Penguin Land


Penguin Land, known as Doki Doki Penguin Land Uchū Daibōken in Japan, is a Master System game published and developed by Sega and is the second game in the Doki Doki Penguin Land series. In this game you play as a penguin going through a puzzle platformer stage and try to guide your egg around the polar bears, rocks and other hazards to the end of the stage. The game has a total of 50 stages and a level editor which can save up to 15 additional levels. The level editor data is stored on the game's battery back-up RAM.

Plot

The game begins where three penguin eggs are lost on a distant planet. The player controls the Penguin Mission Commander Overbite, who must guide these eggs down to the bottom of a frigid cavern filled with traps, enemies, and secret passages. The Spaceship Crew eagerly awaits at the bottom of this cavern to welcome the hero Overbite and carry the eggs to safety.

Gameplay

The object of the game is to successfully push and drop an egg down to the bottom of a vertically scrolling cavern of ice. The player is able to push the egg left and right, push it off cliffs onto lower platforms, and melt ice blocks to create a passage for the egg. If the egg falls more than 3 blocks downward, it will break. Also, if Overbite lands on the egg, but the egg cannot be rolled left or right, the egg will break. The round is completed when the egg is successfully delivered to the bottom of the level.
The block types in the game include ice blocks, cracked ice, Rocks, stone blocks, and tubes for either the egg or the player to pass through.
Gangows are polar bear-like enemies that will attack both the player and the egg. If they back the egg into a corner or land on the egg, it will break. Cameels are birds that fly by if the egg is not moved after a set time. They will drop a brick which can crack the egg.
Also included are point and time bonuses, egg shields, springs that let you jump higher, and ghosts that invert game controls. Point bonuses are awarded for crushing Gangows, time remaining, and the difficulty of the round completed.

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #140 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.