Rainbow Islands Amiga 1990
Graftgold ported Taito's Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 coinop of 1987 to the Amiga in 1990. Sequel to Bubble Bobble of 1988 and predecessor of Parasol Stars of 1992, Rainbow Islands is an innovative vertically-scrolling platformer that employs rainbows both as weapons and as temporary and destructible platforms.
Rainbow Islands consists of seven islands of four rounds each and a boss-fight at the end of each of the fourth rounds. In controlling Bub or Bob the object of Rainbow Islands is to reach the top of the round (Goal In!) by moving, jumping and firing and climbing rainbows. In rare cases, even flight is possible. [1]
Note that some rounds do not feature many or any fixed platforms, meaning that players rely on rainbows to climb up through the round (e.g., Doh's aka Arkanoid island).
Each round is timed as well, with the island eventually sinking into the sea and threatening to drown Bub or Bob. Note that I wrote Bub or Bob: unlike Bubble Bobble and Parasol Stars, Rainbow Islands is not 2-player simultaneous, only 2-player alternating.
Via collectable pots the rainbows can be powered up in terms of speed and number. Rainbows can be fired at and dropped on monsters by jumping onto or falling into rainbows, at which point the rainbows break and fall downward in crumbling pieces, killing monsters beneath them. Monsters in proximity to rainbows (above, below or next to) are also killed when the rainbow is broken.
The more monsters killed by a rainbow-break, the more points yielded. If we kill one monster with a rainbow-break we receive (for example) a pathetic 240 points, but if we kill two monsters in the same action we receive 2,000 points. And yes, the point yield keeps doubling in geometric sequence for every monster killed by that one action. Here is an example of high bonus-point yield from a single rainbow-break on six stacked monsters:
Powered-up rainbows can be rapidly stacked in great density before they begin to expire. If such a rainbow stack is collapsed, it cascades down the screen in shards wiping out everything in its path. Stacking triple-rainbows is highly effective versus bosses. It is also possible though improbable to acquire quad-rainbows; that is, hit the fire-button once and a chain of four rainbows arcs across the screen. However, it is sometimes more efficient to only have two rapid-fire rainbows.
Rainbows can shield the avatar; most monsters and projectiles cannot penetrate them.
Items can be collected by running over them, firing a rainbow at them or dropping rainbows on them. Firing rainbows across the screen can also reveal hidden items that increase in value, round by round.
Thus, one can begin to appreciate the multi-faceted mechanics of rainbows: they are conventional weapons, AoE weapons, shields, platforms, item-revealers, item-collectors and even point-generators in themselves in that repeatedly breaking rainbows, even when you don't need to, yields points.
In addition, Rainbow Islands contains secrets based on the collection of colored gems, which represent the colors of the rainbow.
The main secret is to collect the rainbow gems in order from left to right in order to access the secret room at the end of each island, which confers a permanent power-up that cannot be lost on subsequent loss of life. If one succeeds in doing so for the first few islands, it becomes easier to press on when a life is lost on subsequent islands. In essence, players do not have to worry about recollecting speed boots and rainbow power-ups when they lose a life. And recollecting power-ups is not possible during boss fights. Moreover, a couple bosses cannot be defeated without power-ups (fail-state).
Invisible to players the screen is divided into segments representing each color of the rainbow. In order to collect the gems in the correct order rainbows must be dropped on monsters when the monsters move into the desired invisible color-segment. Thus, to yield a red gem a rainbow must be dropped on a monster when the monster is positioned at far-left of screen; to yield purple, at far-right of screen. It is more difficult to measure the middling segments of the screen. And it is hugely disappointing when one requires just one more colored gem, is on the last round of an island, but cannot call forth the color.
Note how the acquistion of permament power-ups is optional. Yes, having a fairy circling the character makes the final two islands much easier, but it will make getting the gems in order much harder on the final two islands.
Rainbow Islands is subtle in terms of secrets and controls. Anyone can play it and have fun getting through the first few islands, but hardly anyone can master its control-nuance, beat the game and achieve a hi-score worth showing to friends.
Some of the boss fights are difficult. And in later islands the movement speed of monsters and the speed at which they change direction and fire projectiles greatly increases, making them extremely deadly. Insect, Combat and Toy Island are relatively easy.
The ST/Amiga versions of Rainbow Islands were programmed by Andrew Braybrook of Paradroid and Uridium fame. The ST/Amiga versions of Rainbow Islands was programmed in assembly language on an Atari 1040 ST.
Rainbow Islands graphics were converted by John Cumming, its audio was converted by Steve Turner and Jason Page, and the OOPS Kernal was developed by Dominic Robinson. Rainbow Islands was Graftgold's first coinop port and first 16-bit computer game: impressive.
While by no means arcade-perfect the Amiga version of Rainbow Islands is one of the best coinop ports of the 16-bit era. The controls and audiovisuals are pretty much perfectly replicated, but the 16-bit ports lack a lot of the coinop's content. In fact, the ports lack no fewer than three islands and thus three bosses and 12 rounds: Magical Island, Darius Island and Bubble Island. In addition, the ports lack separate maps of each island. Also, 16-bit Rainbow Islands displays in only 16 colors and runs at only half-frames (25 FPS), but nevertheless plays quite smoothy, even on the ST. Note, however, that the Atari ST version does suffer from slowdown, and that the slowdown does sometimes impact gameplay slightly.
The ST/Amiga could have easily handled the extra islands. All it would have required is more diskettes. However, due to the number of on-screen sprites (e.g., breaking several rainbows simultaneously), I doubt Amiga 500s could have displayed 32-color graphics at 50 FPS (that would probably require an A1200 of 1992).
The Amiga version of Rainbow Islands was distributed on 1x 3.5" 880kB diskette, the ST version on 2x 3.5" 720kB diskettes. Rainbow Islands was not installable to hard disk drive.
List of Rainbow Islands & Monsters
Each of the 28 rounds in Rainbow Islands is 320px wide and up to 2016px in height (320x2016). I have rated each island's difficulty out of 10.
- 1. Insect Island: caterpillars, spiders, crows (Spider) 4/10
- 2. Combat Island: tanks, planes, helicopters (Helicopter) 5/10
- 3. Monster Island: bats, werewolves, ghosts (Dracula) 7/10
- 4. Toy Island: water-pistols, deadly disks, teddy bears (Clown) 6/10
- 5. Doh's Island: balls, spheres, capsules (Doh) 8/10
- 6. Robot Island: spanners, robots, bolts (Robot) 9/10
- 7. Dragon Island: cyclops, dragons, spirits (Dragon) 9/10
[1] Rainbow Islands flight: Angel Wings power-up. Found as a rare drop or in the 4th secret room.
Rainbow Islands PC DOS 1996
Probe Entertainment ported Taito's Rainbow Islands coinop of 1987 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1996. The full title of the release is Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands.
The PC version of Rainbow Islands displays in square-pixel 256-color VGA 320x240. PC Rainbow Islands features Original and New Look graphics modes. The New Look mode adds parallax scrolling and a different color scheme with more on-screen colors.
PC Rainbow Islands is a Rational Systems DOS/4GW Protected Mode run-time.
PC Rainbow Islands was distributed on 1x CD-ROM and installs to hard disk drive via Bubble Bobble Installation. The install size is 11 megs and consists of 299 files.
PC Rainbow Islands audio is configured via the Miles Design Audio Interface Library and sound configuration utility.
PC Rainbow Islands MIDI music supports Roland MPU-401 General MIDI, Ensoniq SoundScape, Gravis UltraSound MIDI Synth, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE-32, Sound Blaster Pro/New, Sound Blaster Pro/Old, Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum Old/Plus/16, AdLib Music Synthesizer Card, AdLib Gold Music Synthesizer Card, ESS Technology ES688 FM Audio, Generic Yamaha OPL3-based FM Music Synthesizer, Roland MT-32 MIDI with MPU-401 MIDI Interface, Tandy 3-voice music and IBM Internal Speaker music.
PC Rainbow Islands digital audio supports Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster AWE-32, Roland RAP-10, Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum, Gravis UltraSound, New Media Corporation WaveJammer digital audio, Ensoniq SoundScape digital audio and ESS Technology ES688 digital audio.
cf. Platform games:
- Bubble Bobble Amiga 1988 Software Creations David J. Broadhurst
- Ghosts 'n Goblins Amiga 1990 Elite Systems
- Ghouls 'n Ghosts Amiga 1989 Software Creations
- The New Zealand Story Amiga 1989 Choice Colin Gordon
- Commander Keen IBM PC MS-DOS id Software 1990
- Flood Amiga Bullfrog Productions Sean Cooper 1990
- James Pond Amiga Vectordean Chris Sorrell 1990
- Gods IBM PC MS-DOS 1991 Bitmap Brothers
- Another World Amiga Éric Chahi 1991
- Flashback Amiga Delphine Software 1992
- B.C. Kid Amiga Factor 5 1992
- Parasol Stars Amiga 1992 Ocean Software Mick West
- Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja IBM PC MS-DOS Elite 1992
- Zool Amiga Gremlin Graphics 1992
- Turrican Games Amiga Manfred Trenz 1990-93
- Jazz Jackrabbit IBM PC MS-DOS Epic MegaGames 1994
Indexes:
- Amiga Games Reviews (Index to all Amiga game reviews)
- Computer Game Reviews (Index to all computer game reviews)
- The First REAL Amiga Game
- Best Amiga Games
- History of Computer Games 1976-2024
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