''Frak!'' is a scrolling

platform video game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

programmed by

Nick Pelling Nick Pelling is a British-born computer programmer and investigative writer best known as the creator of the 1984 game '' Frak!''."Desert Island Disks: Nick Pelling". ''Retro Gamer'' 26, pp. 82-85. Games Developed As Aardvark Software ...

for the

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

and

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/ home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a ...

and published by his own Aardvark Software in 1984. It was ported to the Commodore 64 the following year by "The B Team" (Jason Perkins, Anthony Clarke, Mark Rodgers). The BBC and Electron versions were included on the

Superior Software Superior Software Ltd (also known as Superior Interactive) is a video game publisher. It was one of the main publishers for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers in the 1980s and early 1990s. It currently releases games for Microsoft Windo ...

compilation ''Play It Again Sam 4'' in 1987 and re-issued in budget form by Alternative Software in 1989.

Gameplay

''Frak!'' is a side scrolling

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

in which the player controls a

caveman The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or " ape-like" by Marcellin Bo ...

named Trogg. In each level, Trogg's object is to find three keys located on the level. The platforms and ladders (replaced by logs, ropes and chains on later levels) constituting the level are laid out in a very tricky form. When Trogg steps off a platform, he does not fall straight down, but instead slides diagonally downwards. Added to the fact that long falls will kill Trogg, this calls for very skilful jumping among the platforms. Trogg exclaims " Frak!" (presumably an expletive) each time he dies. When the user manages to complete the three levels, they are returned to the first level with the screen display upside down. The game then repeats the same three stage sequence, following which it rotates 90 degrees and repeats again. Subsequent loops consist of video being displayed in black and white and rotated, and also the display being flashed on and off in three second intervals. Enemies in ''Frak!'' come in three forms: the large, hairy Scrubbly, pig-like Poglet and large-nosed Hooter (each static, as "statues"), balloons and daggers. The statues obviously stay still, whereas the balloons fly straight upwards and the daggers fly diagonally downwards. Contact with any enemy will kill Trogg. To combat the enemies, Trogg is armed with a

yo-yo A yo-yo (also spelled yoyo) is a toy consisting of an axle connected to two disks, and a string looped around the axle, similar to a spool. It is an ancient toy with proof of existence since 500 BCE. The yo-yo was also called a bandalore in ...

that he can launch straight horizontally. The yo-yo will kill any enemy it comes into contact with, even those off-screen and a side scroll away. Each level also has a time-limit, which can be topped up by the occasionally found light bulbs. However, if the time runs out, the level does not end - instead, the game continues in the dark. After this point, the yo-yo can still be used to remove the static enemies from the level but will not affect balloons and daggers. ''Frak!'' encodes

high score In games, score refers to an abstract quantity associated with a player or team. Score is usually measured in the abstract unit of points (except in game shows, where scores often are instead measured in units of currency), and events in th ...

s as nonsensical secret messages, such as ''Hairy gonks kiss green Buddhas slowly''.

Ports

When the original BBC Micro version was converted for the Acorn Electron, the screen mode was changed from the four-colour, 20 KB, mode 1 to the two-colour, 10 KB, mode 4 due to the Electron's reduced performance in the larger, high bandwidth screen modes. Due to other restrictions related to the Electron's video hardware, scrolling of the play area occurred as the main character approached the edge of the screen, being "more like a jump than a scroll". However, it was observed that despite the loss of colour, "the graphics actually seem better" and the game appeared to be "slightly faster and less flickery". The extra RAM freed up by the smaller

frame buffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...

made it possible to add a screen designer which was not in the BBC original, and to include extra levels (bringing the total to nine against the BBC's three). The C64 version was written by MicroProjects Limited (Jason Perkins, Anthony Clarke & Mark Rogers) who were subcontracted by Statesoft to do the conversion. It has six levels. The BBC version has a higher resolution than the C64 and so some of the active playing is off the screen. In 1998, a version of Frak! was released by RComp Interactive for Acorn's ARM-based series of computers running

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archi ...

. Although regarded as "an institution" and having "some of the elusive quality of the original", this new version was criticised for not having been updated to compete with more recent platform games, with the background remaining blank and with the non-player characters remaining unanimated just as in the original. This release did, however, reintroduce a level designer, albeit operating as a separate program from the game itself. In October 2020 a version for Microsoft Windows was released on Steam. This version stays close to the graphics and sound of the original BBC Micro version, but adds extra levels and gameplay features.

Reception

''Acorn User'' remarked on the "outstanding" graphics and compared its characters to early

Disney cartoons This is a list of films produced by and released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner (known as that since 1983, with '' Never Cry Wolf'' as its first release) and films released before that under the former name of the parent company, Wal ...

. Reviewing the Commodore 64 version, Zzap!64 also praised the graphics and said it was a challenging game. It was rated 71%.

References

{{Reflist 1984 video games Aardvark Software games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Commodore 64 games Platform games Prehistoric people in popular culture Single-player video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in prehistory Alternative Software games