Games that remind me of my childhood Number 5 : Tom Thumb (Commodore Plus 4)

Sticking with the Commodore Plus 4, Tom Thumb was again another game which was miles better on the Plus 4 than the Commodore 64 version.  Written by renowned Plus 4 programmer Udo Gertz, the game had you play Tom, and required you to explore 178 screens of platform action, avoiding baddies, collecting treasure, and finding keys to unlock doors.

The game itself is a straight-forward platformer, but one of the things I remember most about this game is the ability to see parts of the game which you would not be able to reach until much later on.  This added much more lastability to an already addictive game.

Me, finally reaching the final screen from Tom Thumb

It took me over 22 years to finally finish this game (read about it here), without cheating, and what did I get when I reached the end?  Nothing!  Well, besides having to start the game from the beginning again but with items and baddies in different locations.  It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for a bug which resulted in your character not being able to get any further in the game due to some spikes above a ladder which you needed to get through.  Unfortunately when you touch the spikes, you lose a life and go back to the last save spot (the last door opened, key or treasure collected).  It was impossible to get past the spikes, so you could never finish the game for a second time.

The game did have a good feature (although I am not sure if was ever intended as a secret cheat or not) : Normally when you had lost all of your lives, you would start the game from the very beginning.  If you ran out of lives, simply pull down on the joystick and you would start from the same location as the last key or treasure collected.  Very useful, although your score would reset back to zero. 

I dread to think how many hours I've spent of my life playing this game.  I even started to write a remake of it several years ago, but lost most of the source code thanks to a catastrophic hard drive failure (my fault for not making regular backups).  I did manage to salvage some of it, and it is playable, but I lost so much.  I don't seem to have time to finish it...  Maybe one day....

My version of Tom Thumb - unfortunately never finished

My version of Tom Thumb - unfortunately never finished

My version of Tom Thumb - unfortunately never finished

As mentioned earlier, the game is VERY big.  Csabo over at Plus 4 World has painstakingly put together a map of the entire game.  You can check it out by clicking here.

I have many fond memories of this game.  Well worth a play if you get a chance!