Ranarama

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

1987 video game

title: "Ranarama" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1987-video-games", "action-games", "amstrad-cpc-games", "atari-st-games", "commodore-64-games", "graftgold-games", "hewson-consultants-games", "single-player-video-games", "top-down-video-games", "video-games-about-amphibians", "video-games-about-shapeshifting", "video-games-about-witchcraft", "video-games-developed-in-the-united-kingdom", "zx-spectrum-games"] description: "1987 video game" topic_path: "geography/united-kingdom" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranarama" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary 1987 video game ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox video game"]

Field	Value
title	Ranarama
image	File:Ranarama_Commodore_64_Cover_Art.jpg
caption	Cover artwork by Steve Weston
developer	Graftgold
publisher	Hewson Consultants
designer	Steve Turner
programmer	Steve Turner (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad), Gary Foreman (C64), James Hutchby (ST)
released	1987
genre	Hack and slash
modes	Single-player
platforms	Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum
::

Ranarama (also Rana Rama) is a top-down Gauntlet-like action game developed by Graftgold and published by Hewson Consultants in 1987. It was released for the Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum home computers. The title appears to be a pun on rana, a genus of frogs. The game concept is similar to a previous game by Steve Turner for the ZX Spectrum called Quazatron, which was itself inspired by Paradroid, created by Turner's Graftgold colleague Andrew Braybrook.

In 2004 it was featured as one of the games on the C64 Direct-to-TV.

Plot

The main character is Mervyn, a sorcerer's apprentice whose botched spell turns him into a frog just in time to save him from an invasion of evil magic-users who slay his mentors. Mervyn's arcane capabilities are intact, and the game's aim is to hunt down the attackers.

Gameplay

Mervyn has four types of magic and eight increasingly potent and power-consuming spells for each: Offensive spells serve as projectile weaponry, defensive spells reduce damage etc., effect spells activate special abilities or act as area-effect attacks, and power spells fuel the other kinds. The first three are usable indefinitely, but power spells degrade with damage and with a constant drain caused by the other spells that can vary from minimal to vast depending on supply and demand. They drop to level one on expiration; expiring on that level is lethal and ends the game. Commonly found energy crystals replenish some power.

The game is set in a dungeon split into eight levels that are freely traversable (but not necessarily immediately survivable), each of which is split into a labyrinthine network of rooms and houses some benevolent glyphs, 12 hostile wizards, hordes of monsters and monster generators. Rooms are not visible before they are entered, and their inhabitants only from within. Monsters cause damage by contact, attack en masse and fall easily, while wizards are much tougher and use attack spells. The latter can be defeated by attacks, but contact with them triggers a sub-game of unscrambling the mixed up word "RANARAMA" within a strict time limit. Failure expires the current power spell, but victory destroys the wizard and scatters four runes that can be used at Glyphs of Sorcery to change spells. On average there need to be 7.5 switchings of the letters. The starting positions which require the maximum of 16 switchings of the letters are "MAAAARRN" and "MAAAANRR".

Reception

References

(July 1989). "Censored!". Newsfield.
(4 December 2014). "The Making of Ranarama". Imagine.
"Ranarama".
(March 1987). "Ranarama". Newsfield.
"Ranarama".
"Software Reviews".
Game review, Amstrad June magazine, [[Future Publishing]], issue 21, June 1987
Boughton, Paul. (May 1987). "C+VG Reviews 7 - Ranarama". [[EMAP]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::