This page has been inserted after I received two near-identical emails from Benoist Pinçon and Brett Gibson asking how to clear the nasty spike pit about half-way down screen 6 of Egypt.

In the first instance, I decided to try the feature on WinSTon to record a demo - and after about 20 attempts I finally had it working. Sure enough, about 120 PCX files were deposited in the WinSTon directory, and a quick blast through Animation Shop 3 later, compiled the pictures together into an animated demo. Now it is here for all to see.

WinUAE 0.8.25 is also useful as it has an AVI recorder; recording an uncompressed AVI file causes no slowdown in the game, which is a problem if using one of the specified codecs; however, the files are enourmous (253 MB for the Schwarzendumpf Castle demo), and editing them down to a sensible filesize needs more memory than my computer has available... I have never seen a 1GHz Athlon run at the pace of a ZX81 until then!

Any animations on this page will be in Autodesk Animation FLC format, as this is the file that compresses the most into a ZIP file. This can be viewed by Quicktime 5.0 or later, so get hold of a copy of that from the Quicktime website. It can also be viewed and edited by JASC Animation Shop 3 (bundled with Paint Shop Pro 7 for those of you who have it).

Egypt demo 1 (59 KB)	Many times I have been asked how to beat the large spike pit on screen six, where Rick has to jump over it while being shot at. This is a timing trap of Jet Set Willy proportions. The trick, though, is to jump as far right as possible from the left hand platform. Once you're far enough right, the spears will stop, and the second jump should ensure this if it follows the first jump immediately.
Egypt demo 2 (106 KB)	Benoist Pinçon had a minor episode of brain fade while working out how to beat this trap in screen 10 of Egypt. Hold right as you drop off the platform and Rick survives. It's not hard, but as I took the trouble of making an animation, here it is.
Schwarzendumpf Castle demo 1 (151 KB)	Tyson Pelz had problems with screen 13 of Schwarzendumpf Castle. This demo shows how fast Rick needs to move to escape getting whacked by the guard at the top of the ladder, who will start moving after only a short time, and if you're not there in time, you're toast. 8-bit gamers are spared this obstacle, as the 8-bit version of Schwarzendumpf castle finishes at screen 12.

The following is not an animation, as it comes from the MSX version and there is no video capture facility on BlueMSX. However, it belongs right here as it is a solution to a particularly fiendish part of the level.

Egypt 1972

Cheers to Cobra1 for working it out. Rick must stand on the left of the square immediately before the long row of spikes (picture 1). Jump left and Rick will wedge himself into the wall (picture 2); jump right immediately and Rick will land on the platform (picture 3).

VIDEO CLIPS

When Alexandre, webmaster of amiga600.free.fr contacted me about making a new French Rick website, he did ask if he could use the level maps I've put up on this site.

In return, he said he'd be making some DivX video clips of how to complete the levels, showing how to avoid the traps, though the videos have been made using infinite lives / ammo cheats.

And so, at the launch of Rick Dangerous Forever, the videos appeared. I'm not going to keep them on this site, as they'll take up a lot of space despite being heavily compressed.

The pages are in French - that was the whole idea of the site - but it shouldn't take too much to find the videos you're looking for. At the moment, there are video clips for South America, Egypt, Missile Base, Hyde Park, The Ice Caverns Of Freezia, The Forests Of Vegetablia, and The Atomic Mud Mines. Schwarzendumpf Castle and The Fat Guy's Headquarters may follow, but they're very hard levels!

Hit the banner below to go to RDF's video pages.

Incidentally, I noticed this paragraph in the middle of the Egypt page:

EN FRANÇAIS:	ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Voici la Partie 6 contenant le passage le plus dur des deux Rick Dangerous. Le passage sur lequel j'ai cassé deux joysticks et un Atari 1040 Ste. Et je ne suis pas le seul! Je n'avais jamais terminé ce jeu jusqu'à cette année (2002). J'ai pu enfin réussir ce passage grâce à une petite animation trouvée sur le site: Et c'est cette animation qui m'a donné l'idée de faire des vidéos.	Here's Part 6 containing the hardest passage in the two Rick Dangerous games. The passage in which I've broken two joysticks and one Atari 1040 STE. And I'm not the only one! I had never finished this game until this year (2002). I could finally succeed thanks to a small animation on this site: And it's this animation that gave me the idea to make these videos.

"Ah, smug mode."

ZX SPECTRUM .RZX DEMO FILES

For those familiar with ZX Spectrum emulation, RZX files are a method of recording emulator input so that the action can be replayed later. Effectively, it's a list of keypresses alongside the time the keys were pressed - so the exact motion of a game can be replayed as it was. Hence, it is possible to watch a level being completed, or an entire game.

Until recently (August 2004) it was not possible to save and load snapshots while recording an RZX. This all changed when "Rollback" was introducted into Spin, where INSERT can be used to save a snapshot, DELETE recalls it, and recording restarts from the last save. Consequently, it is now possible to record RZX files of the whole of both games!

For Rick 2, the five whole-level demos feautred here were for a single game, but had to be split up as Spin couldn't handle multiload games. Hence, the recording stops as the next level loads and restarts afterwards.

I am reliably informed that Jonathan Needle is working on RZX appending for a future version of Spectaculator, as well.

To view the RZX files, you'll need a compatible emulator - the recommended one is Spectaculator, or you could also use Spin. Both are linked here.

Rick 1: The entire game (165 KB)	Watch in amazement as Rick romps through South America, Egypt, Schwarzendumpf Castle and the missile base without once getting hit by anything nasty. I admit heavy use of Rollback, but it's just as if this happened...
Rick 1: South America (46.8 KB)	This shows the entire level, without losing a life. It's still here, for those who only need to look at one level. This RZX predates Rollback!
Rick 2: Hyde Park, Earth (89.0 KB)	Part one of the complete walkthrough.
Rick 2: The Ice Caverns Of Freezia (83.6 KB)	Part two of the complete walkthrough.
Rick 2: The Forests Of Vegetablia (54.3 KB)	Part three of the complete walkthrough. Uses the easiest route (the left hand path).
Rick 2: The Atomic Mud Mines (76.0 KB)	Part four of the complete walkthrough. Uses the shortest route where possible.
Rick 2: The Fat Guy's Headquarters (84.3 KB)	Part five of the complete walkthrough. Including the end sequence.
Rick 2: The Forests Of Vegetablia (II) (49.2 KB)	Using the middle path, left entrance.
Rick 2: The Forests Of Vegetablia (III) (55.6 KB)	Using the middle path, right entrance - longer than before.
Rick 2: The Forests Of Vegetablia (IV) (47.4 KB)	Using the right hand path, the hardest of all.
Rick 2: The Atomic Mud Mines (II) (91.6 KB)	The long route through the game.
Rick 2: The Fat Guy's Headquarters: Screen 3 (bottom section) (30.0 KB)	A quick reference to a particularly nasty part of level 5. Lawrence Mastin dubbed this passage "The Corridor of Instantaneous Robomice-icular Death" - an appropriate name, really, as it's a killer. The main trick is to hit the switch as the top left mouse passes the yellow pole, moving left. Jump left, right, right, and jump over the top right mouse only at the very last minute and Rick will survive.