9/29/20 Crush, Crumble, and Chomp! (1981)

Crush, Crumble, and Chomp! (1981) developed and published by Epyx for DOS, Commodore 64, Apple II, and a few more. We need more giant monster games, man. This is one of the most solid games of this theme I’ve played, tons of fun and charm. Pretty simple, pick a monster from one of six big fellas, then choose your goal for the game and one of four maps. That isn’t all, there’s a really cool monster creator, where you select a body-type and spend points on various abilities. I will admit, the controls are pretty opaque in a very 1981 way, but the manual summarizes the keyboard commands pretty well, and they aren’t too hard to wrap your head around. You can zap helicopters, shoot blasts of atomizing energy, stomp the ground, grab, let out supersonic screams, and fly. Rack up as many points depending on the objective you selected before the level, whether it be destroying property, eating puny humans, surviving the longest, or all of these. The game uses a pseudo turn-based approach where human units get time to move around or attack while you cannot, lending some forethought to the destruction. There’s even an active hunger mechanic that can be sated by picking up and devouring people, and the chance to go BERSERK, losing control of your actions. There’s even more that surprised me about this game, but suffice to say that it’s way more fleshed out than I thought it would be. A good time, and reminds me of something that would have been a cool flash game when I was growing up.