Jumping Jackson (Commodore Amiga)

So much for my huge pile of Amiga games. It's not as big as it looks, purely because a lot of them don't work! And the ones that don't work are the ones that are boxed and complete and in immaculate condition! But the ones that are disk only and slung in a big cardboard box seem to be fine...

I just picked anything out of desperation tonight, after three fails. Jumping Jackson was the lucky winner. I'd never heard of it, and as I only had the floppy and no instructions, I had absolutely no idea what it was likely to involve.

You can imagine my "joy" when I discovered it was a puzzle game. But wait! All is not lost! Because Jumping Jackson actually turned out to be good fun! Is that a flying pig...?

Jumping Jackson sees you take on the role of a big-nosed music fan, whose world is a little on the quiet side. What he loves most of all is rock music. He has a collection of record players in his odd world of grey slabs, but no records to play on there. So he has to fashion them from somewhere.


Are they... audio cassettes in the bottom bar? Wow, this game really is old!

There are a number of coloured slabs in the world. Walking over them changes their colours. Once you have all the slabs in a group at the same colour, you'll be given a record. You then have to collect the record, and put it on the appropriate coloured player. Do this, and a line of the tune (bass, drums) starts up. Do the same with the next colour, and another line starts. Once you've placed all the records on the appropriate turntables, the entire tune will play.

It's a fun game mechanic, and it feels good to build the tune up. Of course, it's not as easy as that... there's a variety of classical music instruments wandering around in an attempt to stop the rock! You do have teleports around the levels to help you, and you'll need to figure out where these take you if you want to win the level, and use them strategically to avoid the bad guys.

It's a bit on the crazy side, but fairly typical of that era, and quite endearing. And most of all, it's enjoyable and not all that frustrating, which is rare when it comes to me and puzzle games. Looks like my desperation pick turned out alright, after all!