Rodland is a game which was released in Japan in April of 1990 by Jaleco. Its Japanese name Yousei Monogatari Rod Land translates as "Rod Land, a Fairy Tale", but the English language version is simply called "Rodland".

Gameplay

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The player(s) control one or two fairies armed with a magic wand (rod). Following the concept of Bubble Bobble, the rod doesn't kill the monsters directly, but only leaves them immobilized crying. To kill them, the rod can grasp them in a magic forcefield and the player can smash them down over her head until they disappear and leave a power-up behind.

Each level is only one screen small composed by monsters, platforms, ladders and later tunnels. Unlike other games of that genre, the fairy can never jump, but has to use ladders. She can conjure one custom ladder above or below her in order to go to the appropriate platform. There can be only one such 'custom' ladder, therefore if the fairy summons it again, it will disappear from its previous position in order to appear again next to the fairy. This can be beneficial for the player, if a monster is climbing that ladder to approach her.

History

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Originally a coin-op arcade game it has since been ported to virtually every platform around in the early nineties, the first being the Amstrad CPC version in 1990, the last being the Nintendo Game Boy version in 1993. All of these versions differ in some way but by far the biggest difference is that the arcade version includes a totally different 'sequel' on completion of the original game. This includes different graphics, levels and even a new story, this time focusing around their lost father.

Platform games | Arcade games | NES games | Game Boy games | Commodore 64 games | Amiga games | 1990 arcade games | 1991 computer and video games | 1992 computer and video games | 1993 computer and video games | Jaleco games