Retro Game Lookback: Wriggler for ZX Spectrum

Wriggler, by Devonshire House, and presented by Romantic Robot was released for the 48 KB ZX Spectrum in 1985 and it was one of the early games to include the music to accompany the game on the B side of the cassette tape – the track was called “The Moons Of Jupiter”, written and performed by Alexander Goldscheider and published by Red Bus Music Ltd in 1984.

I always thought Wriggler was a caterpillar, and it’s only reading it back now, that I found out that Wriggler is actually a maggot.

Wriggler is essentially a race to the finish maze game and is set over 250 locations which encompass four main areas: The Garden, The Scrubland, The Underground and The Mansion (with The Lift Shaft). Finding and navigating the lift shaft should take you to the finish of the game.

Each area consists of a number of interconnected screens (made up of 10×8 tiles) where you must use all your planning and navigation skills to find the right way out of each area before running out energy. This is before you can even hope to try and win the race. You are somewhat hampered by the other creatures you find on your travels including ants, clockwork spiders, snakes, wasps and giant spiders. You also need to keep your energy levels up by finding sources of food laying around the place.

The game is pretty tricky and it’s hard to think how you could possibly complete it without a few cheat codes (we didn’t use any so far but only got as a far as the underground). In a way it’s quite reminiscent of an early style of Sabre Wulf outing (without the shooting) and as a maze challenge it’s still pretty good today. The graphics are bright and colourful and the animation of the various creatures is pretty good by the mid 1980’s home computer standards. Overall – a jolly good romp.

The inlay card was unusual too as the screenshots were not actually screenshots but cartoon like drawing signifying areas such as Scrubland, The Basement, Hell, Dungeons and the Underground.