Frankenstein's Monster FAQ
Last updated January 20, 2014
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|| TABLE OF CONTENTS: ||
|| 1. Legalese ||
|| 2. Plot ||
|| 3. Controls ||
|| 4. Progression ||
|| 5. Tips ||
|| 6. Levels ||
|| 7. Acknowledgments ||
|| 8. Contact ||
==========================
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-- 1. LEGALESE -----------
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Just because I'm distributing this for free on the Internet, doesn't mean you
can just go reproduce it for free!!! (I'm being sarcastic. Go ahead.)
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-- 2. PLOT ---------------
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A mysterious stranger appears at your door one day. "Frankenstein is on the
loose," he eerily intones while cracking his knuckles, "and only you can stop
him."
"Frankenstein is the name of the scientist," you correct him.
"That's who I meant," he replies. "Victor Frankenstein is making a terrible
monster as we speak, and unless somebody cases it up in a wall of bricks, it
will come alive and rampage through the town!"
You take off your glasses dramatically. "My god."
"You must build this wall. I will help you by supplying the bricks for it.
I'll place them at the far end of a bunch of pits where giant creatures live."
"Umm."
"Now go, and be quick! Every crash of lightning brings this monster closer to
life!"
You don your favorite anachronistic baseball cap and leave your weapons at
home. "Who are you, anyway?" you ask the old man as you leave your house to
find the first pile of bricks.
He smiles as he clasps his locket, a locket matching the one your mother used
to wear. "I think you know."
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-- 3. CONTROLS -----------
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What are you, kidding? This is an Atari 2600 game.
The joystick moves your guy and the button makes him jump.
This is probably not why you looked up an FAQ for this game. ("Help, I can't
figure out the controls! What do I do with the only button on the
controller?")
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-- 4. PROGRESSION --------
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Here's where the actual content of the FAQ starts.
There are two screens, the Monster Screen and the Bat Screen. Each time you
beat one, you go to the other one. There are six cycles of each, after which
you beat the game. Of course, each of the six is (generally) harder than the
previous one. But more on that later.
Monster Screen:
You start on the top of the screen (what I'll call "the Ghost Floor"). You
have to move down to the middle floor ("the Pit Floor"), then down to the
bottom floor ("the Log Floor"). Grab the brick all the way on the bottom
right, and then bring it all the way back up to where the monster is at the
top. This brings you to the Bat Screen.
Bat Screen:
You start at the bottom. You have to work your way to the top. A stream of
bats flows down at you, and you have to dodge them. TO ADVANCE PAST THIS
STAGE, TOUCH THE WALL NEXT TO THE MONSTER. Not the monster itself. This
causes you to add your brick to the wall, and you now advance to the next
Monster Screen so you can get yet another brick!
You lose if:
There are two ways to lose the game. One is to die three times. The only way
to die is to fall in the water at the bottom. Getting hit by a creature slows
you down, and deducts points from your score, but it does nothing to your
remaining lives.
The other is to run out of time. See how the monster gets gradually filled up
with green? If it reaches the top of his head, the bad news is you lose the
game, but the good news is you are treated to POSSIBLY THE GREATEST GAME OVER
SCREEN OF ALL TIME.
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-- 5. TIPS ---------------
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Most of the game is pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. However,
there are a few tips which may be unobvious at first.
- SHORTCUT: This is the most important one. When you're on the Pit Floor,
falling through a pit usually sends you to the water and therefore to your
death. But if you time it and place it just right, you will land on the log
below. This saves a ton of time, because you skip the left half of both
floors. As for how to time it and place it, see section six, LEVELS. (The
strategy is different for each level.)
- CLIMBING: The standard way to go up a rope is to position yourself directly
below it and jump straight upward while holding up. The slightly
quicker/snazzier way is to take a running jump towards it while holding up.
You have to place it just right, so you hit the rope at the apex of your jump,
or you won't be high enough to reach it.
- HIDING: If you are mid-climb on a rope, no matter how high or low you are on
it, you are invincible. The utility of this is when you're climbing upwards
and a spider or ghost is about to hit you. Wait for it to pass while at the
very top of the rope, then climb out when it's gone.
- DANGLING SPIDERS: Little is as aggravating as jumping off a log only to have
a dangling spider appear directly in front of you, knocking you into the water.
This is avoidable, though! The location of each spider is random, but the
timing is not. Wait until a group of spiders disappears before you jump. Then
you'll be clear no matter where they spawn.
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-- 6. LEVELS -------------
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LEVEL ONE
Difficulty: 1/5
There is a trick to this level's shortcut. After you climb down to the pit
floor, jump left all the way over the pit. Then walk rightward into the pit.
You will fall through the leftmost pixel of the pit and land on the rightmost
pixel of the log. Voila!
The bat screen... I won't really comment on this or any other bat screen other
than to say,
1: Although the patterns look different, all six bat levels are roughly the
same amount of difficulty to get through.
2: The bat speed is too fast to react to, and the patterns are all random, so
you really just have to brute force your way through them.
3: Don't get too frustrated, because all getting hit does is slow you down, and
even with several of those, you'll still have enough time to beat the game.
LEVEL TWO
Difficulty: 2/5
Unlike the last level, you can't just walk into the pit to land on the log.
You have to jump into the pit, landing near the center. This is still quite
easy, but slightly harder than Level One.
As for how to handle the segmented logs on the bottom: when you jump onto one,
DON'T JUMP DIRECTLY ONTO THE NEXT YET. You'll miss. You'll die. Instead,
take a step backward first. Stand on the back end of the segment. THEN jump
forward.
LEVEL THREE
Difficulty: 3/5
Since the bottom log moves, you could fall through any of the four pits if you
time it right. My favorite strategy is this: Run directly down the rope,
wasting no time. Jump all the way over the first (rightmost) pit. Then jump
over the next pit. Then walk rightward into that pit. If you didn't waste any
time on the way over, you'll land on the moving log, such that you'll be able
to immediately jump to the right and grab the brick on the log's first cycle.
Of course, you have to then wait around for the log to finish its second cycle
before you can jump back onto it... but I really don't see a way around that.
LEVEL FOUR
Difficulty 5/5
Aaaarrgghh this level. Segmented moving logs!!! So hard to time the shortcut!
Even without the crawling spiders it would be hard to time this jump, but with
them, it's as difficult as the game ever gets. If things line up just right,
I'll go for it, but often it's easier to skip the shortcut altogether and just
run through the level the slow way (going all the way to the end of every
floor).
Even if you do go the long way, you still have to time the jump onto the
segmented moving logs from the shore, which is fairly difficult. I can't
really give you any advice about that other than to practice until you get a
feel for it.
When you are on the logs, I can give you advice about how to jump forward from
one segment to the next.
1: Wait until the logs are moving forward.
2: Be at the front of your segment. (This is the opposite of Level Two's
segmented non-moving logs, where you jumped from the back of the segment.)
3: Don't forget to wait for those dangling spiders to go away!
LEVEL FIVE
Difficulty: 3/5
Ahhhhh a brief respite from the madness of those segmented moving logs.
This is the same thing as level three, with one exception: the log disappears.
Fortunately, this never makes the stage harder, only slower.
When I say disappears, I mean that. It's not just invisible. If you time in
your head where the log should be and try to jump on it, you'll fall through.
In short: if you can't see it, you can't touch it. So wait for it to reappear
before jumping on it.
Here's another tip. If you jump on a nonflashing log and it starts flashing,
don't panic. You have enough time to wait until it gets to shore and jump off
without rushing.
However, if you're on the shore, don't jump onto a log that's already flashing.
Not enough time to cross the river before it vanishes.
If you die on this level the log turns a darker color than normal. This is
meaningless. Treat it like a regular log.
LEVEL SIX
Difficulty: 5/5
Noooooo, it's the moving segmented logs again!
This time they vanish, like the big log on Level Five, but once more, this does
nothing to make the level harder -- just slower. As for the timing of the
jumps, use the Level Four strategy and you'll be fine.
Also, don't be scared of the extra-large crawly spider. It's still small
enough for you to jump over.
YOU WIN!
If you can pass all six levels, you'll finally have walled the monster up! You
get a nice victory animation and song (although neither are as cool as the game
over animation and song). Then your high score will be displayed on the screen
indefinitely.
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-- 7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ---
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Thank you to James Rolfe (the Angry Video Game Nerd) for bringing this game to
the public's attention. I would not have discovered it otherwise.
Un-thank you to the makers of literally every Atari compilation for not
including this game. Was the licensing really that hard? I don't care! It
would have been worth it! This game is great! And the same goes for Dracula
by the way.
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-- 8. CONTACT ------------
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I love email! Reach me at
[email protected].
Peace, love, and retro gaming,
Cotton
