Mode(s) Single player | Initial release date 1986 Awards Best Arcade Game | |
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Designer(s) Shaun Hollingworth, Peter M. Harrap, Chris Kerry Developers Tiger Telematics, Magnetic Fields Publishers Gremlin Interactive, Tiger Telematics, Mindscape Similar Gremlin Interactive games, Puzzle video games | ||
Trailblazer is a video game that requires the player to direct a ball along a series of suspended passages. Released originally by Gremlin Graphics for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit family, Amstrad CPC and C16/plus/4 in 1986 (there was also an enhanced version on Amstrad CPC 3" disc). It was ported to the Amiga and Atari ST.
Contents
In 2005 a port to the Gizmondo handheld games console was released.
Gameplay
The game can be played either in time trial or arcade mode. The music in the background matches the gameplay with its electronica genre. Races are quite brief and usually last between 15 and 45 seconds. Special fields on the track let the ball jump, slow down, speed up or warp speed the ball, invert the controls or are holes.
Reception
The game was reviewed in 1990 in Dragon #158 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column, as part of the Mastertronic MEGA Pack of 10 games previously released in Europe. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars, stating "Our favorite on this disk; racing on Cosmic Causeway roads against the clock or against a robot. This one was really fun".
Zzap!64's reviewers also enjoyed the game which they thought was "an excellent variation on the race game theme". The overall rating given was 93%.
Steve Panak, reviewing the Atari 8-bit version for ANALOG Computing, concluded "the game is the most original arcade action wristbuster to come down the pike in a long time, and one of the best two-player competition games I've seen."