C64 Game Memories - Revisited 30+ Years later : Horace Goes Skiing

Horace goes Skiing by Melbourne House is the oldest game on the C64 I had, with it being released the same year as the C64 in 1982.

It's hard to imagine now but in the early years of home computing Horace was a star every bit as famous as Pacman or later, Sonic the Hedgehog. Horace goes Skiing was actually a sequel to the original game Hungry Horace which was a simple Pacman clone. There were 5 different Horace titles in all.

Horace goes Skiing was actually written at the same time as the first game, and this seems intentional as it is also a clone, this time a Frogger rip-off but with a twist that made this a very enjoyable game for the time (although now dated of course)

You had to guide Horace accross the road to the Ski shop to buy some Skis for $10 then make your way back again. Once you had done this you then had to guide Horace down a slalom course where you would gain points. 1000 points got you another $10 to spend on Skis so you could continue to rack up points - 'High Score' being the main challenge on most games of this era.

Graphics and Sound are limited due to this being an early C64 game, but the replayability factor was high and all the Horace games had their own style/ colour palette.

Definitely one of the better releases from the first batch of Commodore games published 80% of which were very average.