Monty on the Run

Monty on the Run

Game No.	242
Voting	7.70 points, 23 votes
Developer	Jason Perkins Anthony Clarke Mark Rogers
Company	Micro Projects
Publisher	Gremlin Graphics
Musician	Rob Hubbard
HVSC-File	MUSICIANS/H/Hubbard_Rob/Monty_on_the_Run.sid
Release	1985
Platform	C64, CPC, ZX Spectrum
Genre	Arcade, Platformer (Multiscreen)
Gamemode	Single player
Operation
Media
Language
Information	Forerunner: Monty Mole Follower: Auf Wiedersehen Monty

Description[edit | edit source]

Monty on the Run is a multi screen platformer released in 1985 by Gremlin Graphics. It is the second part of the Monty saga.

The Story

Here it is hard to know what to do...

Super-fit and desperate for freedom, Monty makes his daring escape from Scudmore Prison. Hounded by the bastions of law and order, our frightened hero finds refuge with the criminal underworld who offer him his chance of freedom.

Moving from safe house to hideout to underground lair, Monty must find the five items of his freedom kit and not miss out on the hidden gold coins that will make him a mole of leisure.

Once free, will he make the ferry in time?

Design[edit | edit source]

The game design is quirky and inventive. The music was once voted the best in-game SID tune ever (a full orchestra publicly performed it). And the gameplay is simple but fiendishly addictively. But like many 80s platform games (especially ZX Spectrum ports), it suffers from a few niggles:

It doesn’t take much advantage of the C64’s greater capacities – the black-and-white sprites and objects look too much like the original Speccy game.
The screens don’t scroll but instead merely flip.
If you want to collect all bonus items as coins (50 points) or cream cakes (200 points), you will have to navigate some screens more than once.
Touching water and mines results in instant death.
The C5 dash is unrealistically hard.
Perhaps the biggest snag: At the start of the game, you must choose 5 items from a list of 21 (such as a jetpack, a gas mask, a tank…). This is your Monty Freedom Kit. But if you pick the wrong items you will not be able to finish the game.

Rob Hubbard let himself get inspired by the song "The Devil's Gallop" (Video at YouTube ) by the English composer Charles Williams, which is known as the theme song of the BBC series "Dick Barton, Special Agent", when creating the hyperactive ingame music of this game.

No idea what that is supposed to be, but you can climb it up...

The crusher lives up to its name

Teleports beam you around...not always to your advantage. *SLUDGE!*

Hints[edit | edit source]

Keys

Y : left
X : right
# : up
- : down
Space : jump
Restore : abort game
P : pause on/off
R : redefine keys

In the title screen you can change between music and FX with the key F1 .

The lift of horror!!!

Surreal enemies en masse.

The probably fastest C5 of all times!

Solution[edit | edit source]

The correct Freedom Kit consists of the following items: ( 02 | 04 | 12 | 13 | 16 )

That is the way!

The crushers move randomly, so BEWARE!

Don‘t touch the dynamite and the teddy bear!

The medical bag gets you an extra life.

The keys that are lying around at some places are useless.

Each teleporter has a different walk-through-color (the teleport at the beginning of the sewage works can only be crossed at green light).

Maximum possible score is 7.000.

Maps for the game

The house and the escape tunnel

The sewage works and the hollow tree stump

The sewage words and the hollow tree stump.

The parcours in the C5

The Boat

Cheats[edit | edit source]

In some versions of the game you can enter "I WANT TO CHEAT" into the highscore list to activate a built-in trainer.

The version by WANDERER & CRYPT contains 15(!) trainer options and a savable highscore.

Voting[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
7.70 points at 23 votes (rank 186). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	8	20th May 2013 - "very good" - 4715 downs
Lemon64	7,7	20th May 2013 - 102 votes
Kultboy.com	8	20th May 2013 - 11 votes
Ready64	7,8	20th May 2013 - 9 votes
ASM	10/10	Issue 4/86
ZZap64	90%	Issue 10/85

Reviews[edit | edit source]

Robotron2084: "First the blasphemy: I fear to be the almost only C64 fan that does not like the ingame music for this game! For a platformer in which you need to watch for timing and maybe pixel-exact jumping with concentration, the music that comes to my ears here is too hectical and exhilarated. The game is programmed professionally with the exception of the really superfluous "Freedom Kits" at the beginning. Well, nowadays everybody knows the combination that you need to solve the game. But at that time it was close to cheekiness to not be able to proceed in the game again and again because the wrong items were chosen at the start of the game. Particularly as there is not the slightest hint to it in the manual or the course of the game itself – extremely frustrating and discouraging! But if you are equipped with this "additional knowledge", then Monty on the Run is really a good platformer and belongs doubtlessly to the better titles of this genre. 7 of 10 points."

Pj64: This is a faithful port from the ZX Spectrum's best-selling ‘Crash Smash,’ but it plays, looks, and sounds even better. Yes, it’s incredibly frustrating at times (especially the crazy C5 speed-run) but it is definitely one of the best ports and one of the best platformers. Problems aside, I'd give it 10/10 for game-play.