Giant's Revenge

Overview 

Giant's Revenge is a 1984 computer game released by Thor Computer Software. The game was developed for both the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum. The game is an action platformer, where the goal is to gather all of the giant's treasure (as Jack), while dodging enemies and obstacles. Giant's Revenge is part of the Jack and the Beanstalk series, and the predecessor to The House Jack Built.

As a sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk, the story takes place after the seminal fairy tale. Jack is bored after defeating the giant, so he decides to explore the hole created by the giant's fall. He finds that the giant did not actually die, and has created an underground fortress. Jack must now traverse seven levels, collecting treasure, and eliminating the giant once and for all.

Giant's Revenge was relatively well-received, although was criticized for its unorthodox copy protection (similar to copy protection found in Jet Set Willy, which utilized colored codes in order to unlock the game). Unfortunately, the colored codes that came with Giant's Revenge were often faded, and thus difficult to get working with the game even in legitimate copies.

Gameplay 

The game's seven levels follow Jack as he explores the massive caverns created by the giant's fall. Jack must avoid enemies and gather treasure to continue onto the next level. The game isn't a platformer in the traditional side-scrolling sense, but is more of an isometric platformer. Jack can jump over obstacles on each screen, but the focus is more so on the action and the treasure collection.

Each level has a predetermined path for Jack to follow, and this was the basis for some criticism that the game received. The paths are fairly specific, so diverting from these paths results in either failure or dead ends.