Head Over Heels - Rife With Complex Symbolism?

Posted by simoniker on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @05:41PM from the reading-too-much-into-it dept.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamestudies.org research paper claiming to chart 'interactivity and signification' in classic '80s videogame Head Over Heels. This academic paper notes the presence of a Prince Charles sprite in the classic puzzle/platformer, explaining: "There are puzzles where Head or Heels move a chess piece suspiciously similar to the crown prince of England. On the first semantic level of the game this act is metonymically self-reflexive, referring to the act of playing the game... on the second semantic level, the puzzle metaphorically refers to the way in which Charles has been manipulated to marry Diana." It concludes, marvellously, in finding "...an allegorical reading of the game in terms of love and marriage which for a contemporary English audience may have carried references to the failed marriage between Charles and Diana."

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remake version downloadable by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-31 23:28 · Score: 1, Informative

You can play a remake of HoH make by Retrospec (freeware; Windows, Linux and Mac versions available)
Remake Here by eviltypeguy · 2004-01-01 05:31 · Score: 3, Informative

Speaking of Head Over Heels, you can find the remake here:

Windows 98+, Linux, Mac OS X, BeOS:

http://retrospec.sgn.net/games/hoh/