This was one of my all-time favorite games as a child and I was quite excited to find it again. Many people appear to have never heard of Thing on a Spring, which is a shame, as its pure unadulterated fun! It’s completely nonsensical, ridiculous, quite insane and incredibly addictive.
It’s a fairly standard platform set out, but the styling of this game is fantastic. You are of course a (very cute) thing on a spring and have to bounce and jump your way through 16 rooms to collect 9 pieces of a puzzle scattered throughout the evil goblins factory, avoiding the myriad of evil toys at all times.
These beasties move in unpredictable patterns and will reduce your oil level if you come into contact with them, eventually causing you to rust. You can collect extra oil to top up your reserves in most rooms as well as mystery presents.
The aim of the game is to defeat the evil goblin and therefore save the good toys. Importantly keep an eye out for switches, which enable different functions such as lifts and escalators allowing you to move through the game further. In addition, watch out for traps as some of the platforms disappear as you walk on them leaving you trapped and unable to escape. This is definitely one of the more frustrating irks of the game.
The music is inane, sound effects hilarious, the graphics
colorful and the game completely crazy and therefore incredibly fun to play. Unfortunately, I never reached the end of the game, usually due to my older brother coming home and kicking me off the C64 to play more masculine games, however I didn’t really care. The game itself is so very enjoyable it’s fun although sometimes frustrating to work through each room.
It’s a shame games like this seem to have been phased out, I think this level of silliness is missing a new games genre. Who needs realistic graphics when you can have a fun game like this? If you like wacky 80’s games, Thing on a Spring will be a treat!
