Monster Bash
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| Monster Bash | |
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| Developer(s) | Apogee Software |
| Publisher(s) | Apogee Software |
| Designer(s) | Frank Maddin |
| Release date(s) | 9 April 1993 |
| Genre(s) | Run and gun/platform game |
| Mode(s) | single player |
| Rating(s) | OFLC: G8+ |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS PC |
| Media | floppy disk (3) |
| System requirements | 286 PC, 565kB RAM |
| Input | keyboard, joystick |
Monster Bash (called Graveyard during development) is a video game developed and published by Apogee Software on 9 April 1993 for the MS-DOS PC. The game features 16-color EGA graphics and IMF AdLib compatible music.
The game is divided in three episodes or parts. The first episode of the game is available to download as shareware, but the two remaining parts of the game must be purchased.
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[edit] Story
In Monster Bash, the player controls Johnny Dash, the hero of the game, whose pet dog Tex was just kidnapped by the game's main villain, Count Chuck. A friendly monster under his bed tells Johnny that hundreds of other pets have been kidnapped as well, and that Count Chuck took them to his Under World to turn them all into evil monsters. There is a secret passageway in his closet that Johnny uses to enter the Under World, in order to find and save the pets.
[edit] Gameplay
Johnny must work his way through several horror-themed levels armed with his slingshot. In each level, the player has to break the locks of the pets' cages in order to free them. The game follows a typical platform game style, where the player must fight boss monsters at the end of each episode to be able to complete it and advance to the next one.
The first episode has 10 levels, and the other two have 9 levels each, for a total of 28 levels on all three episodes. When the player enters a new level, Johnny's health is replenished, and any powerups acquired in the previous level are removed. The player has 10 slots per episode to save games, and can save only at the beginning of a level. The levels feature different environments, including graveyards, caves, haunted houses, castles, labs, ghost towns, woods, and swamps.
[edit] Fighting and health
Johnny has an unlimited supply of rocks, and he can fire his slingshot either forward or diagonally up. Rocks move in a realistic projectile-like pattern, and can bounce off walls and other objects. The player can collect powerups for the slingshot that allow Johnny to shoot a limited quantity of more powerful projectiles, including a bigger rock that splits into smaller ones on impact, a triple-rock, enemy-seeking rockets and a fireball.
Enemies are based on horror-monsters, and include disembodied crawling hands, flying witches, zombies, demons, walking skeletons and werewolves. While some enemies appear in several levels, others only appear in theme-related levels; for example, the rock men only appear in the cave-themed levels, and the invisible men only in the haunted house levels. Some enemies take more hits to die than others, and a couple are invincible.
There are also several boss enemies throught the levels. There are a couple of "minor" bosses that appear in the earlier levels of each episode, and three "major" bosses, one at the end of each episode.
Johnny has a health bar consisting of several slots. Each time he is hit by a monster or a hazard, he loses one slot; if he loses all of them, Johnny dies. There are three difficulty levels, which change the number of health slots Johnny has: 9 in Easy, 6 in Medium and 3 in Hard. The player can collect hearts in the levels to replenish health.
The player has a limited number of lives, and if he loses all of them the game is over. The player can collect Johnny-shaped voodoo dolls to get more lives, to a maximum of five. There are "checkpoints" in the form of pirate flags throughout the levels; if the player dies, Johnny is returned to the last checkpoint that was passed, or to the beginning if no checkpoint had been activated. After dying, the state of the level is mantained, as are the powerups collected, and Johnny's health is replenished.
[edit] Points and bonuses
Apart from the powerups and health, Johnny can collect several other items in the levels that give the player points, including different types of candies and treasure chests that can be broken for points. Points are also awarded for killing monsters and for some other feats.
There are several bonuses that can be acquired by completing certain tasks in a level:
- Skull Bonus: 50.000 points are awarded for shooting all the "evil skulls" in a level.
- Loot Bonus: 50.000 points are awarded for getting all the candy in a level.
- Par-Time Bonus: 50.000 points are awarded for finishing the level in less time than the "par time" for that level.
- No-hit Bonus: points are awarded for finishing the level without being hit.
[edit] Cultural references
- The game title is a pun on Monster Mash, a song title by Bobby "Boris" Pickett (the theme song is a rearrangement of that song).
- The character's name, Johnny Dash, is possibly a pun on Johnny Cash.
- One of the level songs is based on Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
- The default high scores suggest the names of several horror-related people and characters (as only the initial is given for the first name): Vincent Price, Lon Chaney, Lon Chaney Jr., Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Dr. Jeckle, Abraham Van Helsing, Boris Karloff, Ray Harryhausen and Vlad Tepis.
- The game's story mentions that Jill of the Jungle, the protagonist of the namesake game, lives in Johnny's street.
[edit] External links
- Monster Bash Official page
- Monster Bash at MobyGames
