egghead 6: egghead Goes to town

» platform: Sinclair Spectrum » Developer: Jonathan cauldwell » Download: Kikstart.eu/cauldwell-downloads » price: free

Those lovable scamps at Crash have been working hard all week and now its beer o’clock so they’ve retired to the local pub, taking a stack of pages along to presumably get a little proofreading in around the consumption of alcohol. This plan is going swimmingly until a huge gust of wind through the beer garden whips up those all-important pages and carries them away, distributing their writing all over the place. Only one man can make his way around town to gather up the pieces, or more accurately just one egg.

We join Egghead at the start of his quest in the stables but the search for Crash pages will cover a lot of ground including a visit to the local sorting office, trekking through the sewers and even dropping in on Sir Clive Sinclair’s private garage which contains a rather forlorn-looking C5. The sheer size of the town is initially daunting to the point where getting lost is almost certain – making some kind of map is advisable for various reasons – but help comes in the unexpected form of phone boxes

which act as teleporters, allowing Egghead to zip around at will.

Fans of the Egghead series will already know what to expect as far as challenges go and this latest instalment doesn’t disappoint, offering up a large number of screens which are filled with deadly hazards and patrolled by strange creatures or machines. Making a mistake will result in yolk being splattered all over the screen so the gathering of extra lives is a must. Some of the trickier sections might even appear to be impossible, but can be passed with the application of a little thought and lots of dexterity.

Egghead 6 was released on cassette as a reward for the Crash Annual 2018 Kickstarter campaign but, after the contributors received their copies, developer Jonathan Cauldwell has released it as a free download on his website as well. This is a fine addition to the Egghead series and Spectrum owners should get cracking with it.

[ZX Spectrum] Sir Clive’s personal transport, but does the battery still work? [ZX Spectrum] This embassy doesn’t seem to have any fancy chocolates. [ZX Spectrum] The pages really have been scattered all over the place.