Black Lamp

• Title — Black Lamp • Publisher — Firebird Software Atari Corporation • Released — February 1988 • Genre — Platform • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Amiga, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum

The game casts the player as Jack The Jester in the fictional kingdom of Allegoria. According to the story, Jack has fallen in love with the Princess Grizelda, but knows the king would never allow his daughter to marry a lowly court jester. Unless, of course, he were to perform some kind of noble and heroic act. That chance comes for Jack the day a gang of dragons attack the kingdom, stealing the magical black lamp which protects the kingdom from harm. Without the lamp's protection the kingdom is soon overrun by monsters, so Jack sets off to recover the black lamp, save the kingdom, and hopefully win the hand of the fair princess.

• Illustration — Black Lamp gameplay (Atari ST) The game is viewed from the side-on perspective typical of platform games. Jack, under the player's control, has to run, jump, climb and shoot his way through the kingdom of Allegoria in search of nine different coloured lamps, while under constant assault by all manner of creatures. Eight of the nine lamps may be found randomly scattered around the kingdom (in locations which change with each new game), but the ninth lamp, the black lamp, is guarded by a dragon which must be defeated before the lamp can be recovered. Each lamp must be returned to one of several lamp racks in the kingdom. As the player can only carry a single lamp at a time, this can mean a lot of traveling back and forth. Once all the lamps have been returned to the rack, the level is complete, and the player advances to the next level. The game takes place across a series of static and scrolling rooms, which are connected by doorways leading into the foreground or background, as well as up down, left and right. Several items can be picked up to assist the player • Food replenishes the player's health • Collecting five weapons gives the player temporarily increased firepower. • Collecting five musical instruments temporarily allows the player to fall from heights without being hurt. • Collecting five jewels gives the player temporary invincibility. Controlling Jack can be difficult, as unlike many more modern platform games like Mario or Sonic where the character responds immediately to joystick input, Black Lamp moves the player in set increments of distance, so if the player starts walking in one direction, Jack cannot stop or turn around until he has taken a full step in that direction.

In the Atari ST and Amiga versions of Black Lamp, the title screen music is a version of Elizabethan Serenade by Ronald Binge, while the in-game music is a rendition of the English folk song Greensleeves. In the ZX Spectrum and C64 versions, the title screen music is an original piece by Tim Follin.