Author Topic: 2022/12: The Apprentice (CD-i) - Jackster  (Read 19264 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline JonLeung

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3695
2022/12: The Apprentice (CD-i) - Jackster
« on: November 30, 2022, 09:23:49 pm »

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Jackster's The Apprentice (CD-i) maps.

Marvin is the young apprentice of the wizard, Gandorf S. Wandburner III.  To complete a series of tasks for his master, Marvin must traverse six sets of stages to retrieve what Wandburner asks him to find.  Will Marvin succeed in this exceedingly cute CD-i adventure?

The CD-i is host to numerous games that feature full-motion video or animation, but The Apprentice looks and plays like a traditional sprite-based platformer, only slightly upgraded technically from what you would have expected from the 16-bit consoles that ruled the first half of the 1990s.  But that's not a bad thing - the game is charming, with its adorable art and superb soundtrack.  It's a standout CD-i title, despite (or maybe because of) its non-resemblance to most other games on that platform.

Each set of stages is presented as a day.  Marvin will climb up five towers for most of these days, though on the second day, he dives down a well.  As you can guess, the platforming action is very vertical.  You certainly couldn't call this a side-scroller.  All the stages, including the bonuses, are only one screen wide, though several screens tall.  And Jackster, who, as of now, is the only mapper to contribute directly-ripped maps for CD-i games, has captured these slender stages for us to enjoy.  The Apprentice needs to be appreciated!  Not just the character, but the game!  There's more to the CD-i than non-canonical Zelda games (though Jackster has also mapped those).

So to recognize the effort put into mapping a great game on an infamously unpopular console, Jackster's The Apprentice (CD-i) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for December 2022.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2022, 01:17:43 pm by JonLeung »

Offline JonLeung

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3695
Re: 2022/12: The Apprentice (CD-i) - Jackster
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2022, 01:40:24 pm »
So, the game starts on Sunday, April 8 and ends on Friday, April 13.

I probably would have honoured this in April, if not for the Christmas theme in the Arctic Tower (on April 11).

If you were wondering, assuming this world uses the same calendar as our Gregorian calendar, this week appears in the years 2001, 2007, 2012, 2018, and the next one is all the way in 2029.

Due to years mostly being 365 days (a day more than a multiple of seven), most years advance dates by one day of the week.  If not for leap years, we would see any date be on any day of the week with regularity, that is, every seven years.  But because of Leap Days, you see a particular day/date happen every five or six years, and the next Sunday, April 8 WOULD have been in 2024, but 2024's Leap Day pushes April 8 to be a Monday ("two up" from being on a Saturday in 2023).  So the weekly cycle goes around again, and it won't be Sunday, April 8 again until 2029, and I wasn't going to wait that long to honour this game!  :P