Flood. 1990, Bullfrog/Electronic Arts.

 Hello.. I’m Flood!
Not the most well known game from EA, Quiffy is a little green dude (What exactly is he? Starfish, Mutant Frog?) who is on a mission to clear his world of litter that someone has thoughtlessly left lying around. Quiffy also has to switch off the leaky taps on each level to stop the water gathering below, rising up and flooding his underground lair, killing everything in its path. Hence the game title ‘Flood’

This is one of those platformers which instantly draws you in from the beginning, with its fantastic title music, superb colourful graphics and addictive but sometimes puzzling gameplay. I still own the original boxed version of Flood, although during my Amiga 500 days, we mostly had (cough) a lot of ‘backup disks’. The Amiga had big game piracy issues back in the day, a long story maybe for a future article.

Bad Guys
There are 42 levels on Quiffy’s big clean up mission and through each level he will come across some particularly nasty creatures (Hey we never said this would be easy!) One of the most annoying of all these beasties is Quiffy’s scary ghost aunt! She will follow Quiffy’s specific path that he has made throughout the level and if you double back or get near, her deadly touch will lead you to your demise. Collecting your trash and getting through the level as quickly as possible is your main priority.

Other baddies you should avoid are freakishly named the following.. ‘Bulbous Headed Vongs’, ‘Plonkin Donkins’, ‘Vacuous Gombos’ and ‘Psycho Teddy’! Psycho Teddy has sharp teeth in his stomach, so be sure to avoid this guy as he’s not your average cuddly toy! However this game isn’t about completely avoiding the enemy, luckily Quiffy has a small arsenal of weaponry at hand to protect himself. Grenades, flame-throwers and dynamite on timers will help him though his adventure to victory!

As well as great music in the game, Flood has some excellent sound effects, echoing splashes when Quiffy jumps into water and loud gulp noises when in contact with enemy snails, Flood has a certain charm that you just don’t see in games today. The games difficulty is spot on and will keep you entertained for many fun filled hours.

Flood. An awesome platformer frozen in time when Amiga was the king of gaming.

Download: Flood
Download: Flood_v1.2_0504.lha

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