SuperTed: The Search for Spot/Gameplay

SuperTed: The Search for Spot | Table of Contents | Gameplay | Walkthrough

Table of Contents

Controls[edit]

Q, A, O, and P: Use these keys to direct SuperTed up, down, left, and right; as in Super Mario Bros., you cannot make him go backwards.
Space: Use this key to make SuperTed punch the enemies; however, you must do it just before they reach SuperTed or he'll lose one of his lives.

Characters[edit]

SuperTed[edit]

The protagonist of this game; he is on a mission to save his best friend (Spotty the Alien), from the villainous cowboy Texas Pete (and his two henchmen, Bulk and Skeleton). At the start of the game, Texas Pete will drive away from SuperTed's treehouse (with Spotty in the boot of his car) - and you must use the old Q, A, O and P keys to make him fly up, down, left and right as well as the Space key to make him punch out at the various enemies that come flying towards him (however, you must time a punch just before an enemy reaches SuperTed or he will lose one of his five lives indicated by the five images of his head down at the bottom of the screen). If SuperTed should run out of lives the game will be over.

Skeleton[edit]

Skeleton appears on seventeen occasions in the first level, operating cannons; when SuperTed punches him he will put up a white flag and move on to the next cannon. However, at the end of the level, he will appear on an eighteenth and final occasion in front of a spaceship, wielding a club - and SuperTed will have to punch him eight times while ducking under his club to defeat him, launch the spaceship and go onto the second level. In the second level, Skeleton also reappears flying a saucer-like spaceship of his own; when SuperTed punches him, he will fly away to his next location.

Bulk[edit]

Although Bulk's voice actor, Roy Kinnear, died in 1988, his character reappears upon three occasions in the first level bouncing up and down in front of SuperTed with his spring-loaded boots; when SuperTed punches him he will fly away to his next location. However, in the second level, he will reappear on six occasions wearing a spacesuit and flying up and down in front of SuperTed with his jetpack - but again, when SuperTed punches him, he will fly away to his next location. Also, due to technical limitations his sprite suffers colour clash in the first levels of the ZX and CPC versions (as indicated by the image above); however, this is rectified in the second levels of these versions, as his sprite has more colours in them.

Texas Pete[edit]

Texas Pete appears at the end of the second level, in front of that aforementioned spaceship from the end of the first level; SuperTed will have to punch him ten times while ducking under his own punches to defeat him, launch the spaceship again and end the game as the text WELL DONE SUPERTED. YOU HAVE RESCUED SPOTTY. YOU WILL HAVE TO KEEP AN EYE ON HIM FROM NOW ON! GAME OVER appears upon the screen. But as well as the Texas Pete gang there are several other enemies that SuperTed must watch out for during the game (see the section below).

Other enemies[edit]

As well as Skeleton and Bulk, SuperTed must watch out for missiles, helicopters, bombs, vultures, autogiros, and bats on the first level; however, on the second level, he must watch out for fireballs, projectile launchers (both ceiling- and ground-mounted) and orbs instead. The scoring system in this game is simple - 250 points for every enemy punched (like how everything in Konami Industry Co.'s Crime Fighters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, both of which were released in 1989, was worth one point). This means that Skeleton is worth the total of 2000 points at the end of the first level (given that you have to punch him eight times to defeat him there), and Texas Pete is worth 2500 at the end of the second level (as you'll have to punch him ten times).