Before Sonic There was "Spiky Harold" | Nostalgia Nerd
Vložit
- čas přidán 14. 08. 2024
- Sonic the Hedgehog may be regarded by most as the first and original Hedgehog platformer, but that's not taking Spiky Harold into consideration. A challenging and original platform game for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Commodore Plus/4 and Amstrad CPC, which may just may have given inspiration to Yuji Naka.... possibly.... perhaps.... at a stretch.
You can check out the ZX VGA Joy at zx-vga-joy.com/
** For exclusive videos, mystery boxes and other rewards, please consider supporting me at; / nostalgianerd **
☟Sharing☟
If you wish to share this video in forums, social media, on your website, *please do so*! It helps tremendously with the channel!
☟Subcribe☟
www.youtube.co...
✊Support Me! ✊
*Patreon*: www.patreon.co...
Visit my eBay Shop: ebay.to/1QQpYyy
Buy Games via. Humble: www.humblebund...
Buy my book: nnerd.me/HVFtSB
★Join me on Social Media★
Twitter: / nostalnerd
Twitch: / nostalgianerd
Face: / nostalnerd
Instagram: / nostalgianerd
Web: www.nostalgiane...
★Equipment★
Lumix G6 with Vario 14-42mm Lens
Nikon D3200 with 40mm Macro
Corel Video Studio Ultimate 2018
Corel Paint Shop Pro 2018
Blue Snowball Microphone
♜Resources♜
If you believe I have forgotten to attribute anything in this video, please let me know, so I can add the source in. It takes time to make these videos and therefore it can be easy to forget things or make a mistake. - Hry
Awesome video :) Thank you so much for the shout out! I wish I had managed to get the remake working, the sounds Harold make are something else!
Scared the absolute crap out of me the first time I died.
I'm Jon Rogers, Andrews son. I was 2 when this was released. I too find the game infuriatingly difficult. Never completed it. Apparently there's a hidden room full of apples and another with my name in it. He also did Don't Panic for the ZX too. He's gonna love this, thanks NN!
One funny coincidence here is that Spiky Harold uses "Flight of the Bumblebee" as its music, and the theme to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog actually samples it as part of a medley (along with the familiar title screen music from the game and "In the Hall of the Mountain King").
Interesting thanks for the information
British gamers must fear drops of water even to this day.
If you live in Britain and fear drops of water you'd never go outside!
Most of us still have nightmares about turning into a flying hedgehog being chased by giant pen-knives.
Ah... Norwich.
I had Spiky Harold for the Speccy. Never came close to completing it. Even years later using an emulator and save states, I somehow missed an item somewhere and couldn't finish the game.
Oh, and fun fact: hibernating in the summertime is called aestivating.
Spiky Harold sounds like something you’d find on urbandictionary.com
"That ho was a spiky harold!"
@Most Deadest Pool of em All. I hear those help pull up weeds better.
Bethesda just announced Spiky Harrold is coming back, as a mobile game. you can still do the poke but it's a one time use microtransaction.
Of course it's a micro transaction... It's Bethesda
@@Darkest_matter More like because it's 2019.
Loved this game since I got it as a kid back in the day. Managed to complete it legitimately when I revisited it a few years back.
For more retro hedgehog action, this time in an antagonistic role, check out the Bouncing Hedgehogs in 1983's "Wheelie" on the ZX Spectrum!
Ha! I came here to say the exact same thing but you beat me to it, bloody loved Wheelie. Now I'm wondering if there are any earlier instances of hedgehogs in games than Wheelie?
Your music makes me sleepy.
Harold is trying to get to sleep...
maybe it's just because it's late while I'm watching this, but it really is making me feel even more tired. XD
My Dad, Andrew Rogers, sadly passed away in September 2019. But he did get an opportunity to see the video before he passed and was really pleased. That's amazing! was his response when I sent him the link. He has a full list of credits on moby games. The last finished game he worked on was Project Cars 2 and Spiky Harold was the first game he ever made. He told me that jobs were scarce back then so you had to try to find a way to make money and he saw the potential in the industry. Also, having a fond passion for electronics development, he picked up a book and started learning assembly. And for some reason which no one in the family knew why, he loved hedgehogs. The house was full of hedgehog ornaments. People would continue to buy him all sorts of cuddly, novelty and ornamental hedgehogs. So, this is a really nice homage to him and I once again thank you Nostalgia Nerd.
That "Flight of the Bumblebee" music though.....amazing.
My dad programmed it all in assembly language
"I must proceed at a heightened pace" - spikey harold
Gotta love a bit of Spiky Harold. . .What a game that was. Firebird released some great titles back in the day!
Also, as a side note; Sonic wasn't even the first blue, gaming hedgehog. . . Check out the CPC-464 version and you'll see that Harold was a nice shade of cyan!!
Synchronicity is real! So was the burst of laughter you induced in me at 10:30 . Thanks for the video and the passion! ☀️
1:53 Looks like Jerma's Giant Rat
I like how he seems to eat the wine glass. Also, European Sonic was 5/6 as fast.
Thats a mighty fine ZX spectrum setup you got there mate!
I remember this game well on my old commodore 16, been looking for a replacement for the last few months 😔
2:52 is that the old British telecom logo?
Yes, Firebird was BT's games software brand.
@@MIKIEC71 BT actually had four labels: Firebird, Rainbird, Silverbird and Firefly!
www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^Telecomsoft$&loadpics=3
Spicy Harold got that dummy thicc look going on. Truly timeless.
Harold is a large character for his environment, but I would like to see more of the game.
I had this game on the speccy in the 80s and it's bloody impossible. Nice environments and animation, though.
I was in school with Sonic, and he always used to talk me about his cousin Harold
Bloody platformers that required ultra precision movements really boiled my pee.
I was only thinking the other day, that Spiky Harold was the original hedgehog platformer before Sonic. I was also gong to mention the 128 lives poke, but you beat me to it. I could never complete it even with 128 lives. There was always a screen where I kept dying over and over until I'd used up all the lives. I'll have to revisit it and the remake. Great video! :) Long live Spiky Harold!!!
As a kid in the 1980's who had a full sized and a mini zx spectrum Spikey Harold and Booty were my fav games, Soo many good memories, That death note that plays brings on instant frustration i swear and i haven't played it for over 30 years
What about Vinnie the Vole's Existential Nightmare?
Great game and awesome video! The intro-music of the C-64 version is great. I still remember. But it was in fact terrible hard to play!!!!
Now i want to see a sonic rom hack with you having to play harolds levels
Never heard of this game but hedgehogs are wonderful and Harold is a wonderful name for a hedgehog.
Graphically it reminds me of the first Dizzy :)
Did you know that Eggman/Robotnik was one of the original designs for the protagonist of the game that later became Sonic, but he wore pajamas? He was also heavily inspired by Teddy Roosevelt.
Now I played sonic when I was young - that was a part of my childhood, but I came here to tell a story from abt 1 year ago during quarantine, we were talking about the old games, and thr ones he played. Then he talked about the Video Game Casettes, and how they spin 30 Minutes just to load the game. He said that he played a lot of games like that, and one of a few elder examples he named was Spiky Harold, being played on his IBM Computer on a Green (Light/Dark) Screen. Then I got the perfect idea, I knew exactly what i had to do. At the time i was using an android phone and i started the grind. Tested Emulators after Emulators, APKs after APK mods, ROMs after ROMs, and eventually I was always discovering new things about my elder generations technology and at the end, i finally did it. I somehow found a modded apk of a discontinued emulator that i then tried a lot of roms and some other data idk at the end it worked out. *I reunited My Father and Spiky Harold after 34 Years!* At first, I turned the sound on and he immediately looked at me. I laughed and asked if he still remembers. He went yeah that scifi space sounds that had a different sound ill never forget that. I gave him the phone, and he showed me his prime skills (the game is actually REALLY hard) and when you play it on a phone, it just gets harder. But anyways the feeling of the reuninion of a memory/a part of your life after such a long time is one of the best feelings ever.
Hibernating is only something you do for the Winter. The equivalent in the Summer would be called aestivating.
That' a really difficult game ever! Thanks to Bring us this old Game!
One thing I didn't get when I watched Tamara's video a while ago is just how really, REALLY good that collision detection is. A couple of times in your video you're able to let things happen to the pixel which isn't exactly common with games back than and I suspect, for someone with skills neither of us have, elevates this game from impossible to a pleasing challenge. Me? I can barely complete Sonic.
I had this game as a wee nipper, problem was I found the game way to hard, but it was done very well for a budget title.
**EDIT** Tell you what though mate, you're not doing yourself any favors playing the game on a joystick, a crappy old one at that!!
The Starlight Zone BGM is by far the best.
Creepy Castle on Steam looks pretty similar. I see where the inspiration comes from.
I really don't think it's more than a coincidence. This looks pretty neat though, not that I have the patience for it.
There is something so absolutely calming about this game, how lovely lol.
5:58
Green Hill Zone is a lot more like PAL Hill Zone right now.
Ah, Firebird + Silverbird... The saviours of my CPC464 days, lots of great games that cost EXACTLY the amount my parents gave me each week for "pocket money". God bless them, they are a company fondly remembered.
Nice rendition of Flight of The BumbleBee. Sounds like the engine noise from Hang on on master system.
I don't remember this. Horace yes, Harold, no. 😞 I mean, Horace went skiing and allsorts.
Amstrad CPC harold is not real and cannot hurt me. Amstrad CPC harold is not real and cannot hurt me. Amstrad CPC harold is not real and c
Spikey Harold sounds like a character devised by Mr. Biffo.
That game case is so fucking adorably small~!
Lol on the simular video Peter. I did an Acorn Electron / BBC Micro, programming in Basic video about 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I watched your C64 basic video. I think we had similar teachers haha. I'm going to add a link to your video from mine now.
Your character sprite is very large and well-drawn for a platform game of this era. Too bad it just makes him a bigger target.
Spiky Harold looks insanely difficult. You have be pixel perfect. I would get SO frustrated from dieing that i would give up and play something easier.
Spent plenty of time in my youth playing the Amstrad version, loading screen and all. Was never able to get very far in it, but I had fun exploring the underground world of the hedgehog.
9:52 its so weird isnt it? pretty sure our consciousness is all connected some how.
i loved spikey harold. had it on the cpc.
I love the little easter eggs in the subtitles
Haha, I had this game... I also had that Thorn Emi tape player.....
Hang on....jet set willy type music trope of the era?! - and game play
That Amstrad Harold art is so cute!
that little white hoggyhedge is adorable
The Atari 800 version was solid as!
But, Spiny Norman dates back to a BBC television series in 1970.
Sega quietly buys rights to Spiky Harold...
The kind of game the drives you up the wall.
Sweet content really loved the Atari jaguar video
All I can say is that this guy is much more likeable! :)
I would like to see this on the Switch. I think I would be a good fit.
Is that a Ferguson cassette deck?
Well spotted, it is indeed a Ferguson 3T31:
spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=96&id=1000631
The captions are hilarious
Uh, link to Tamara?
@ 1:55 Me thinks yer eyes have gone green...
Should go great with the RatLog...
"RatLog, RatLog, What A Treat!
A Healthy Chunk of Dirty Rat Meat!"
Its so roguelike! See the caves?
I actually had this game on my Commodore 16 (Yes, sixteen). Was never very good at it though.
Loaded this up on my Commodore 64 and holly s*** is this game hard.. 19 lives and managed to get 2 items of food (first attempt) .. I used keyboard to try and make it easier.. Looks a lot nicer on the C64 than the Speccy. Maybe a game I might try more and see if I can actually beat it. I have heard of Spiky Harold before and I'm sure I loaded it up before on my SD2IEC but never bothered trying out..(I do that sometimes) just checking the many thousands of games I have for the C64 just to see what style of game they are. I need to be in the right mood for games like these.. I think the game has some charm.
Second attempt 3 bits of fruit (getting better) and I have noticed alternative routes in the game.. I will master this.
YA MAN i had this on the electron 299 firebird from the local news agents ,i first had a plus 4 then an electron then a specy 128 then my little sister had a mastersystem,then i bought a dreamcast,then an xbox then a 36o and then an i3 laptop and then the 5thgen i5 i use now me me me me me me me
Don't forget that hedgehogs are far more common in the UK... so there just had to be another hedgehog protagonist!
So I'm not the only one who finds the classics of youth to suddenly be rather tedious while still loving them. As to Spiky. 1. In reality, he would be eating his food right then and there. It's not like they wake up and have a snack and go back to sleep. 2. I played 5 minutes once of Sonic the Hedgehog on a Genesis. I got motion sick, swore off ever touching a Sega again and swore a life long disdain for Sonic before going back to playing Space Invaders on the Atari. Spiky at least looks like actual fun.
No, you're not. Whenever I run something from the 8bit days I'm like "how could I have enjoyed this PITA of a slog so much as a kid?". Ah, nostalgia glasses...
I had this game on my Spectrum 48k and tried to play it with a Kempston joystick, I played it a hell of a lot and never got past screen three. Thats just how it was in those days as a child, the end of a game was just an abstract concept.
You should try Sonic and the Mayhem Master plus I prefer the commodore 64 version.
I thought the original hedgehog was Ron Jeremy.
Im gonna go ahead and say that Harold is elderly Sonic after he was caught in a time warp zone and had to live out the rest of his days under a different name in a different time. Harold.
Damn would love to get a spectrum, commodore64 and amstrad CPC with disk drive and colour monitor back as I used to have them all but younger me as in 30+ years ago ( I'm 51 now) decided I didn't need them anymore and either threw them out or gave them away, trouble is they're so bloody stupidly rediculously expensive now I just dont have the funds to do so. Never mind will just use the emulators which even though they are really good it's not the same. Btw I had spikey Harold on both the CPC and speccy and could never collect more than about 8 items lol. Thanks for the video.
This looks like a game I could have enjoyed.
I have no idea who Simon Jay is. I'm Andy Rogers and I single-handedly created this game in 6 weeks (anims music programming).
I have spikey Harold for my commodore plus/4. Just found it out recently...
I still own this game on speccy casette tape.
Must admit i wasnt impressed with Spiky Harold on the Amstrad, but it is one of only a handfull of amstrad games to actually feature music while loading from cassette. Also it nice that they bother redoing the loading screen to a nice 16 colour mode 0 screen with an actually (but crude) hedgehog on it. Sadly the impossible pixelperfect oldstyle hard gameplay ment i played it very little. Still for 1.99 it was quite ok.
I thought spikey harold was sonic when my dad picked me up a box of zx games. then i played it
Sir Clive... Owen? I had no idea he was a computing enthusiast in his youth.
Spikey Harold & Knuckles
I remember back in the day playing this on my Atari 800XL. Didn't get very far in it though - dead difficult. By the way, if we're talking about Firebird games, what about Chickin Chase? Ah...the good ol' days.
From Firebird I mostly remember Chimera, probably the game frustrated me to no end. As for Harold, I didn't play it all that much before I lend the type to a mate and he lost it.
the slogan should have been "no, spiky harrold's spikes don't do jack"
no way i was just thinking about this the other day, but i couldnt remember its name lol
also another old 8-bit game i cant think of its name, you have to use the subway and go around Westminster to disarm bombs, the explosion was terrible, just lines from center bottom of screen :)
I think Paul Jenkins on covered this on The Spectrum Show as well recently didn't he? Weird coincidences!
Yeah he did in no. 86 of his show. I like how he complained about how every jump past the obstacles had to be pixel perfect and thats exactly what we see here in this video again :-)
Sorry Harrold, my thoughts are with Monty Mole.
Back in the days after the third attempt I was already loading the next game on the cassette
1:54 i lost my shit aaa
Screw the Sonic fandom. I'm making Spiky Harold fan art and fan fiction now.
What surprised me before I went to Japan I didn't believe that most Japanese people don't believe hedgehog's don't actually exist, they aren't native to Japan and it being blue wearing running shoes didn't help that either, or though they are now becoming popular pet's now in some parts of Japan.
I guess the needle mouse has finally gotten full respect for being a real animal.
Sounds weird but people thought the first taxidermed platypus was fake, a mix between a duck and an otter.
It would certainly explain the huge numbers of Japanese tourists that flock to the Beatrix Potter attractions in the Lake Districk - they're all mad for Tiggywinkle!
I ACTUALLY PLAYED THIS GAME I JUST REALIZED I BARELY REMEMBER IT
This game is just like life. You can't be comfortable with making mistakes, deliberate well thought out movements which earns (earning is the most important focus point of life and earning is defined as energy use for a positive unselfish motive) the ability to avoid the mistakes which allows you to stay out of others way. Those People who programmed that game owns the Sonic Team. Put Green Hill Zone theme on that game and it's perfection