Instructions for

Thanatos

Durell, 1986

Written by Chris Owen, HTML'd by Arnt Gulbrandsen.

Controls

Keyboard, Kempston, Cursor

Aim of the game

Having got fed up with being stereotyped as a nasty, greedy creature, Thanatos the Dragon sets out to rescue the Sorceress Eros and her belongings - spell books, cat and so on - from the various castles in which they have been locked up.

Game play

Thanatos flaps across a left/right scrolling landscape which is full of hazards - killer bees, two-headed dragons, sea serpents, spiders, soldiers throwing spears and knights in armour. He can however fry all of these with his (limited) amount of fire. He can also pick his foes up with his talons and carry them aloft to be used as "bombs" against other foes; it doesn't do a soldier any good to be hit by a falling sea serpent! Thanatos' life force is shown by a beating heart on the left and a bag of blood (?) on the right of the screen represents his fire supply. As he takes damage his heartbeat quickens and if he is really badly injured, the heart turns blue. He can recover by landing and taking a quick rest on the ground. If he runs out of fire, he can refuel by eating a witch! To win the game, Thanatos has to rescue Eros from one castle and then take her on his back to other castles to recover various objects. There are three castles on the easier levels and four on the harder ones, and it keeps getting tougher...

Comments

"An excellent and rather different arcade adventure."

Rating

93% (CRASH #35, December 1986)

Now

It may only be a novel twist on the old SCRAMBLE/DEFENDER idea but THANATOS is quite a nice game with some neat graphics (for a Spectrum).

Keys

Redefinable
Pause		- P

Nettverksgruppa, 10/9-94, sinclair@nvg.ntnu.no