Trolls and Tribulations

You play a troll set on an expedition into cavernous sewers to retrieve
valuable relics. Guarding the treasure are monsters such as cretins, buzzards,
skulls and spiders. The mazes are difficult to navigate and fraught with
danger. One wrong move could send you plummeting to your death.

Trolls and Tribulations is a side scrolling platform game with some puzzle
like mechanics due to it’s unusual control scheme and movement. Most mazes
begin with a barrage of cretins that must be dispatched in order to open the
door to the main portion of the maze. Your character has a gun that is capable
of turning the cretins into eggs. After shooting them, you must quickly shove
the eggs into the sewer water as they will hatch back into cretins after a
short time. Your gun has limited ammo but which can be replenished in the
middle of the screen.

Once the cretins have been defeated, the doors to the main portion of the maze
are accessible. Here is where you will find treasures to increase your point
total. The mazes require careful navigation as some treasures are placed in
dangerous locations. Keys need to be recovered to open further doors allowing
you to proceed to the maze’s exit. Other monsters are present in this part of
the maze and cannot be destroyed by your weapon. Instead it will take careful
timing and jumps to avoid being killed by them.

The game is divided into three levels which can be chosen at the start. Each
level has multiple mazes to work your way through.

Joystick control is a little bit unusual. Aside from the normal left and right
movement, pushing down shoots your weapon, pushing the button causes you to
jump in the direction you are facing while pushing up does a vertical jump.
When you move you will always move one complete step. This means you have to
be careful when moving on small platforms as an extra tap on the joystick
could send you off the edge. The structured movement gives the later parts of
the maze a more puzzle-like feel than a straight action game.