Harlequin (computer game)

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For other uses of "Harlequin", see Harlequin (disambiguation).

Harlequin is a computer game for the Amiga, published in the early 1990s by Gremlin Graphics.

Harlequin is a platform game taking place over multiple interconnected screens. Your character, a harlequin, has returned to his homeworld Chimerica to mend its broken heart. To do this, he must find the four pieces the heart has broken into and take them to the Clock tower.

Finding the pieces of the heart involves a fair deal of strategy as you flick switches to open new areas of the various levels. Completing the game is not easy.

Similar to Jet Set Willy, the playing area in Harlequin is made up of several screens that can be traversed in a free order, provided you find the links between the screens. Whereas the screens in Jet Set Willy were stationary, only filling up one computer screen, the screens in Harlequin are much larger and scroll as the harlequin moves through them.

Each screen has a different setting and graphics style. Most of them are quite weird, happening for example inside a giant clock tower, across the rooftops of a city, or in Egyptian or Mayan mythology. There is even a level where you are sucked through a maze of drinks straws, like a bonus level in that it is packed with health power ups. Each screen also has a background music tune, but some tunes are shared between several screens.

Harlequin is mostly noted for its good-quality graphics and music and the sheer size of the world it takes place in.