3D Dotty - Blue Ribbon - BBC Micro - Emulated (Pantheon) - 767 points.

3D Dotty is a maze-and-dot-eating arcade game for the BBC Microcomputer. It was written by J. L. Harris and released by Blue Ribbon in 1987. Naturally, a version was also available for the Electron.
The game takes inspiration from the Pac-man genre, but with a twist. Each screen, of which there are eight different layouts, features three mazes stacked on top of each other, connected by ladders. Each layer contains dots which must be eaten and once all dots are consumed, you move to the next level. Each floor of the maze contains a fungus, which despite its name is able to move around quite quickly, looking very much like a snake. This will hunt you down and while contact is not immediately fatal, it will reduce your energy bar. If your energy bar hits zero, you lose a life.
I am not very good at maze games like Pac-man, and having three levels and a 3D perspective didn't help me here! However, I can put my own failings to one side to see that this is quite a good game, and a nice update to the old classic. Control of your character is nice and smooth, although I did often struggle to make turns at junctions tidily - your character judders to indicate this. I don't blame the game or its controls for this, that's just on me. The fungus is not able to turn back on itself and will have to keep moving to find a junction. Understanding this will allow you to manipulate it's movements to your advantage. They also cannot use the ladders, so these make good safe spots for you to plan your next move. The author has clearly put a lot of thought into good gameplay. It can be difficult to find dots hidden behind the pillars of the maze, but each level has a counter on the right side of the screen to track the number of dots remaining, so you should have little trouble tracking down any dots you have missed. The game also has a practice mode allowing you to try out any of the eight mazes, out of sequence.
Overall, this is a well put together refresh of an old classic genre. Probably a bit late to the game in 1987 to become a classic, but if you like maze games on old retro machines, this is one to have on your list to check out.
This run was made on the 7th July 2024 using the Pantheon emulator on PC. The score reached was 767 points.
Time stamps:
00:30 Title and key instructions screen.
00:35 Choose Practice Mode or Normal game.
00:39 Game start.
03:08 First life lost.
04:30 Second life lost.
06:26 Screen 1 complete.
07:49 Third life lost. Game Over! Final score 767 points.
Intro Music:
Music by: Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio
Title: Legend
/ @whitebataudio