''Cosmic Wartoad'' is an

action game An action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes a large variety of sub-genres, such as fighting games, beat 'em ups, shooter games, and platform gam ...

developed by

Denton Designs Denton Designs was a British video game developer based in Liverpool. The company was founded in 1984 and initially specialised in developing software for the ZX Spectrum home computer. Amongst the founders were developers who had worked on the ...

for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

. It was published by

Ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

and released in the UK in 1985.''Cosmic Wartoad''
at

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Gameplay and Plot

The queen of the cosmic wartoads has been kidnapped by the Rygellian Slime Beasts, turned into a human and is being held captive beneath the Slime King's Sludge Saw, which descends over the course of ninety minutes and will kill her if it is not stopped. The player controls the Cosmic Wartoad as he attempts to rescue the queen. To achieve this he must travel across the Rygellian Timevoid, an 8x8 grid of "nodes", by entering a node, successfully completing the

minigame A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements, and is often smaller or more simplistic, than th ...

within, and then entering an adjacent node, all the while collecting the eight pieces of the Cosmic Toolkit that will shut down the Sludge Saw. Each node contains one of several repeating minigames, which typically involve the Cosmic Wartoad fighting enemies. The game finishes either when the Cosmic Wartoad successfully collects all eight pieces of the Toolkit and navigates his way across the grid to shut down the saw; when the Cosmic Wartoad loses all of his three

lives Lives may refer to: * The plural form of a '' life'' * Lives, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran * The number of lives in a video game * '' Parallel Lives'', aka ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', a series of biographies of famous ...

; or when the ninety-minute game period expires.

Development

''Cosmic Wartoad'' was developed by

for the

. It was designed and drawn by Steve Cain, with code provided by John Gibson. It ultimately released in 1985, published by

Reception

The game received generally positive reviews on its release.

Crash Crash or CRASH may refer to: Common meanings * Collision, an impact between two or more objects * Crash (computing), a condition where a program ceases to respond * Cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating * Couch su ...

awarded it 88%,

Sinclair User ''Sinclair User'' was a magazine dedicated to the Sinclair Research range of home computers, most specifically the ZX Spectrum (while also occasionally covering arcade games). Initially published by ECC Publications, and later EMAP, it was publi ...

gave it four stars (out of a possible five),

Your Sinclair ''Your Sinclair'', or ''YS'' as it was commonly abbreviated, was a commercially published and printed British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. It was in circulation between 1984 and 1993. History The ...

scored it 8/10 and Your Computer rated it 3/5.

References

1985 video games Denton Designs games Ocean Software games Single-player video games Video games about amphibians Video games developed in the United Kingdom ZX Spectrum games ZX Spectrum-only games {{Action-videogame-stub