A game for the
Sinclair ZX Spectrum written by
William Tang and published by
Beam Software in
1982. The game features
Horace, a strange blob with two huge holes for eyes, who also appears in
Hungry Horace and
Horace and the Spiders.
The game comprises of two acts. The first act is basically a clone of Frogger, where Horace must cross the busy road to get to the ski shop. He must then return across the road with his newly purchased skis. The limiting factor in the game is money - Horace needs to have enough money to buy skis and pay the entry fee for the ski slope. However, getting hit by a vehicle on the road means that Horace has to pay an ambulance fee ($10).
The second act involves the skiing itself (it's somewhat similar to SkiFree if you have seen that). You have to make sure you ski between the pairs of flags if you want a high score. If you manage to steer Horace into a tree, sometimes he gets lucky and manages not to break his skis (never mind his legs). If Horace does break his skis, the resilient little fellow is straight back out to the motorway to get back to the ski shop and buy some more.
Horace Goes Skiing is a simple and yet quite addictive game which is better in some respects to Frogger because you have a goal once you've negotiated the road. Amazingly, it fits into well under 48k, and even runs on a 16k Speccy.