Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Computer Game is a 1990 scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by Core Design. It was released by Virgin Games for Amiga, Commodore 64,[1] Amstrad CPC,[2] and the ZX Spectrum.[3] It is loosely based on material and characters from the 1970s British comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, in particular the Gumby character. (From Wikipedia).

There are many different versions of the game on a lot of systems, but the Amiga version looks to be the best. Almost all versions suffer from various issues, but the Amiga version has PROPER CAMERA SCROLLING, sound effects, some voiced lines, more visible bullets., and it looks to have made the last boss have a more reasonable health pool. This tas is for DOS version however which seems to be among the worst versions. The poor screen scrolling in particular is massively obnoxious and makes the game far more difficult and annoying than it should be. Think Bubsy and you won't be too far off. A side note I think this is maybe the only video of the DOS version. It's issues make me think that beating this game would be very difficult even for someone well versed in the game.

The game has three core gameplay sections. The first is the platforming, the second is the shoot 'em up, and the third is a reaction minigame.

The platforming sections are clunky and awkward with the character with screen interruptions in the middle of gameplay. Movement in the game does have some momentum, and most of the time it is better to just hold the direction of movement even if the character to moving against the wall. What tends to happen is that Gumby starts moving and by the time he starts going to get enough height to clear the obstacle nicely he is behind by a pixel or two. There is an oddity if you land on the very edge while moving forward into a ledge where Gumby gets stuck, but could jump again. The only sort of bug I found is that when jumping, crouching, and shooting at the same time Gumby can have a reduced sprite height, but collision seems to be the same. There is a trick to reduce or eliminate knockback if the player presses the opposite direction from the current movement. Sometimes though releasing all pressed directionals on taking damage works better. The game starts with three lives which can be increased if the player collects a lot of various items to get a lot of points. This tas gets no extra lives. If Gumby, the character, loses all his health he will die and revive on the spot as long as there are lives to spare. There are life pickups like Spam, Eggs, Sausage, and Beans. The Spam and Sausage are the most plentiful with Sausage nearly giving back full health. Enemies can potentially drop health items, but it seems like it is limited to only certain enemies and only to certain items. In the stages there are minibosses and bosses that will allow Gumby to pass to the next area only upon their defeat. Gumby can only shoot two fish on screen at once and each deals only one HP to enemies. The usual health amount of these bosses is 15 with the last boss having a huge increase at 80. 1 hp equals to one damage. Note that when taking damage from enemies it is almost always the best choice to take damage only from the little bullets. The little bullets do one damage per hit while contact damage about five. There is some invincibility frames after getting hit, but it seems inconsistent since additional bullets can do more damage to Gumby. Also depending even after taking bullet damage and getting invincibility contact damage might apply to so it requires a little testing to get the positioning right.

The shoot em up sections are where Gumby takes the form of either a fish or a bird. Although similarly to the normal humanoid form the fish shoot out slightly below the top of the head. This makes certain sections awkward since breakable objects in the way may require an extra up then down movement. The fish is strange to control since the fish is always moving upward if there are directionals being pressed. The bird is the opposite with the bird falling with no directional being pressed.

The Argument minigame section requires pressing the direction which is furthest away from the speech bubble above the argue-er. The fastest way to complete it is to agree so not much of an argument. It speeds up the more you argue with less and less time to disagree. Eventually the game only gives the player one frame to disagree or the Argument section ends. But it does seem endless with save states like in a tas.

At the end of each stage there is an item pickup cutscene and point evaluation. The cutscene is faster the less items you pick up since Gumby spits them backup into a hole which takes some time. So for each item there is a cost that is due at the end of the stage. During the point evaluation there is a Time Bonus and a Cheese bonus.

To run the game enter "PEGA" and then Enter. Next there is a kind of copy protection for this game and it requires the player to identify images of cheeses in the "Cheeseblok Protection System". The cheese images and their label can be found throughout the rather silly manual of "The Official Hungarian Phrase Bokk: Complete with Dance Steps" err the "Monty Python Flying Circus Manual". Once the cheeses are identified press space to continue.

Gumby initially is a humanoid but turns into a fish. The object is to find brain pieces, but this tas is going for fastest completion so Gumby will have to do without. There are sections of the beaten path that can lead to bonus stages for health item pickups but those will all be ignored. Throughout the stage there are little cans(?) and these can contain health item pickups with most of the more difficult to reach cans containing items. Sometimes certain objects need to be hit with a fish which allows the item be released from somewhere. But these trigger spots are rare but also change something in the stage to progress to the next section. For example there is a section in this stage where shooting a button releases a manhole type thing on the bottom which shoots upwards. The exit for that is at the bottom. There are several sections and some minibosses, but there is nothing overly hard here. This is the most fair of the levels.

This is probably the hardest stage, because there are a lot of strange sections and sections that force damage. Overly narrow paths, bouncing heads, and flying toes that come at you from right near the edge of the screen, and bombs coming out of grinning faces there are a lot of damage parts that need to be compensated for. Here I sacrifice a life pretty early on to continue on at a brisk pace. This stage is where a lot of cans will be shot offscreen or where I start to shoot them before they come onscreen. An odd movement quirk is that holding forward and down allows Gumby to keep moving forward and also shooting fish at knee height. In this stage the teeth will bounce Gumby and deal damage at the same time. The other oddity is that sometimes to get to the next section an open mouth will need a fish to be shot into it. The Toe Mammoth boss is not hard as long as the toe it shoots out is dodged.

Gumby as a bird is quirky, but similar to the fish form. The shots fire a little below his max height so it is not possible to keep moving forward to shoot cans or enemies in the way without making vertical adjustments. The bird form is also constantly falling when not moving. This stage and the next final stage are all about narrow paths with enemies with beefy health pools that the game wants you to kill to progress. Of course here the fastest way to bully through taking damage from the bullets to avoid contact damage whenever possible. This necessitates sacrificing a life and getting health pickups. There seems to be a unique pickup in the form of a radish in one can in a single section that kills all enemies on screen. The hardest miniboss is also in the stage which is a bouncing appliance. The appliance spawns these little soldier dolls that shoot up into the air if Gumby is above them. There is some strangeness with screen scrolling and these little dolls. I noticed that depending on when you do the screen scrolling and kill the dolls up to the point of revealing the miniboss appliance they could spawn more than expected right near Gumby. These little infinitely spawning flying soldiers also do contact damage making these very dangerous. With the appliance the best strategy is to initially shoot it offscreen, move a little closer than take bullet damage and try to finish it off quickly. Similar to other minibosses and bosses.

Final Stage starts with a weird unskippable cutscene, but Gumby is back to a humanoid at the end. The stage has a lot of tricky parts where damage is taken to move fast. There are some spots where I delay movement to pickup some health items. Like the previous stages the minibosses all drop a health item which I get. The car enemies seem to guarantee a health pickup and they often drop Sausage which is nearly a full health pickup. Conveyor belts can move Gumby either faster or slower than normal. On conveyor belts moving in the same direction I try to keep Gumby on them as long as possible to move faster, and with the opposite ones to jump as much as possible to stay off them. This is the only stage in the game where a couple triggers to end the section are not placed right. In one miniboss you can walk right up to the cans blocking the way and the section will end as long as the miniboss is dead. The same applies to the room with the last boss. Kill the last boss then just walk into the blocks.

Last boss is an inquisitor(?) reclining on a recliner who floats around in the mid air throwing pillows straight forward. The pillows do contact damage on hit instead of the standard one for projectiles. The main problem with the last boss is his enormous health pool of 80 which means eighty hits to defeat. Usually a player needs to jump around and avoid the pillows, but with the tas you can get hit and abuse the invincibility frames to avoid damage from the other pillow he throws near the ground. This means Gumby can get up there and throw fish at the boss at tool assisted speed. It still takes some time, but there is just enough health to survive using that tactic and defeat the boss. The door trigger is bugged so it is not necessary to destroy any of the cans, just walk straight into them to end the final stage.

Final Input is on pressing Space after the score total so the brainless ending text can play.

eien86: Claiming for judging.

eien86: True to its source material, this game is extremely bizarre. And indeed, the screen scrolling is rather dizzying. The author rushes through the different stages and mini-games as fast as possible and taking significant damage along the way. I did not see any obvious time lost and I could not find any comparable run in the webs.

Accepting to Standard.

Publisher: Please use the following movie for final score showing. Also keep in mind this movie syncs with TGOD #1540

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