Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    My friend bought Magic Pockets last weekend and lent it to me since he
    didn't have the time to play it, so i've had a few hours playing time.
    
    The game is split into four levels - The Caves, The Jungle, The
    Mountains and The Lakes. Each level has a number of sections - probably
    5, although I can't remember exactly. You play the Bitmap Kid,
    attempting to find your 'best toys' which you've lost in the depths of
    your magic pockets. Each level has a different toy, which appears in
    all the sections (as far as i've gotten up to, anyhow), and at the end
    of each level, you use your toy in 'the main event'. For example, in
    the Caves your best toy is a bike...once you've finished the level you
    have to participate in a bike race against a load of pocketland
    people.
    
    There is no password system a la GODS which I do miss. There is,
    however, a secret method of moving from the first section of each level
    to the first section of the next level. I've tried everything I can
    possibly think of doing, but couldn't find the method for getting from
    the first to the second level. This does get annoying since once you've
    lost all your lives, you have to start right from the beginning again.
    I like the way they've handled the lives system. You have five lives to
    start with, represented by a hand. If you touch a pocketland person,
    you lose a live. The good thing is, you just continue playing with the
    live subracted. If you loose all your lives, you have three chances to
    continue the game. When you continue, you start at the beginning of the
    section you died in. Another good thing is when you complete a section,
    you get all the bonuses and stuff, but you also start out the next
    section with all your lives restored.
    
    You can kill pocketland people with your 'pocket power' in different
    ways. If you press the firebutton quickly, a small pocket power is
    realeased (incidently, pocket power changes for the differnt levels. In
    the caves, its whirlwinds, the jungle - clouds, the mountains -
    snowballs, and the lakes - ice cubes). Holding the firebutton down
    builds up pocketpower and when released, throws out a bigger whirlwind
    or whatever you're firing. I don't think these larger whirlwinds damage
    the pocketland people more than a smaller one, but if the pocketland
    person is weak enough, it will be captured inside the whirlwind for a
    short period of time - popping the whirlwind by touching it will
    produce an item, either a sweet thing (for points), or a powerup of
    somekind. Also, popping the whirlwind from different heights (ie,
    falling on it or jumping on it) will wield more sweet things (from
    1-5), depending on the height that you fell on it from. Well thats just
    one way of killing them...you can kill them by simply bombarding them
    with whirlwinds...strong pocketland people take 5 or 6 hits, weak ones
    1 or 2...it varies. Or another way of killing them is by falling from a
    'higher than normal' distance which puts the Bitmap Kid in a spin. When
    he's spinning he kills everything he touches.
    
    I think I could go on for days about all the little features and such,
    suffice to say, there is a lot to this game. There are a ton of
    different powerups, from cups of cofee which improve your firing speed
    to laser helmets of all things! Gameplay is excelent in my opinion. I
    guess it is just another platform game, but its the best i've played.
    I'd recommend it.
    
    Ady           

    Sounds good but the thought of having to potentially work through loads
    of sections you've already completed dozens of times before to get onto
    a new section sounds very offputting. It's a shame they didn't
    implement something to avoid this. I really liked the Gods system.
    
    Thanks for the review, though. The game itself sounds excellent.
    
    Cheers,
    
    				Jamie.

    I guess the methods for progressing to the next levels will be
    published in the magazines soon :-} Seriously though, it is a pain but I
    found that its relatively easy to finish the sections quickly if all you
    are trying to do is get onto the next section. You can spend ages
    capturing the baddies and getting as high as possible to pop them for
    more sweet things and get a high score (I like this myself - I spent
    about 2� hours doing this on the first level :-), or you can
    just go into rapid fire mode and wipe everything out if all you want to
    do is get to the further sections.
    
    There are so many neat things which make the game. On the second level
    (jungle) your pocket power is clouds...harder to use than whirlwinds.
    The large clouds...they kind of bounce around a couple of times then
    suddenly stop...suspended in the air and after a few seconds
    dissappear and emit a drop of water. If this water falls on a seed, then
    a massive beanstalk type plant grows way up into the sky giving you
    access to more platforms.
    
    Anyway...if I had the money i'd buy it, but i'm saving my pennies for
    lotus II :-)
    
    Ady

    It's strange; I think I once read an interview with the Bitmaps where
    they said they'd never put a cheatmode into their games...
    
    Maybe this is a change of heart ;-)

    I don't think its a cheatmode as such - they do say in the booklet that
    there's a hidden portal on each level to the next level...they just
    don't tell you where they are :-)
    
    Ady

    Now THAT'S neat !
    
    It'd make sense if it was on the first section of each level so
    I guess you have to play that section to death to progress!
    
    

    I've just had a thought... what would be really nice is if the secret
    exit is only made available to you once you've completed that level
    fully. This would mean that you'd have to leave a game disk unprotected
    but so long as they don't copy protect the disk that's written to,
    that shouldn't be a problem.
    
    Talking of levels etc... I read of a really interesting "cheat" for
    Switchblade 2...
    
    *spoiler*
    
    If you type LEVEL then a number from 1 to 6 on the title screen, the
    game will start at that level.
    
    Nothing clever so far... but if you type CHROME, then you go into a
    completely new sub game called (suprisingly) CHROME ! It's a sort of
    horizontal scrolling game a bit like a thinking mans Super Mario Bros 
    without the cuteness, I suppose !
    
    That's a nice bonus!
    
    Cheers,
    
    				Jamie.

    The first Lotus game has another game as well. I think if you enter the
    player names as "Fields of fire" and "In a big country" (I *think*
    these are the correct phrases, although this is from memory) then
    instead of the lotus game appearing as normal, a spaceship appears and
    you have to dodge and shoot zillions of asteroids, the idea being to
    see how long you can survive...weird...

It was included in a recent cover disk for Amiga Format, I think, or Amiga
User, or Amiga Computing...  Its probably available elsewhere, too.

I don't have much experience with games, basically limited to cover disk demos.
I found it easier to play than the Gods demo as I was able to do more in a
limited amount of play.  It helped that the demo includes a real demo of some
of the moves and the article described what was going on.  With Gods, I found
both the secrets you have to work out to be difficult, but the coordination
and timing is much more than I can handle so I make very slow progress, to the
point that I can't even reach the end of the demo.

    Well after about another couple of hours of playing and experimenting,
    I discovered the warp from level 1 to level 2. The warps are found on
    the first section of each level and take you to the first section of
    the next level.
    
    Spoiler follows FF
    
    The warp is in the second secret room. To access secret rooms, you need
    to use the transporter helmets, which are obtained by collecting 
    *ONE* silver star, and then a gold star. When you reach the second
    secret room, you will find a big bowl of fruit (which will give you the
    5000 points needed for a power-up), a gold star and a bird-type-thing.
    You only have a little time to do this, so you have to be quick.
    Collect the bowl of fruit first, and then try to capture the bird in a
    whirlwind. Pop the whirlwind for a silver star and collect it, then
    collect the gold star. This gives you another transporter helmet and
    when you wear this one, you warp to the second level.
    
    Another tip which I found *very* useful :-)
    
    When you're in the second secret room, leave the gold star the first
    time round - just collect a silver star and wait to be taken back to
    the game. Now try to get another gold star for yet another transporter
    helmet. I found this strange because in the booklet it says that using
    a third transporter helmet will take you straight to the exit. Well,
    this third transporter helmet doesn't :-)  It takes you to another
    secret room. In this room is a golden goblet. Pick this up and it
    power-ups the bitmap kid as much as he can be, as far as the
    pocket-power is concerned I think. The good thing is, this lasts for as
    long as you play the game - even if you die completely and have to
    start over!
    
    Lastly...shoot the bubble until it pops for 5000 points.
    
    That's all for now...if anyone else has playing tips or whatever, then
    let us know about them..
    
    Cheers,
    Ady

I've now discovered the warps for the 2nd and 3rd levels. 

Spoiler follows FF

All warps are found in the first section of each level. 

2nd Level warp to 3rd Level 

This is found in the second secret room (secret rooms are accessed
using transporter helmets). After entering the first secret room, build
another transporter helmet using silver and gold stars, but *don't* enter
the room when you have created the helmet. Kill enough baddies/get enough
points so that your next power-up is a gold star. Now enter the second
transporter room using the helmet you made earlier. It's vital that you
don't kill the baddie-fly-trap-thing in this secret room. As soon as you
enter the secret room, go left and collect the silver star then run back
to give yourself enough room to capture the baddie. Do just that and pop
the cloud to give you a gold star. If you didn't pick up any other
silver stars, collecting the gold star will give you another transporter
helmet which warps you to the third level.

I'll enter a note about the third warp a bit later..

Cheers,
Ady