Actually enjoyed this one, of the Intellivision games I've played thus far this one definitely brings the most out of the console. It's a bite-sized roguelike, with pretty much none of the flaws stemming from the concept. Controls aren't the most responsive (you have to wait a bit after running before you can shoot an arrow) but they're intuitive, playing with a controller and a numpad in front of me didn't feel at all awkward for once. The sound cues don't always work but they're very nice to have when they do--it's definitely weird not being able to see where you're going but they counteract it enough to the point where a fully cautious playthrough will always work out in the end.

Certainly some drawbacks though--like the cons mentioned earlier. I was able to get past them and adapt to them but they're definitely huge thorns and I imagine it'd bring it down for most others. On harder difficulties, you don't have time to react to the dragon enemies, who dash towards you, deplete all your health, then have the audacity to shimmy on you. Luckily, a way around them is to break the AI, which seems to just entirely be done by not approaching them horizontally. Genuinely they just do not chase you vertically. Sometimes after they chase you, they go back to their original place and sit there, letting you land diagonals while you're within slapping distance. Realistically, this is a neat concept with serious flaws in its execution that I can't recommend, but nothing changes that I got enjoyment out of it. The rating curve tells me I'm not anywhere near alone, so maybe I'm accentuating the negatives. I'm tired and people are trying hard to pull me elsewhere. My people need me. I must go. Goot bye.

Probably truly technically impressive (I can't imagine you'd need anything short of a titanic amount of passion to make a homebrew game that for the Intellivision) (Also there was a comment asking how the guy made the one pixel tall laser beam) but falls flat on gameplay. I can imagine that technical limitations prevent much variety, especially when you're making something that can run on the actual console (afaik,) but it's hard to enjoy the same enemies being thrown at you, especially in the last two stages where two of them don't do anything. All that playing on Easy does is slow the game down, which would be fine, but it takes twice as long to get to the boss. Could there not be a check for that that reduces the amount of waves? Especially with zero indication on how close you are to it. Once you're done the first loop there's not really an incentive to play, you only see your score when you die and it's real repetitive.

That all said, playing on Hard is enjoyable. Each enemy (bar the dark blue guys) does something different and unique, and I was on my feet anticipating what the new one would be each time I got to a stage. It only takes 3 or so minutes to reach the stage boss which felt like a good pace. Every death was identifiably my fault, the game is perfectly fair throughout. (The readme says that boss' weakpoints need to be discovered, so no, the hitboxes are perfectly fine on them actually.) There's only three songs, only one of those being played for an extended period of time, but none of them get tiring and all fit the mood as much as is possible on this console. It's honestly pretty solid on the first loop, and I wish there was more that could be done with it.

I should be clear: no harm no foul to the developer. Assuming this source isn't bull, Frank Johnson (sole dev afaik) worked like a motherfucker to crank out ten whole games for this system in just under two years. Back then, especially with licensing pressures, that's legitimately commendable. Rest in peace.

That said, the end product is still the end product. Absolutely nothing feels right and there's like 4 minutes of content tops. Donkey Kong is green, the ghosts have no AI, the second stage just isn't clear, and honestly it pales in comparison to another game in Frank's catalogue, Donkey Kong Jr. Not that that's a good game either, but it's remarkably more sound and more playable than this is. Good god, man. I never thought I'd give half a star to a game that wasn't shovelware or entirely unplayable anytime soon, but wow. Just wholly not worthwhile.

P.S: Don't play this one on BizHawk, as of right now you can't collect the hammers. Their core seems to have a few issues generally but this is the only concrete thing I've found.