Ever since the launch of Repton 3, reviewers have been saying that Repton has passed his prime. Three sets of extra screen have since been published and have been extremely popular. This new Repton game has been priced very highly which is a little surprising bearing in mind all the other Repton games. Is it worth it?
Basically, Repton Infinity is not really a Repton game as such. The real essence of the package, and justification of the price, is the designer that comes with it. You can do amazing things with the designer which can create anything from Repton 3 to a game which would resemble Galaforce or even Commando. You also get four games with the package including a close implementation of Repton 3 and a new Repton game with new features.
Basically, I'm not going to go into the games too much as they are not really the point of Repton Infinity and really just show what the designer can do. If you have any interest in creating games then I recommend you to read on.
The designer comes in four parts. The graphics designer, the level designer, the blueprint file and a merge program to put all the designed parts together into one game. The first two are self explanatory and it is the Blue print file which is the hub of Repton Infinity.
In the Blueprint file you can define the exact logic for any of the characters in the game. This allows you to create characters who can attack, shoot, kill and so on. You can also define animation sequences etc. It is without doubt the most flexible designer I've ever seen and it would be perfectly possible to produce a game that would be good enough to sell.
It does however require a fair amount of learning time and although it is a thousand times easier to use than machine code, it will take a little practice and a fair amount of planning to produce something good.
I imagine that Superior will also insist that any programs created on the designer will have to be published by them. This certainly was the case with the Repton 3 designer and the Pipeline designer.
In conclusion, it is an extremely good package which will provide endless hours of pleasure for budding games designers and Repton addicts. You certainly get a lot of software in the package. However, the designer is not really practical for serious design purposes from cassette as there is so much loading and saving of all the different files.
Having said that, the games are good fun and it's nice to see a new Repton game. It's also a lot of fun amending the four games with the package and you can get some extremely good results with a little imagination and perseveration.