THE SPECTRUM GAMES DATABASE



HEARTLAND



PUBLISHER

Odin



YEAR

1985



DESCRIPTION

Heartland is a platform arcade adventure.



CONTROLS

Keyboard, Kempston

KEYS : Z, C, V, M      - Left                  - Joystick left

       X, V, N         - Right                 - Joystick right

       A to L          - Through door          - Joystick down

                         out of screen

       Q to P          - Through door into     - Joystick up

                         screen / Jump

       1 to 0          - Fire / Use bed        - Joystick fire





INSTRUCTIONS

Asleep one night, you dream of a land where a magical Book has

been stolen by the demon Midas.  The last chapter has been torn

out and its six pages scattered through the land, while six Dark

Pages created by Midas stand ready to be inserted into the book

- which would doom the land to eternal darkness thereafter. 

Armed only with your trusty top hat and bed, you must rescue the

six pages, destroy the Dark Pages and defeat Midas...



Much like a platform game - you can walk left or right, jumping

to collect objects or to clear fatal gaps.  Doorways and lifts

links screens and levels and can be used by going "into" and "out

of" the screen.  The bed permits travel between the various areas

of the Heartland once you have collected pages of The Book.  The

Book flashes when a missing page is nearby, but it's up to you

to identify the page as Good or Bad.



Along the way, it is wise to collect some weapons.  The top hat

is weak but can be fired an infinite number of times; the knife

is more powerful but gives less hits; and the fireball is the

most powerful but only lasts a few shots.  The various evil

minions will do their best to sap your strength, as shown by the

face of Midas in the top bar.  As your energy drains, so Midas'

face expands in size until you are dead...



Various spells fly around some screens, some good, some bad.  The

large star spell is particularly bad, homing in and draining your

energy.  A small star spell will however give you temporary

invincibility while bubble clusters restore your energy.



The passage of time is shown by the two hourglasses at the top

of the screen.  The glass on the left revolves every few seconds,

while the one on the right takes about eight minutes to complete

a revolution.  This one shows the amount of time you have left

on a particular level; you only have eight minutes before Midas'

malign influence makes it impossible to escape! - which means,

of course, Game Over.





CHEATS





SNAPSHOT URL





SEQUELS/PREQUELS





SCORES RECEIVED

Crash, Issue 31 (August 1986): "One of the better games on the

Spectrum." 92%

