This article is about the computer game. For the character, see Popeye. For other meanings, see Popeye (disambiguation).
Popeye is a video game released by British company dk'tronics for the ZX Spectrum computer in 1985 and also ported to the Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64, under license from King Features Syndicate. It was released only in Europe.
The game stars Popeye on a quest to find 25 hearts and bring them back to Olive Oyl, across a seaside town environment made up of several linked screens. In trying to follow King Features' mandate of having the characters looking close to the ones in the comics, programmer Don Priestley found himself constrained by the Spectrum's single-color sprites. His solution was to build every character by joining several differently-colored sprites together, making them large and colorful, but also causing them to take up a big portion of the screen.
In order to provide enough movement space, a system is used where many of the game's various screens have two or more "layers", invisible to the player, that Popeye can traverse by moving up or down. The player is clued as to Popeye's position by the structures he can or cannot move over. Popeye also has the ability to climb ropes and stairs, and must avoid the Sea Hag, Bluto and the Sea Hag's vultures, which roam the area going from screen to screen. Spinach cans function as extra lives in this game, helping Popeye get back to his feet each time he falls from making contact with the enemy.
External links[]
- Popeye at GameFAQs