Dervish

Dervish

Developer	Camel Software
Company
Publisher	The Power House
Musician	John Keneally
Release	1988
Platform(s)	CPC, ZX Spectrum
Genre	Arcade
OS
Game Modes	Single player
Controls
Media
Language
Information

Dervish is an arcade game that was released by The Power House in 1988. The gameplay is very similar to Druid, which was released by Firebird in 1986. The aim of the game, according to the text on the inlay, is to "journey through the eight levels of Awareness to reach the Upward Path", by using weapons and spells. In addition to a normal playing mode, there is also an Explore mode that allows the player to explore the levels freely without dying; however, the player cannot score any points.

The programmer, John Keneally, was also responsible for several type-ins that were published in Amstrad Action, including the popular Amstrad Drumkit, which was originally published in the March 1986 issue (#6) and was later published on two of their covertapes.

Reviews

Amstrad Action reviewed the game in the May 1988 issue (#32), and gave it an overall rating of 66%. Their review remarked that "the graphics are bright and colourful with smooth four way scrolling", "sound effects are of average quality and the title tune is just about tolerable". It summarises that "if you want originality then you might as well look elsewhere, but if you enjoyed Druid then this should keep you occupied".

Computing with the Amstrad CPC reviewed the game in the June 1988 issue (Vol. 4 No. 6), and were much less impressed, giving it an overall rating of just 20%. Among their comments are that "the graphics are pretty awful", "the scrolling is flickery", "the music on the title screen is prehistoric and the in-game sound effects wouldn't be missed", and "this Power House game has about as much power as a deflated balloon".