Back in the early 80s, even on sinfully expensive arcade machines new game ideas appeared, which later disappeared without a trace. Due to the limited hardware, the coins were mainly lured by the skillful design of the gameplay. With Quack A Jack, a clone of such a Japanese arcade game was ported to the Amstrad CPC.
As a duck, you are on your way on a floor paneled with 11x20 tiles, along with some enemies, immobile cooking pots and an egg from which a deadly terraductile emerges after 10 seconds. If the egg is reached in time, another one will show up immediately somewhere on the playing field until the next level is reached. The enemies become more numerous and faster.
From science fiction to horror – still within dime novel territory. On the journey from one major city to another, your coach gets lost and you find yourself in a remote village in the middle of nowhere – where (to the player at least) it is quite apparent that a vampiric plague is afoot. Can you survive the night and put an end to this curse? For sure. Can this game really live up to its bold claim to carry on the tradition of Level 9, one of the most prolific producers of text adventures in history? Not really, though that would have been asking too much anyway.