Pharaoh’s Revenge (1988)

Pharaoh’s Revenge (1988) by Ivan Manley & Associates, published by International Publishing for Commodore 64, DOS, and Apple II. A little game, but pretty neat. There’s nothing better than booting up an old PC game and finding that the group of five or six guys who pirated it in the 90s added an intro for their little group, complete with custom graphics and a hand-typed message that says “It’s 7 AM and I still haven’t gone to bed, I’ll write the docs later (maybe). Make sure you laugh at the author’s wimpy message about not copying his program….” The nerd smugness is immense. Anyway, this is a game all about placing ladders to escape a Pharaoh who wants your head. Why is he trying to kill you? Is it for revenge? Revenge for what? Who cares, the games fun, in an arcadey way. Not much to say beyond that; the game speed is really fast, for some reason, and you can even make your own layouts. There’s 246 different levels, which is way more than was probably necessary, but it could keep you occupied. There’s a guy on GameFAQs who wrote out a guide including strategies for all 246 levels, he just did it because he likes this game, so maybe there’s something here.