Reviews

Pretty good flip-screen arcade adventure game that's not a million miles away from the Dizzy series of adventures. The main difference being that you play Puff the dragon rather than Dizzy the egg. Apart from that, this could well be a Dizzy game and fans of Dizzy may well want to also check this one out. This game features the same high standards of graphics, gameplay and imaginative locations as seen in the Dizzy games.

Little Puff was originally a budget release, but this merely reflects the fact that it was released around 1990 and was in fact an absolute bargain for a game of this high standard. I have no doubt if it had been released a few years earlier it could've easily sold as a full price title.

The game itself is enjoyable to play with responsive controls and smooth sprite action, although it can seem a little harsh that you only start with one life and many rooms are effectively booby-trapped so you'll be thinking, "if only I knew spikes were down that hole" or "if only I knew that coconut would fall on my head" etc... So, you need to repeatedly play it in order to benefit from prior knowledge gained in previous attempts and hopefully get a little bit further on your next go.

Good machine code beeper routine on the main menu screen and good sound effects too help to make this seem a quite polished game (that is on the 48K version at least which is the one I've played). Even the mountainous background of the initial locations looks nicely drawn and adds atmosphere to the game.

Overall, worth a look, but like other rather good games, it is currently status denied.

A really fun and enjoyable platformer from Codemasters. Nice graphics, good music, very playable all round, I always enjoyed playing this and still today I have fun playing. A great alternate to Dizzy and it's definately worth a go.

1990 Cartoon Time (UK)
by Chris Urquhart, Glenn Benson, Paul Johnson and Dave Kelly

The only problem I have with this is with the backgrounds which seem a bit repetitive, with you visiting the same room too many times and with the lack of perspective some have, otherwise this is one hell of a good game.

A Dizzy style arcade adventure from the masters of code. You only get one life and there are a some unavoidable traps. For example there are several pits, some you need to jump into while others contain spikes. Once you've learnt the layout, this isn't a problem but it's annoying at first. It's a fun game though with some nice graphics but perhaps a bit on the short side. Certainly shorter than most Dizzy games.

A very enjoyable game, great fun and it has lovely cute graphics and a jolly tune at the start, its short length is a bit of a downer though. Still it's in my view is overlooked amongst Codemasters' great games.

I forgot about this game. It always was a charm to play and very enjoyable, albeit very short. But Puff could have had a decent series for him like Dizzy and Seymour if Code Masters thought about him more, but instead he got himself one little sequel and you know where this is going already don't you? But that's for another review.

Dizzy (Or to a lesser degree Seymour) lite.

Little Puff was pretty much obviously aimed at little kids in 1990, and released on the Codies "Cartoon Time" label, rather than the gamers of the 80's beforehand. I understand Little Puff as a name as in "Puff the Magic Dragon" or so forth, but how many people didn't get a giggle out of that name at the time?

Either way it's a pretty fun digest level arcade adventure, and it's not particularly hard apart from a few really unfair leaps of faith, and a couple of points in the game.....and I say a couple of points by which I mean both after earlier plays will be destroyed, and force a restart.


I'm sure if the Codies intentions were to make a moderately easy arcade adventure with a trap or two right where it would make the younger gamers cry then they succeeded......Evil bastards!

But anyway Little Puff is a good entry level arcade adventure for a generation of gamers who inherited their older brothers, sisters, cousins, or fun childless uncles computer from them.

Not bad, just not groundbreaking.