Pushover

Pushover is a platform puzzle game developed by Red Rat Software and published by Ocean Software in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST, DOS and Super NES. The game was sponsored by the British snack Quavers of Smiths (now owned by Walkers). The plot of the game revolves around the then Quavers mascot "Colin Curly" who loses his Quavers packets in a giant ant hill. The player is tasked with controlling G.I. Ant, a large soldier ant, and retrieving the Quavers by solving a series of puzzles. The SNES version lacks the Quavers branding. Instead, the objective is to recover bundles of money thrown into the ant hill by Captain Rat. The game consists of 100 levels of increasing complexity in nine different themed worlds. In each level there are several interconnected platforms on which there is a row of "dominoes". The goal is to arrange the dominoes so that with a single push all the dominoes are knocked over and the exit to the next level opens. There are 11 different types of dominoes, identified by red and yellow patterns, each with different actions. The player controls G.I. Ant, who can move certain dominoes by carrying them one by one. Various factors can cause a level not to be completed. The player must not only knock over all the dominoes, but also be able to reach the exit door when the dominoes have fallen. For example, the player cannot reach the exit if a ledge leading to the exit has been destroyed, if a gap leading to the exit has not been bridged, or if a row of dominoes is across the exit. G.I. Ant can die by falling from a great height, falling from the bottom of the screen, or being crushed under a falling domino. The player is then greeted with the message "You failed, you died" and must restart the level. The level is also failed if dominoes are destroyed by one domino landing on another. Each level has a time limit within which it must be completed. When the time is up, the player can still continue the puzzle if he/she wishes. If you pause the game once the time is up, a small hint will be displayed giving you hints on how to complete the level. On a side note, the hint for level 98 informs the player that the designer of the game can't remember how to complete the level without tricking ("Use a drop! There's a way to do it with a bump, but I can't find it!"). The themed worlds are, in order, an industrial complex, an Aztec world, a space station, an electronic world, a Greek temple, a medieval castle, a Meccan-inspired world, a dungeon, and a Japanese temple. Each world has 11 levels, for a total of 99 regular levels. After each world you receive a pack of Colin's Quavers, there are nine packs in total to collect. Many of the first levels are tutorials, showing how each type of Dominator behaves. Often there is only one solution to each level, but some levels have multiple solutions. The last level, level 100, must be solved using dominoes with hidden markers. A password system allows the player to continue a previous game without having to start over with the first level. Also, after completing a level, the player receives a token that allows him/her to return to the point before the domino hit after failing a level, instead of having to return to the initial state of the level.