Rainbow Walker

Rainbow Walker
Atari 8-bit box cover with art by Tim Boxell
Developer(s) Synapse Software
Publisher(s) Synapse Software
Designer(s) Steve Coleman[1]
Platform(s) Atari 8-bit (original)
Commodore 64
Release 1983 (Atari)
1984 (C64)
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s) Single player

Rainbow Walker is a color-changing action game designed by Steve Coleman for the Atari 8-bit computers and published by Synapse Software in 1983. A Commodore 64 port followed. Coleman also wrote another game published by Synapse in 1983, Pharaoh's Curse.[1]

The Atari version was later part of a "Double Play" promotion, where some Synapse games had a second, complete game on the other side of the diskette. The Double Play re-release of Rainbow Walker includes the game Countdown[2] by Ken Rose.[1]

Gameplay

The player controls a small creature named Cedrick who hops on a flat rainbow curving into the screen, giving a pseudo 3D quality to the game.[3][4] The rainbow consists of 8 arcs, each of which contains 16 squares. Hopping along an arc scrolls the rainbow and eventually wraps around to the starting square. Each level omits some parts of this grid to make it more challenging. At the start of each round the squares are gray, and moving onto them adds color. The goal is to color the entire rainbow.

Hopping off the rainbow costs one life. Holding the button while moving jumps over a square.

Other creatures attempt to change the squares back to gray or to knock Cedrick off the rainbow. A freeze square stops them from moving for a few seconds. Fragile squares break if Cedrick stands on them for too long.

There are twenty levels in all, with bonus rounds between them, and then the game ends.[5]

Reception

In a 1984 Antic review, Andrew Bell wrote, "Rainbow Walker, Synapse Software's latest arcade-style game, joins the company's previous games as one of the most imaginative, graphically stimulating and playable games on the market."[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hague, James, The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers
  2. ↑ Powell, Jack (July 1985). "Eight New Synapse Games". Antic. 4 (3).
  3. ↑ YouTube video of Rainbow Walker gameplay
  4. 1 2 Bell, Andrew (September 1984). "Product Reviews: Rainbow Walker". Antic. 3 (5).
  5. ↑ "Rainbow Walker manual", archive.org
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