Melbourne Tatty - Atari 2600

In Melbourne Tatty, you move your character (a square) around an ever-changing maze while collecting treasure and avoiding a giant, blue, floating wolf\'s head. If the wolf touches you, you die. Lose all three lives, and the game is over. Each level gives you three decoys you can use to lure the wolf away. There are twenty levels, each with ten treasures to collect.Melbourne Tatty could probably be best described as a sliding-puzzle-type game - the difference here being that one of the pieces can kill you. The wolf chases you around, but he must pause each time he moves, giving an almost turn-based feel to the game. The graphics are very blocky, and tends to give an unpolished look to the game. It\'s too bad, since the idea of the changing mazes is clever, but with only twelve rooms to run to, it\'s very limiting and can get frustrating pretty quick. More and smaller rooms (and a smaller wolf) would have helped give the player more places to go, and given the game a larger scope. The decoys are a welcomed addition, since without them, the game would be just about unplayable. You can use Select to choose to start at any level, which is a good thing, since some of the higher levels are the most interesting, due to their more complex patterns and faster speed. The music is okay, but an option to turn it off (or have more than one tune) would have been welcomed. A few annoyances plague the game though: the Reset switch won\'t restart a game that\'s in progress; when the lives counter shows one life remaining, it means you\'re playing your last life - not that you have one in reserve; there seems to be no way to earn additional lives; occasionally the maze walls will throw you right into the wolf when they change; and there is absolutely no space inside of a room next to the wolf, so there is no room for error.Melbourne Tatty is a good concept for a game, and there are a lot of levels to explore, but I kept wishing that it was "zoomed out" a bit, so there were more rooms and therefore more places to run. The "sliding puzzle" aspect with the wolf pausing at each room works well, but having the wolf completely fill up a room is very unforgiving. Perhaps the wolf could have been a little smaller, and then chase you around the room once you were trapped with him. That would have added an extra element of action to the game, and given the player more of a chance to stay alive. There was obviously a lot of effort put into the presentation - there\'s a nicely illustrated manual, cardboard cut-outs of the characters, a postcard, and there was even a limited-edition version with a box. Melbourne Tatty is a good start, but it falls short of its potential.