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%