There is no stopping MatGubbins at the moment with his latest entry for the 10 char challenge. This little venture, thus named Lentils for Satan clearly speaks of a desperation for putting two completely unrelated words together in order to meet the 10 character/token objective – and as it happens, it does so in style!
After carefully checking the loader to ensure all rules are correctly adhered to (we wouldn’t want any cheating now would we?!), the now-familiar loading scheme used by Mat can be seen whereby the title graphic is loaded into the top third of the screen about 90% of the way through. This time we have a rather picturesque, pleasant and colourful looking representation of the anthropomorphic personification of Beelzebub, (ruler of demons, Law Breaker, Evil Degenerate). And he even sports a rather fetching two pronged trident (shouldn’t that be a bident? – ed.), cute pink mitts and matching booties.
In MatGubbins fashion, the title screen provides all you need to know about the game background. Satan is hosting a party and needs lentils but needs to soak them overnight for heath and safety reasons. Righto!
The game has a familiar feel to previous releases by the author, particularly Clint And Da Crabs and the Rosco the Cat series. Another familiarity is the choice of keys: { W, A, D, X } which I find very difficult to use – the standard “holy four” would make things easier.
You can’t help thinking this is money for old rope. In this edition, there appears to be no score or means of progress, nor anything to avoid (not that anyone will be foolish enough to take on Satan for God’s sake!) After I collected my 16384th sack of lentils and chucked them in the soaker, I started to wonder how many people are expected. I can only assume that there are a LOT of naughty people out there!!!
Colourful and well written but very almost no gameplay.
Overall Score: 666
Download the .tap from the Gates of Hell here.