Smurfs

“Smurfs” is a platform game in which you use the joystick in Port 2, with fire to jump over prickles, avoid eggs, and to reach Smurfette at the end level. There are three stages – horizontally scrolling, vertically scrolling, and a flick-screen stage. The gameplay is quite a difficult challenge.

“Smurfs” is based loosely on Atari’s “Smurf Rescue”, and contains some quite simple but effective graphics.

The game was created by the then 15 year old Carl Muller, and was pitched to various companies, such as US Gold, Melbourne House and Firebird. US Gold and Firebird rejected Muller’s game. Melbourne House also did not publish the game, although they did advise Muller to study at university.

The game did not have a full commercial release, but it did get a brief shelf life when it was sold in a local bookshop in New Zealand. Mostly, it was a game shared between friends. (http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/smurfs/)

Carl Muller said the following about working on Smurfs: “I wrote this when I was 15, and thought it was too long/good (hah!) for a magazine, so I sent them to a company in Auckland. I also made up a couple of tapes each which were sold in my local bookshop (Thelma’s bookshop in Waitara, NZ). The company (Barrie Barnes of Metron Holdings Ltd.) sent them to “Simone” at US Gold/Centresoft around 4 Oct 1985. These were rejected; I presume now for (1) not having the right license in the first case (a bit importantconsidering how popular the Smurfs TV series was and is), (2) Having programmer graphics – it certainly did them no favours! I really can’t draw… (3) Limited useability and gameplay polish. Alas, there was no games industry in New Zealand, but there was a local C64 users group where we shared ideas. The friends of the family who had a C64 loved playing Smurfs though. They are both completely written in machine code. I also submitted my various software to British Telecom (Firebird Software) and was turned down by Tony Beckwith (Mirrorsoft/Probe/Climax) on 19 Sep 1986. I wrote to Beam software/Melbourne House, getting a reply on 17 Nov 1986, and they said to go to university as planned, so I did, and then went to work for them.” (http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/smurfs/)