Overview
Head over Heels is a 3D platforming puzzle game from the early 80s. It was first released for the ZX Spectrum and had an unusual isometric view.
The player controls two creatures, named Head (Headus Mouthion) and Heels (Footus Underium). Head jumps high but is slow so he is not able to get far. Heals is faster but doesn't jump very high. They move as two separate creatures, but can join and get the benefit of having both specialities.
The game was made by Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond and is was their second game following a Batman game.
Gameplay
Gameplay is all about moving through rooms an corridors maximising the advantages of the two creatures. Some rooms and mazes can only be navigated with one of the two creatures and therefore forcing them to separate in two different directions to meet up later.
Player get no help with navigation, so players must keep track of the map's layout themselves. More than 300 rooms have to be navigated to win the game.
Creature Abilities
Head
- Jumps twice as high as Heels.
- Have control while jumping.
- Can shoot doughnuts to stun enemies.
Heels
- Can climb certain staircases that Heels can not.
- Run twice as fast as Head.
- Can carry items.
Story
The background story puts Head and Heels as two spies from the planet Freedom. They are sent to free other planets (Blacktooth, Penitentiary, Safary, Book World, and Egyptus) to free them from slavery. They had to defeat the Emperor to prevent further planets to fall into slavery. Head and Heels starts the game in a prison, separated and have to find each other to be able to escape from the prison.
Remakes
The game has been remade several times and the latest, available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and BeOS was made by Retrospec and is available as freeware on their website. This remake was voted as the second best remake ever by readers of PC Zone magazine.
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