[theme music plays]
[gunshot, roar]
[sips] Aahhh...
[typing]
[music ends]
Near the end of 1990,
Apogee had put themselves on the PC gaming map
in a major way with id Software's Commander Keen.
It was an exceptional side-scrolling platform game,
both in fun and technical features,
with memorable characters and a light-hearted atmosphere.
Then in Summer of 1991, Apogee developed and released
their own side-scrolling platformer, Duke Nukem,
which was also a huge hit
with similar light-hearted action as Commander Keen,
but with its own unique feel.
Really hitting their stride, more platform games were in the works
for differing demographics,
and one that resulted was Word Rescue in May of 1992.
It was created by Karen Crowther, who turned out to be totally awesome
at making entertaining educational games,
with some help from Bud Pembroke and his artistic talents.
This version in particular is the mail-order registered version
that came directly from Apogee in the mid-'90s.
From the installed game directory,
you'll need to type in the episode you want to play,
For instance, WR1.EXE opens Episode 1.
[AdLib music plays]
The game starts off with an awesome EGA title screen
while looking at it now, actually feels a little bit Dali-inspired.
There's some cool AdLib music in these menus and also during gameplay,
but all of the sound effects are delegated to the PC speaker.
You enter your name, and if there's no autosave data for that name already,
you can start a new game by choosing your gender,
which is actually pretty unique for the time.
And then you're presented with the story.
It turns out there are these illiterate creatures
of unknown origin known as Gruzzles
who have a jealous villain complex.
Since they can't read, they don't want anybody else to either,
so they steal the words out of the world's books.
Benny Bookworm is there to save the day
by restoring words to the books magically!
But apparently he's either useless or just into child labor,
since he needs YOU to actually do the hard work:
finding all of the words and reuniting them with their meanings.
Friggin' slave-driving annelid.
In the main menu, there are a ton of options,
but the only one of concern right now is the game difficulty.
You could select from the typical easy, medium, hard settings,
and the suggested age ranges for each,
with less ammunition and more enemies in the harder modes.
Starting the game drops you into the first level,
and immediately you can tell the kind of gameplay that you'll be experiencing.
It's very much in the vein of contemporary Apogee platformers like Keen and Duke,
with the addition of Mario-style question mark boxes scattered around the level.
Jumping into one will turn the remaining question mark boxes into pictures
and summon a word to the top-left of the screen.
You will then need to jump into the picture that corresponds to that word.
In this case, "money."
Some of the word-picture combos can be kind of ambiguous,
so if you're unsure, you can see a list of the words and pictures by pressing W.
If you get it right, it's on to the next question mark and picture
until you've found all seven for the current level.
Benny will then add those words back to his book
and then give you the key to the door, and it's on to the next level.
Ha! And has anybody else ever wondered
what exactly that book that Benny is holding is about?
I mean, some of these word combinations are just...
yeah.
"My heart was nearly bursting through my chest as I spoke."
"You cross me again and no nurse will be able to tend to the wounds I give you."
"Still I suppose I could take it as a sign."
"As I quickly jump the fence to the local turtle factory,
narrowly dodging a fiery arrow shot in my direction."
[AdLib piano music plays]
Along the way, you'll find magenta-colored books
which add to your point total, as well as various letters.
You'll want to grab these letters in the proper order
to spell out the word on the bottom of the screen,
which will give you a point bonus and a full arsenal of slime.
The slime is the weapon element of the game.
You'll find buckets of the stuff scattered around,
which you can then use to pour onto Gruzzles by pressing Space.
Benny Bookworm will appear
and cover the little thieving freak for good.
If you don't have any slime, Benny will appear
but he'll just be shrugging,
and you'll just have to avoid Gruzzles and seek out more slime.
Or you can just make your guy look like he's farting,
which I always found funny as a kid.
Ah, it's still funny.
Fall down a pit marked "danger,"
or come into contact with a Gruzzle,
and Benny will show up like freakin' Mary Poppins and carry you off,
forcing you to restart the level.
Eventually, you'll get through all the levels, and HOORAY!
You've restored the books to their literary glory.
And that's it. That's Word Rescue.
There are 15 levels in the first shareware episode,
and if you bought Episodes 2 and 3,
you got 45 levels total with over 300 word and picture pairs.
It really is just the same formula over and over through the whole game,
so, yes, it gets repetitive,
but as a kid, this was pretty awesome.
mainly because of the large variety of level designs for you to explore.
Like caves,
castles,
haunted houses,
pueblos,
and factories.
As a six- and seven-year-old kid,
this really just got my adventurous mind going, and I ate it up.
So much so that my parents got me 1993's Word Rescue Plus
not long after I'd beaten the shareware game for the nine millionth time.
This was sold directly through Karen Crowther's Redwood Games company,
with Apogee having nothing to do with its distribution.
It includes 45 levels as well,
but they're entirely different than the registered version,
at least in layout.
It also has Bobby Prince listed under the credits for the music this time,
and as such, the music is a lot more...
Bobby Prince-like in this game.
Which, if you know what I mean, is pretty much awesome.
The original game only had a few tunes and they're okay,
but they get repetitive really, really quickly.
I mean, these do too, but at least they're a little less annoying.
So Plus is not really a sequel, but it's not really an expansion either.
It's more of a standalone game in the same universe
to follow up to Word Rescue.
And I remember I was always intrigued by the end-game teaser
for a follow-up game titled Gruzzle Puzzles,
but it appears that that game never saw the light of day,
if it was ever started at all.
However, in October of 1992,
there was a sequel of sorts titled Math Rescue.
In fact, at the end of Word Rescue Plus,
you are told that the Gruzzles finally learned to read,
but then they realized they didn't know how to do arithmetic,
so you can guess what happens.
Enter Apogee's Math Rescue.
Right from the get-go, you can tell they took the chance to update the engine
with a nice animated title screen.
Even though it's still in EGA at the same res,
it has a lot more detail.
Apparently, a handful of other talented people were added to the team,
including Jimmie and Dale Homburg,
who also created artwork for the excellent edutainment game Reader Rabbit.
You're given the option to choose your name and gender once again
and then your skill level.
You then have the option to choose only certain types of problems,
or a mixture of them,
as well as the amount of word problems to solve.
Curiously, you can also choose to skip math problems entirely,
turning the game into a rather mindless platforming game, but whatever.
The story this time is that, go figure,
all of the numbers have been stolen by the stupid Gruzzles
resulting in no speed limits and no stock market,
and your mom locking herself in the bathroom because her paycheck is blank.
And nobody can call anyone since there are no phone numbers.
Mmm, you know this is actually sounding almost more like a blessing in disguise, to be honest.
You notice a Gruzzle that looks like a giant nose
hauling numbers off in a garbage truck,
and before you can say "mystical intervention,"
a giant butterfly covers the Gruzzle in slime.
You grab a garbage can lid and decide to take action against the Gruzzles,
hoping you'll continue to get the help of Benny the Bookworm...
or...Butterfly...now.
Yeah, perhaps they should have made "Biology Rescue" in between these
because I was not aware that worms could turn into butterflies, but okay.
Then it's on to the game, which starts underwater for some unknown reason.
You have no breathing apparatus.
Maybe you're just like Kevin Costner from "Waterworld," I don't know.
Immediately noticeable is the slightly different perspective
to the level graphics of the game,
this time using oblique projection
instead of the flat side perspective seen in Word Rescue.
It doesn't seem to affect gameplay at all, but it does look cool,
and it feels similar to what was done in Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy.
This time around, you have nothing to find and match,
but simply problems to solve by jumping into floating number boxes.
Once you solve enough of them, you're given the key and it's on to the next level,
unless you want to collect the rest of the numbers in the level for a bonus.
Also, collecting the numbers in order from 0 to 9
will reward you with a bonus, which is nice,
at least if you want to add to your score
and have some higher percentages in between levels.
Additionally, at the bottom of the screen, you'll see a math problem.
You can solve this by making contact with the appropriate garbage truck
making its rounds across certain parts of each level,
but if you're wrong, you'll get hurt.
If you've got slime,
pressing Space will spawn Benny-Fly to cover Gruzzles.
You also have garbage can lids,
which act as shields against Gruzzles and garbage trucks,
so it's actually a bit easier than Word Rescue in that regard.
Perhaps a bit too easy, now that I think about it,
but at least it's nice against those stupid garbage trucks
that'll run into without you even noticing they're there.
These lids and slime buckets can be found in different parts of each level,
although you can also earn them in between levels from bonus rounds
by answering a bunch of problems before the time runs out.
There are also secret areas
which often appear underneath danger pits
and through passable walls,
so haphazard exploration is definitely more of a factor in this game.
And sometimes you'll run across these warp signs,
which if run into will warp you
to another part of the level entirely.
And really, that is it to Math Rescue.
It's Word Rescue. With math.
And some gameplay tweaks.
Is it better than Word Rescue?
Well, to me, no.
For one thing, I just don't enjoy math as much as I do English,
so there's that.
But there's also just something about the levels and atmosphere in Word Rescue
that just makes it more enjoyable to me.
I mean, Math Rescue has some fantastic and very colorful levels–
42 in all–
and they're quite fun to explore.
Especially some of the later levels filled with candy,
flowing lava, labyrinthine caverns,
industrial facilities and freaking outer space.
But it really just doesn't feel like it's happening on Earth at all,
which is kind of odd, considering the story implies that it does take place on Earth.
I don't know, maybe that has something to do with it for me,
but whatever the case, it's still a fun edutainment title,
and it also got the Plus treatment by Redwood,
with Math Rescue Plus adding 45 levels to the experience.
So, I would totally recommend both Word and Math Rescue,
as well as the Plus versions, if you can find them.
You can actually still buy downloadable versions from RedwoodGames.com,
as well as their other titles from back in the day,
or you can get the original Apogee trilogies
from 3DRealms.com for a little less cash.
And of course, the free shareware episodes can still be found really easily
several places online.
So if you need to brush up on your elementary school-level English and arithmetic,
while enjoying some classic Apogee platforming goodness,
then grab your bucket of slime and rescue some words.
And math!
[AdLib music plays to the end]