Litil Divil

Keep in mind this is a 1993 title and a product of its time. In 1993 these "Hugo" dial-in telephone games were THE thing on breakfast TV, with people directing little horned creatures through a maze via their telephone keys, which were notoriously slow to react. Litil Divil parodies that on many levels. Instead of a fancy intro, you will find the background story on the first pages of the manual. Animations are a bit sketchy and cut-scenes are basically not there. And as far as controls go: they were more or less meant to play like the "real thing", meaning they are minimalist and a bit unresponsive. Because that's exactly how it was, and just what people wanted back then, to - you know - "train". The game itself thus closely mimics the TV labyrinth games, including the infamous doors as well as the ridiculous spiders and spikes that become visible very late, are difficult to anticipate, and drain a third of your health. Each door in the maze leads to a mini-game. All these games are different: some require your jump&run skills, some are a parody of classic beat'em ups. Others require you to memorize sequences or solve puzzles. Certain rooms need to be solved in the right order, as some of them will give you items. The game can only be saved by finding and entering a specific room on each level, which contains a little bed and allows you to manage your save files. Here is the thing: if you are a child of the 90ies, you will probably get the puns, find the humor hilarious, and perhaps even remember the TV shows and games that are parodied. In that case the controls and difficulty level only add to the flair of the game. But if the 90ies were not your time, there is a chance you will loath this game from the bottom of your heart. After all, these telephone games WERE unfair, and difficult to control - that's the whole point.

This is not a game that I'd be thrilled to revisit from my teen gaming years. It was extremely difficult in a way that was frustrating, not fun, and the controls were horrendous. If you liked it back in the day, go for it. But if you're looking for a classic worth experiencing for the first time, this ain't it.

The goal of the game is to find a pizza in a maze-like dungeon, as you explore the maze you find rooms with little mini-games. I played this a ton on the CD-I when I was young: it had a lot of things going for it: exploration, little mini-games (often resolved in a funny non-obvious way), amusing animations, and it's generally just good fun. It's not without its problems; the controls are laggy and unresponsive and quite frustrating; I remember this being the case for the CD-I version and it's true for the DOS version as well. Walking backwards in the maze means you can't see any of the traps: usually you can turn around a corner and make backwards forwards, but in a dead end you can't and you need to remember where the traps are to jump over them or avoid them. You have a little minimap, but you see quite little of the maze and it's very easy to get lost. When I was a kid I kept a hand-drawn map. As an adult I don't really find it all that great of a game: the exploration aspect doesn't appeal to me as much any more and the frustrating controls are, well, frustrating. Even for kids there are probably many better games out there, and the GOG.com version is also missing cutscenes and music is far inferior to the CD-I version. I'm still happy I bought this game as it's cheap and provided me with some fun childhood memories, but that's about it; yet actually playing the game just isn't much fun at all: so yeah, hard to justify more than one star.

The game would be 2 stars, but this version is NOT the CD version. Poor graphics, unmappable controls, no intro movie, and the manual is incorrect. Function keys don't work, nor do the action keys. GOG rarely drops the ball, but when they do, they REALLY drop the ball. Should not have been sold in this state.

after you figure out the controls ( push direction and push z or x simultaneously ) , you realise Diversity of controls , means , it is unplayable, unresponsive. I used to play it on cd-i and found that sluggish. It is indeed slightly faster, with jumps no longer lasting 10 seconds more like the cd32 version. but it's still one of the worst games made ever. No playability, your controls (however minimal ) change per room. the correct direction + action button are required with near pixel hunting for location and completely restarting after you die. f that. It's completely awful. avoid. maybe someone can redesign it with the visuals and not make it unplayable. 1/10 it's atrocious