Blagger is a platform game created by Antony Crowther

Antony Crowther

Antony 'Ratt' Crowther is a former designer, programmer and musician of Commodore 64 games. During the 1980s he worked for Alligata, Gremlin Graphics and later Crowther's own company, Wizard Development....

 and released by Alligata

Alligata

Alligata Software Ltd. was a computer games developer and publisher based in Sheffield in the UK in the 1980s.The company was founded by Mike Mahoney and Dave Palmer around 1982. They produced games for a number of home computers including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, ZX Spectrum...

 for the Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 and BBC Micro

BBC Micro

The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...

 computers in 1983, Acorn Electron

Acorn Electron

The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC along with its operating system....

, Amstrad CPC

Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...

 (through Amsoft

Amsoft

Amsoft was a wholly owned subsidiary of Amstrad, PLC, founded in 1984 and re-integrated with its parent company in 1989. Its purpose was to provide an initial infrastructure of software and services for users of Amstrad's range of home computers, the Amstrad CPC and, from 1986, the Sinclair ZX...

) and MSX

MSX

MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...

 in 1984 and Commodore 16

Commodore 16

The Commodore 16 was a home computer made by Commodore with a 6502-compatible 8501 CPU, released in 1984. It was intended to be an entry-level computer to replace the VIC-20 and it often sold for 99 USD...

/Commodore Plus/4

Commodore Plus/4

The Commodore Plus/4 was a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM resident office suite ; it was billed as "the productivity computer with software built-in"...

 in 1985. In some countries this game was released under the name Gangster. The gameplay is similar to that of Manic Miner

Manic Miner

Manic Miner is a platform game originally written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith and released by Bug-Byte in 1983 . It is the first game in the Miner Willy series and among the pioneers of the platform game genre. The game itself was inspired by the Atari 800 game Miner 2049er...

, also released in 1983. A sequel, Son of Blagger

Son of Blagger

Son of Blagger, the sequel to Blagger, is a scrolling platform game created by Tony Crowther and released by Alligata for the Commodore 64 computer in 1983. A ZX Spectrum port by Elliot Gay and a BBC Micro port were released in 1984....

, was released in 1984 with a third and final title Blagger Goes to Hollywood released in 1985.

Gameplay

The game is divided into a series of single-screen levels. The goal of the player on each screen is manipulate Blagger, a burglar, to collect the scattered keys and then reach the safe. The keys must be collected and the safe opened in a set amount of time. Blagger can walk either left or right, or jump left or right. The jumping action is in a fixed pattern and cannot be altered once initiated. Gameplay reduces to learning the best order in which to collect the keys, and correct timing of movements and jumping.

Hazards

Not all platforms are solid, some decay once Blagger has walked on them. Other platforms serve to move Blagger in a particular direction. Blagger will die if he touches cacti, one of the moving enemy obstacles of the level or if he falls a certain distance. The moving enemies vary from level to level, and include cars, aliens, mad hatters, and giant mouths. The movement of the enemies is of a fixed pattern, repeatedly travelling from one point to another and back again. The BBC and Electron versions feature floating 'RG's as hazards (R.G. being the initials of the programmer of those versions, R.S. Goodley).

History

The game was one of the first of Crowther's games to be publihsed commercially. The BBC micro port was undertaken by R.S.Goodley.

Reception

The game was popular enough to warrant ports to other platforms, such as the Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC and MSX.

External links

• Complete video from the C64 Version on archive.org
• Blagger remake playable online
• Blagger at Plus/4 World