Frankenstein's Monster (Atari 2600)

Frankenstein's Monster
Publisher(s)	Data Age
Platform(s)	Atari 2600
Release date(s)	1983
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

Frankenstein's Monster is a platform game developed for the Atari 2600 video game console, based on Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. It was released by third-party developer Data Age in 1983.^[1]

Plot

According to the game's manual, the player character has to "make his way through the ghoulish castle of Dr. Frankenstein," where he "must prevent him from completing his creation." Furthermore, the manual explains that the player must "gather stones from the dungeon and bring them to the tower where [he] must build a barricade around Frankenstein's monster before he has accumulated enough energy to come alive," which he does using the so-called "Power Probe," a device absorbing energy from an electrical storm.^[2]

Gameplay

The player must attempt to stop Frankenstein's monster from coming to life, by building walls around the monster. To do this, the player must retrieve bricks by crossing pits of acid and other obstacles. To fully imprison the monster (and thus, win the game), the player has to make a total of six trips to the lower part of the screen. With each successful trip, more obstacles are placed before the player, making the game more challenging. Contact with spiders and bats deducts points from the player's score, rather than health. When the timer runs out or the player loses three lives, the monster breaks free and will walk towards the screen, becoming larger using a scaling effect, eventually taking up the entire screen.

In multiplayer, the two players take turns and each player has their own unique timer. When one player falls into the acid pit, her timer pauses until it's her turn again and the other player's turn begins. This continues until one player loses three lives, at which point the game will be over.^[2]

Reception

The game was one of less than a dozen Atari 2600 games released by Data Age, and is listed in the AtariAge rarity guide as the most rare.^[3] The A.V. Club have cited the game as one of the highlights of the platform.^[4] About Tech praised the use of "familiar" elements from Pitfall! as well as the "funny interpretation of the Frankenstein novel," and only criticized the game for its short length, stating that "it's refreshing to see at least one good game based on the classic monster."^[5]

References

Atari 2600
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