1P Start

For those of you who had an Atari, Commodore, or Apple II then you will probably recall this little gem. Jumpman. Now Jumpman’s story wasn’t apparent when you played it, the only way you would know this was if you either read the manual that came with the game, or if you read it on Wikipedia.

The object of the game is to defuse all bombs in a platform-filled screen. According to the story, these are placed on Jupiter by terrorists. Jumpman can climb up and down ladders, and of course jump, and there are two kinds of rope each allowing one direction of climbing. Jumpman will die if he falls a distance greater than his own height. As an additional hazard, most levels have ’smart darts’ — small bullets that fly slowly from sides of the screen, but when orthogonally lined up with Jumpman speed up and shoot straight in his direction. Collecting a bomb can cause other board elements to appear or disappear, which is scripted by level and creates some devious puzzles.

Below I have embedded a video of someone playing the first level on Jumpman. For you youngins, you’ll probably think this is crap and wonder why I put this up. But for those of you who were gamers since way early on, you’ll enjoy the music, the sound effects, and you’ll still hate that stupid bullet that darts at you whenever it sees you.

Enjoy Jumpman on your Old-School Sunday!

Old-School Sundays, Jumpman