Oh Mummy is another of the ZX Spectrum’s offerings which managed to slip by my younger self without so much as a nod. So when I recently saw a discussion of it on the Spectrum 4 Ever Facebook page I felt I should try it for myself. Once again the PicoDivideSD was much in evidence to load and run the game quickly, Once loaded you are presented with the screen on the left, and pressing buttons until you get into a menu to set key preferences and skill level, then the speed. Once set you can start playing the game which casts you as an explorer inside a pyramid looking through the Mummy’s things, and attracting the unwanted attentions of the guardians who are there to stop your plundering ways.
A quick overview of gameplay would be Pacman in a simpler maze and with no power pills. You have to run around the maze dropping your trail of dots around the boxes which opens them to reveal treasures, keys, scrolls or nothing. Once you have uncovered all the boxes, make your escape throguht the exit marked with a green square and an X. Obviously there is an added element in the Guardians who will hunt you down and take away a life if they catch you, so keep out of their way, surround the squares and get out into the next maze.
Spectrum 48k sounds and graphics are the only offerings here, so simple beeps, and blocky graphics are all you have to offer the senses. The “maps” are all straight lines around boxes, and the characters are not huge but acceptable for the platform we are on. The treasures do resemble what they are supposed to be, and there is no real colour clash here either.
Gameplay does get repetitive, fill in the paths, avoid the guardians and run for the exit. But there is a challenge to be found, the Guardians will trap you if you’re not keeping one eye on them and it is pretty fast gameplay even on the easiest settings which I used. Turning up the speed and the difficulty would make the game much harder so the challenge is there to be had. The controls are obviously simple, use the four keys you choose to direct your player around the maze and that’s it.
To sum it all up, an enjoyable game with a simple gameplay element, challenging due to its speed even if not the actual maze layouts.
Score 6/10
