Ludography
Pengi cover

1984 · Maze

Pengi

1984 video game

Released
1984
Platforms
Acorn Electron
Genres
Maze
Developers
—
Publishers
—
Country
United Kingdom

About

Pengi is a game for the Acorn Electron and BBC Micro, released by Visions Software in 1984. It is a direct clone of the 1982 Sega arcade game Pengo, even down to calling the enemies "snow bees," as in the original.

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player takes the role of a penguin named Pengi who finds himself in a maze made up of ice blocks that is surrounded by an electric fence. If the blocks are kicked, they will slide along until they hit another block or the fence. If however, the block is already touching something else (in the direction it would slide), it breaks and disappears. As in Pengo, three of the blocks are marked with diamonds and cannot break.

The maze is inhabited by deadly "snow bees". They move in a semi-random way: a bee may sometimes choose to get away from Pengi instead of chasing him (especially on early levels). The bees can be killed by crushing them with a moving ice block (bees do not stop the blocks so more than one bee can be killed with one kick) or by kicking the fence while they are touching it. This momentarily stuns them and they can be crushed by simply walking over them.

Reception

Electron User (#2.04, January 1985) gave a particularly favourable review: "Visions' Pengi is far superior to any Pac-Man program... The graphics are excellent as is the sound... If you're into arcade games, you will love this one."

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.