Game: Karnov
Manufacturer: Data East
Year: 1987
Genre: Platform
Players: 2 players (alternating)
My Version is: The board only (unknown territory)
Screen Position: Horizontal

GAMEPLAY Join Karnov, the fire-breathing Russian strongman, on his hazardous quest to defeat the evil dragon Ryu and find the Lost Treasure of Babylon. Karnov is a vast 4-way scrolling game that combines both strategy and fast action in nine challenging levels of gameplay. It is recognised by arcade addicts everywhere as one of the best games of its kind. Karnov also has something special in the way of characters - have you ever been killed by a skeleton on an Ostrich? Hints and Tips Take things slowly. Try not to move on until you have destroyed all enemies on screen, as you will be making life harder for yourself as more begin their onslaught at once. At the same time, make sure you don't take too long in one location as one or a number of green blobs will fall from the sky, land and transform into mutant Venus Flytrap which fire projectiles in multiple directions. These can be very difficult to avoid.

Why This is in my Collection I have fond memories of playing Karnov on my Spectrum 48K and spending many a raining Saturday and Sunday afternoon round a friend's house taking it in turns to play it on his 128K with the awesome (at the time!) sounds from that AY sound chip. Having spent a weekend in London I made my usual pilgrimage to The Games Exchange just off of Tottenham Court Road to see what they had in stock. After the assistant had spent a couple of minutes reeling off their current list of JAMMA boards I decided to plump for Karnov. The money then was handed over and the board added to my slowly growing collection. It's a shame I don't see the friend I used to play Karnov on the Spectrum all those years back, as I'm sure he'd be in Heaven if he saw this. Hardware Details CPU: 68000 @ 10.0Mhz Sound: M6502 @ 1.50 MHz Sound: YM2203 @ 1.50MHz Sound: YM-3526 @ 3.0MHz Colours: 1024

Home Versions
The following computer formats had versions of Karnov converted by Electric Dreams Software. These were as follows; Spectrum 48/128/+2/+3, Commodore 64/128, Amstrad. Out of the three versions the Spectrum version is worthy of note due to its clever use of sprite masking which virtually eliminated it's infamous colour clash and instead made for one gorgeous looking game.

Karnov 2?
I have been reliably informed that a sequel to Data East's Karnov was released under the title of Karnov's Revenge. Unlike the 1987 original, the follow-up is in a similar vein to Capcom's Streetfighter series of games.