Rick Dangerous background info from the website of Simon Phipps

[ComSoft6128]

Worth reading.....
https://www.simonphipps.com/games/rickdangerous/

Simon Phipps Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Phipps_(game_designer)

[dodogildo]

Thank you, very cool article! Big fan of Rick Dangerous series. Switchblade as well.

[Anthony Flack]

People give it a lot of stick for trial-and-error gameplay, but I think adding the level selection in the second game is all it needs to work really well. A lot of the traps are also not nearly as random as people make out - don't go the way that looks safe, go the other way.

By designing the game around the minimum specs of all the target systems they achieved high consistency across all the different platforms which paid off nicely. 

[lmimmfn]

Great read, thanks.
It was stupidly difficult requiring trial and error, restarting over trying to remember the traps, far too difficult, but it was very well polished and iconic, I still remember first experiencing the first Wah 😀

[eto]

It's amazing how some games created fond memories although they were so damn hard. I still remember that most people loved it - but nobody I know went beyond the first few screens. 

[Gryzor]

Like Cybernoid, used to love that. I don't have the required patience nowadays, but I have to say - it was hard, but not unfair. All it required was patience and a semi-good memory.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

A reminder that 128KB CPC users can get the full count of 16-bit levels with the RD128K mod from a few years back.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Like Cybernoid, used to love that. I don't have the required patience nowadays, but I have to say - it was hard, but not unfair. All it required was patience and a semi-good memory.

Agreed. It wasn't necessarily trial and error, more learn from mistakes.

By comparison to the final level of RD2, Rick Dangerous was quite doable.

Cybernoid I found frustrating though. Some spaces were just way too tight.

[Gryzor]

Like Cybernoid, used to love that. I don't have the required patience nowadays, but I have to say - it was hard, but not unfair. All it required was patience and a semi-good memory.

Agreed. It wasn't necessarily trial and error, more learn from mistakes.

By comparison to the final level of RD2, Rick Dangerous was quite doable.

Cybernoid I found frustrating though. Some spaces were just way too tight.

Agree about Cybernoid, but those tight spots at least gave you some breathing time to concentrate and attempt the next step. 

[Anthony Flack]

Rick Dangerous 2 was definitely doable, I doabled it on the Amiga.

Because you could practice all 4 stages individually before doing them all in one go to unlock stage 5. And then you could practice stage 5 as much as you liked before attempting all five at once. Which was a real test with only six lives, but you had the opportunity to study everything beforehand, so no less fair than your average racing game. 

[Anthony Flack]

A big part of Rick's appeal I think is how simple but responsive the controls are. I like Switchblade, but everything about the way it controls is extremely stiff. The jump is weird, the attacks are weird, ladders require you to line yourself up, everything is very rigid. And Rick is the opposite, super responsive, the controls make intuitive sense, and having full eight-way control when climbing feels great. If Switchblade controlled more like Rick...

It's also interesting that the idea of being a downward-scrolling vertical game was in the first sentence of their pitch.