Flimbo's Quest is a 2D platform game published by the British software house System 3 (later renamed to Studio 3 Interactive), for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and Amstrad CPC. Note that a ZX Spectrum version was developed but never released.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY A mad scientist called Fransz Dandruff has created a machine that can draw for him the life energy of every living thing, thus extending his own life infinitely. To provide this energy, Dandruff kidnaps Pearly, a beauty queen from Dewdropland. Her boyfriend Flimbo sets off to save her. You control Flimbo through seven distinct levels, collecting scrolls for the wizard Dazz Bazian, to help him create a spell that will send Flimbo to the next level. The levels are free to roam and some exploration is necessary to find the scrolls from enemies dotted around the lair, as well as to reveal other secrets, such as banks and various power-ups. The power-ups can be bought in Dazz's shops, along with individual letters or complete words of a code.
GRAPHICS / SOUND The CPC version uses nice colorful graphics and smooth sprite animation but parallax scrolling at the background (used in the Commodore's version) is not available. Another downside (same as in the Commodore version) is that the foreground scenery is almost identical to the background, making the game difficult to avoid the incoming enemies or jump onto platforms! The things are getting worse as the game runs in flick-screen mode while the action is way slower compared to the Commodore. Soundwise, the CPC version is acceptable, featuring a well composed main menu tune (but inferior to the C64 version, which is almost identical to the Amiga stereo music!) and there are a few decent sound effects during gameplay (but no in-game music). Note that the C64 offers an excellent in-game tune!
CPU: ZiLOG Z80 4MHZ MEMORY: 64 KB or 128 KB of RAM depending on the model (capable of being expanded to 512k using memory extension boards) GRAPHICS: Motorola 6845 address generator, Mode 0: 160x200 / 16 colors, Mode 1: 320x200 / 4 colors, Mode 2: 640x200 / 2 colors, A colour palette of 27 colors was supported SOUND: The CPC used the General Instrument AY-3-8912 sound chip, providing 3 channels Mono Sound (via internal speaker) but capable to offer Stereo Sound provided through a 3.5 mm headphones jack (with pretty impressive outcome!). Also, it is possible to play back digital sound samples at a resolution of approximately 5bit. This technique is very processor-intensive though.