Horace Goes Skiing (ZX Spectrum)

In Horace’s debut game Hungry Horace, there wasn’t much to glean about the newly introduced blue creature with eyes on his chest. Beyond a taste for vegetation and a distaste for whatever authority guards at a park hold, Horace was mostly there to just munch flowers and facilitate the maze game action. The sequel to that game was quite an unexpected pivot though, not only because Horace Goes Skiing was a genre shift into sports, but because it now shows Horace is capable of engaging with civilized people peacefully. With an understanding of economics and a respect for cash transactions, Horace is able to take up an unexpected hobby far from the parks he happily pilfered plants from for sustenance.

 

Horace Goes Skiing does in fact involve skiing, but his willingness to engage with human society means that, when the game begins, he must first acquire his skis. For ten dollars Horace can buy a pair and then head to the slopes, but moving away from imitating Pac-Man, Horace now finds himself facing a problem more familiar to Frogger: traffic. Horace starts above a large two lane road with heavy traffic and no crosswalk in sight, the strange creature needing to find his moment to safely sprint across to reach the ski shop on the other side. Unfortunately, the ski shop and the slopes are not on the same side of the street, meaning Horace is going to have to cross once again to actually get to the snow sports this game is named for.

While it is the titular form of play, the skiing in Horace Goes Skiing isn’t actually the main challenge. The road is the greater danger, Horace needing to weave around sedans, cyclists, and semis full of software that aren’t going to slow down for a jaywalker. Even ambulances can end up hitting Horace as he crosses, a bit of irony found in the fact that an ambulance also shows up when Horace is hit by traffic to take away ten dollars as their treatment fee. Horace has nothing as abstract as extra lives in his second video game adventure, his wallet instead his means of continuing on. If you lack the cash to buy skis your run is over, so avoiding ambulance fees ends up being one of the most important elements to even getting a chance to rack up points on the slopes. The road crossing is about just identifying gaps in the traffic and knowing what risks to take, but with just 40 bucks to start with, you can’t afford to get sloppy when crossing, especially since even if you almost made it before getting run over, you’ll end up back on the side of the road for your next attempt.

 

Once you have successfully bought and carried your skis across the busy street, skiing seems much more relaxed even though it’s not entirely without peril. Skiing down towards the bottom of the screen, you’ll want to guide Horace side to side to slip between the red and blue slalom flags to rack up points. These aren’t just there to contribute to a high score, as earning 1000 points will grant Horace 10 more dollars. Missing the flags does come with a point penalty too, so trying to weave through them is not a mere suggestion if you want to keep your time skiing going. There are little mounds Horace can hit for a jump into the air, but this isn’t beneficial as it might disrupt your attempts to navigate towards the flags or more importantly away from trees. Horace Goes Skiing could have made the tree hazards as dangerous as the traffic, but when you make contact with a tree, it might not be the end of your run. Your skis can break on impact, but sometimes you’ll be told you’re lucky and get to get back up and get right back to skiing. One reason this may be a feature is because if you do end up breaking your skis, it’s back to the road with you to cross and buy another pair.

The skiing in Horace Goes Skiing actually ends up being a bit of a relaxing breather because of the way it’s positioned. It’s easier than the road crossing and if you would be in peril for going for the flags, you do have the option to avoid them since the penalty incurred for doing so doesn’t set you back too far. The skiing controls are fairly smooth too, the player able to weave Horace through tight spaces without too much distress while still needing to be quite accurate if they want to pull off some of the riskier swerves. Even if you’re a master at avoiding crashes into vegetation, the mountain does have a bottom, and while crossing the finish line gives you a nice 100 point bonus, it also means Horace needs to find somewhere else to ski. This means he’s back by the road again, although thankfully he’s brought his skis along. Sadly, he’s on the wrong side of the road still, so he needs to cross the street once safely to get to a new slope.

 

The different slopes do just mix around the few elements the skiing side of the game has so its more about playing a long time rather than reaching new content, but the cycle of play actually ends up working in its favor. The skiing may not be very exciting because of its simplicity, but the fear of heading back to the road crossing sections and their more unforgiving approach to Horace’s injuries distracts from their easiness. In fact, it’s more likely one will think of Horace Goes Skiing not as a game about the skiing, but a game about road crossing where a ski section helps you earn extra attempts at the street crossing sections.

THE VERDICT: Horace Goes Skiing sounds like its main activity would be the skiing, but it’s actually the calmer part of a game with two halves. Crossing the road to grab your skis is a quick burst of action with quite a bit of danger, but it’s also swiftly completed when you spot your moment. The skiing controls nicely, almost to a fault since it means the skiing portion of the game is less likely to lead to losses. However, since it helps earn the cash needed to survive the road crossing, a nice balance between two types of play that are pretty basic is formed that makes Horace Goes Skiing a game with a little more to it than a straightforward score challenge.

 

And so, I give Horace Goes Skiing for ZX Spectrum…

An OKAY rating. The adrenaline of trying to scurry across during the ski shopping sections injects some important life into Horace Goes Skiing while going down the slopes slows things down a touch without being a cakewalk. Neither side would be very noteworthy on their own though, the skiing perhaps too gentle at times but when your performance there is viewed as a means of building up your cash, there is a bit more thought put into deciding if the flags are too close to a tree for comfort. The road crossing does rely on some incredibly fast vehicles at times to create its peril, but it also does leave openings and Horace himself is fairly speedy, the challenge often more about picking your moment despite how quickly you’ll either succeed or fail once you make your move. To look at its inspiration from Frogger though, that little frog had to do more than cross an active road, Horace perhaps needing more in his path to buying skis if the segment wanted to be more than a quick dash past danger. The skiing does feel like it maybe could have pulled more weight without changing the design fundamentals though, additional obstacles or points earning opportunities feeling like they could spice up the game’s marquee play style so it demanded more thought than just trying to line up right for the slalom.

 

Horace Goes Skiing is definitely a jump in quality from Hungry Horace and that may be because it has more original thought put into it. While it’s still easy to point at games like Frogger as inspiration, the road crossing is still a different kind of threat in this game and a lot more of your success hinges on performing well in one half of the game so you can survive the other. Hungry Horace resisted your attempts to play it at length with its poorly designed mazes, but Horace Goes Skiing at least cooked up an interesting interplay between its halves that makes continued progress a result of your actions and decisions. The interactive play could be more involved to further test your management of safety and point-earning opportunities, but even if it’s just for a few minutes during some downtime, it feels much more likely a player would find themselves hitting the slopes with Horace rather than making him return to his flower-eating ways