape. In Rampage, the player(s) also attack unsuspecting cities. Like Crush, Crumble and Chomp!, Rampage also uses real cities as its settings.
Another game which has used the same concept is War of the Monsters for the PlayStation 2, released in 2003. However, in this game a monster battles other monsters in fictional cities. It combined several elements of the classic horror movies in one big fight.
