Moonlight Madness

Moonlight Madness received negative and mediocre ratings from reviewers, who either criticized the game overall or different aspects of it. Direct comparisons with Booty feature in many reviews. The game's price was in particular a common complaint among reviewers, who stated that it should have been a budget-priced title. One reviewer stated that it would have been better received as a budget title, another stated "Like Booty, Moonlight Madness would be all right at budget price". Your Sinclair ' s reviewer began their piece by stating "Hmmm, don't like the title Moonlight Madness much, howzabout Daylight Robbery. Catchy, ain't it?" Computer Gamer ' s reviewer stated "Had it been released on a budget label, Moonlight Madness would have been fair value for money. As it is, it is grossly overpriced." • Illustration — The boy scout (bottom left) makes his way through the maze corridor Reviewers highlighted technical issues in the game. The eight door maze room was thought to be a bug, a software error, by two people at ZX Computing magazine. Because the game contains no reset feature they reloaded the game from cassette in order to continue playing. The player character's movements were criticised for being jerky and prone to stopping at infrequent intervals. One of Crash magazine's staff stated that the boy scout's movement to the left was quick; "as if there's a force ten gale blowing to the left." They added "When any attempt is made to move right, all the moving characters on the screen slow right down." In-game objects are removed from view when either the player character or one of the mansion staff move in front of them. When the player redefines the game's keyboard controls, allowing them to choose which keys move the boy scout during play, the pause key and music toggle key are not included. As a result it is possible to double-up movement controls with these two functions, effectively causing the game to pause and unpause or for the music to toggle constantly as the player moves in that direction. Reviewers' opinions on the graphics and gameplay were largely negative, while opinions on the title's music varied. The background music was described as "...the only thing that is remotely interesting about this appallingly tedious game..." by Popular Computing Weekly ' s reviewer. He followed this by stating "At first it sounds all right, if a little monotonous, then it begins to grate the nerves. After a while it begins to take on all the appeal of the Chinese water torture." Crash magazine's three reviewers were more positive about the music, stating "The sound is fairly well done...", "The title screen plays a nice tune..." and "...the game's drawing point is the sound..." The game's graphics were described as "fairly crude", "unattractive" and "...none too exciting, consisting of colourful but flickery characters." One reviewer stated "The graphics are large and colourful but there is a lot of character clash..." Overall impressions of Moonlight Madness were negative. Crash magazine's reviewers compared the game unfavourably to Booty. One expressed disappointment because of Bubble Bus' history of releasing "great arcade/adventures". Your Sinclair ' s reviewer stated "Maybe Bubble Bus had a touch of Moonlight Madness when it picked this one for its new release." The reviewer from ZX Computing stated "Keeping to the boy scout theme, be prepared before you buy this one."