Granny In Paradise

Developer: Sandlot Games
Steam Release: Jul 2009
Hours Played: 24
Similar To: Devious Dungeon / Drago Dino / Mutant Mudds / Omega Strike
Rating: 2/5 Parsnips



GAMEPLAY
Super Granny games are a cross between the Donkey Kong series from the 1980s and the popular Sega arcade game Flicky, involving the rescuing of birds from cats. In an area that fits the screen you rescue cats by scurrying up and down ladders and charging along platforms before dropping them off at the exit. Cats just sit there until you move over them whereupon they start following you. You can have as many cats following as you wish (more cats = better score) but they do lose their way at times and get left behind. In Flicky fashion, as you reach the gate, a chiming sound is activated as you rack up a score and rescuing all cats ends a level. To impede your progress you have various enemies roaming the screen like dogs, tribal warriors and robots. To trap them you dig a hole for them to fall into by pressing the space bar putting them out of action for around 15 seconds before returning to their starting point to cause trouble once again.

BALANCE & PACE
As you complete levels things get complicated with the introduction of items and different obstacles. For example: you need to move over watering cans to then make reeds grow for you to climb up; you need to collect keys to unlock locks; umbrellas that make you float; handbags that make you whack things, and you 'll need to pick up and activate bombs to blow up blocked areas. Obstacles might include icy water that makes you slide, crumbly steps that collapse and water to slow you down etc. Personally, just cracking through all 170 odd levels is entertainment enough. You may wish to beat high-scores but that's a bit hard-core for me. The gameplay certainly feels very old-school and it's hardly dynamic stuff but it can while away the time if you just want to slob around a bit. It becomes challenging enough but you get 5 grannies to use so you know you'll eventually beat any level.

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
With a fixed low resolution, old-school sound and graphics, you're not going to be bowled over with a fancy display. The granny waddles along in a peculiar fashion and climbs bizarrely but at least the enemies have a fair amount of variety and there's an interesting mix of five environments. All is very quick, intuitive and straightforward here. Options give you the chance to change some minor sound options and to switch between full and windowed screen while High Scores take you to your best scores that you've achieved with 5 lives. On clicking Play Game you'll be wanting to play Granny's Quest. This takes you to the level selection screen where, no doubt, you'll just continue your quest. After you lose 5 lives you're taken to the Game Over screen where you're then forced to go through to the High Score screen before returning to the main start screen again.. 

PROGRESS SYSTEM
As mentioned, just attempting to complete the game by cracking through the levels will suffice for most people - and the level selection screen keeps track of this no problem. Bear in mind though that there are over 170 levels to complete! However, there is a score-system in operation if recording high-scores is your thing. A high-score is recorded every time you finish a run with 5 lives. The most efficient way to achieve a good score is to collect the hidden flowers dotted around each level and to collect and rescue the largest amount of cats in one go as possible. This just involves holding back on crossing the exit gate until you have passed over every cat on the screen. Then, passing over that gate with many cats will see a huge accumulated score being totted up above your head.

CONCLUSION

Old school arcade gaming is the order of the day here. There is no wow-factor to behold, no cutting-edge graphics or ingenious gameplay ideas to sink your teeth into. It is a retro-style game for those who value their good old-fashioned platform gaming. On the sound front, the granny blurts out plenty of comments that are stereotypically associated with old people. For example when she meets her demise she'll cry out; "I've fallen over and I can't get up" and "I should have stayed on the cruise ship." She also calls the player "dear" a lot. The soundtrack features a lot of melodic honking sounds and some decent steel-drums of the Caribbean evoking a holiday-feel. Cats meow, dogs bark and at the robot levels silly announcements are made to add a bit of fun. Of course there are far better platformers out there but you can grab an extra granny, or grab two grannies, with Super Granny 3 and Super Granny 4 which are both available from Steam.