abyss Commodore 64 game

"Abyss" is a somewhat abstract action puzzle game that takes place on floating platforms in space. The diamond-shaped sprites, known as "cough drops," must be placed in their designated fields (gray circles with yellow animated rings). To do this, you jump with the game character (controlled with a joystick in port 2) onto the cough drop, which then bounces in the corresponding direction. This allows the cough drop to be moved further. However, it is not possible to transport the candy to a higher level. On the other hand, it jumps to lower levels, but then bounces one field further.

There are also frequently appearing "nasty jumpers" that are distinguished by their different intelligence, i.e., the more intelligent ones fall less often into holes or similar obstacles. When touched by the game character, both (game character and nasty jumper) are destroyed. A nasty jumper also explodes when it jumps onto a cough drop. The candy is then pushed one field further, which can also reach higher levels.

On the platforms, there are plenty of obstacles such as barriers, treacherous holes, mines, water, and so on. You can only reach some hidden places by flipping a switch, which can be far away. So you have to memorize which switch has which function. When all cough drops have been transported to their target fields or otherwise removed from the platform, you can move on to the next level via a transport field (field with a four-leaf rotor).

At first glance, the graphics of the game (parallax scrolling) resemble the well-known platform game Bounder, but it plays completely independently. You have to approach it tactically, and since no time is running out, it is actually a strategy game. The background music and sound effects are well done, and you can save game progress at any time. Additionally, there is a training mode. The high score list is saved on a floppy disk. The individual levels are large and solved with increasing difficulty levels. The point system is interesting: the program does not assign points but percentages.