The Walls Have Eyes (WIP)

C64
The Walls Have Eyes' title screen shows a robed wizard with a pointy hat and a staff standing in front of a wall. The wall consists of large, colored bricks, some of which have creepy eyes on them.

The Walls Have Eyes is a puzzle platformer inspired by Tecmo's 1986 arcade game Solomon's Key.

Animation showing the wizard sprite repeatedly creating and destroying a blue block.

In both games, you play as a pointy-hatted wizard who can create and destroy blocks that also serve as platforms. I played the C64 version of Solomon's Key in the early '90s and found the idea of letting the player "design" the level quite novel and appealing.

Compared to its inspiration, The Walls Have Eyes features more puzzle elements and does not rely as much on action. Some rooms require quick reflexes, but to a much lesser degree. It's not an arcade game, so it's not out to murder the player every 30 seconds.

The game's title is meant quite literally, as the story explains:

A 9x9 tile pattern with alternating blue blocks and eyes.

WHEN HOME SECURITY GOES WRONG

Veydron, Chromancer of the Seventh Prism and five-time winner of the Fluffy Beard Contest, is not happy.

Tired of unsolicited door-to-door salespeople, the wizard cast a surveillance spell to protect his tower. Unfortunately, the spell malfunctioned, causing eyes to grow all over the walls.

To undo the damage, Veydron must visit each room in his tower and seal off all the eyes by casting solid blocks in front of them.

Screenshot of Room 53. As one of the later rooms, much of it is covered with colored blocks.

The Walls Have Eyes Features

Animation showing a playthrough of Room 06. It's a tutorial that introduces colorizers which change the player's color and affect which blocks the player can create or destroy.
The first few rooms act as tutorials

As shown in the above animation, colorizers are a key part of the game. They change your color when you walk in front of them. When you create blocks, they appear in your current color. This also means that you can only remove blocks that are the same color as you.

That last point is what makes this game more puzzle-centric. You have to be careful not to trap yourself by placing blocks that you won't be able to remove later.

Screenshot of Room 12. The player is in the process of creating a green block.

This is quite a long game. It takes me more than two hours to play it from start to finish, even though I already know the solutions to the rooms.

Like in TULT 64, the continue feature allows you to start the game in any room up to the highest one you've reached. Each room also provides a code so that you can pick up from where you left off in a later session.

The Walls Have Eyes is pretty much complete. The main things still missing are the music and sound effects. I haven't yet optimized the game for NTSC either.

I'm pretty excited about this one because it's a game that I would have loved to play back in the day. I hope others will enjoy it as well.

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