This is a three reel story featuring that masked vigilante Night Raven and his band of crime fighters. Jason and Richard took the hero roles and I looked after the various nefarious bad guys.
The Heroes
Night Raven (masked vigilante (nothing like the Shadow!))
Doc Hans Weiss (bonkers boffin)
Janet White (Hans' feisty debutante daughter)
Corky the Jungle Girl (Hans' other daughter (raised by zebras))
Palooka Joe Dimmick (prize fighter)
Jack Blackjack Thrasher (Naval Air Intelligence)
Villains
Lo Shay (Oriental mastermind of crime)
Tiger Lily (Sultry sidekick)
Col Yashimoto (Ambitious Japanese Officer)
Mad Dog Mulligan (Megalopolis gangster chief)
Reel 1 - Megalopolis Docks
Corky the Jungle Girl has been kidnapped by Mad Dog's gangsters in the employ of that villain of the Orient, Lo Shay and his deadly but beautiful side kick Tiger Lily. They know that Night Raven and his team will not rest until they can rescue Corky. At the same time Tiger Lily and Lo Shay have offered to sell the secret of a great ancient power to Col Yashimoto who wishes to stage a coup in Japan by destroying the American fleet.
The scene is set at the docks.
Lo Shay and Tiger Lily guard the captive Corky.
The game begins as Night Raven and his team screech to a halt at a barricade across the entrance to the docks. Left to right - Palooka Joe, Janet, Night Raven and Doc Weiss. Blackjack Thrasher was clinging to the back of the gangsters car and is already hiding in the docks.
Mad Dog's gangsters open fire.
Our heroes reach the first barricade and the ever innovative Doc Weiss begins to build a device from parts of the Mad Dog's jalopy.
Janet and Night Raven exchange fire with the gangsters.
Palooka Joe is none too bright and decides to take cover in amongst some propane tanks. What could possibly go wrong...?
Joe blows the special effects budget in one blast as he is thrown back against the fence by the force of the exploding gas tanks.
Lo Shay finally tires of the constant escape attempts and puts the lovely but easily led Corky into a hypnotic trance.
Some unfriendly looking longshoremen try to outflank Night Raven's team.
Doc Weiss has managed to build a blinding light ray which he uses to dazzle the longshoremen, allowing the recovered Joe to use his mighty fists to put them out of action.
Night Raven is pinned down as he and Janet advance towards the tramp steamer.
Palooka Joe and the prof make a dash across the gang plank and up onto the ship. Lo Shay gives a signal and a ninja force appears out of the hold and crew compartments.
Lo Shay is distracted long enough for Corky to get free and she makes short work of the nearest ninjas. Mad Dog (in red) makes a grab for the jungle girl and both fall over the side and into the water. Seeing their foes closing in, Lo Shay, Tiger Lily and Yashimoto disappear into the hold.
Black Jack meets Janet at the gang way having seen Night Raven plunge seemingly lifeless into the water. They promise vengeance and dispatch more of the ninjas.
The Doc goes down into the hold and finds no sign of the villains. There is however a strange hatch in the bottom of the hull...
Night Raven scrambles up the side of the light ship in time to see the departing submersible of Lo Shay. The entranced Corky is still in his claws.Night Raven rejoins his team where he finds a note in a feminine hand telling him to go to the Megalopolis Hall of Antiquities....
Tiger Lily has discovered that an ancient key in the museum is in fact a trigger for a device which can unleash the forces of nature against any target. This is the secret which Col Yashimoto is prepared to pay handsomely for. The villains are gathered around the display case when Night Raven and his team arrive in the dinosaur hall next door.
In the foreground the hall of antiquities at the Megalopolis Museum. In the next hall is the new clockwork animated dinosaur exhibit.
Colonel Yashimoto takes the key and declares that he will sink the American fleet with the device.
At which point Mad Dog and his boys realise that they are fighting for the wrong side. The gangsters flee leaving Mad Dog who faces off against his former employers. Corky is left bound and gagged but unguarded. She manages to escape and rejoin the team.
Our heroes start to make their way through the dinosaur exhibit. The Doc cannot help himself and starts tinkering with their clockwork motors.
Tiger Lily attacks the treacherous Mad Dog but comes off worst.
Lo Shay senses the presence of Night Raven and using an amulet of animation brings the terracotta warriors to life.
Black Jack and Janet pick their way through the undergrowth.
And now a word from our sponsor (product placement alert).
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Mad Dog smashes a warrior and faces off against Yashimoto but the Colonel seeing that Night Raven's team are making short work of the animated statues follows Lo Shay and Tiger Lily through a secret panel and makes good his escape with the key.
Out of two sarcophagi leap two chinese vampire/mummy/things. Joe puts paid to one of them in no time at all. As Lo Shay leaves the scene the remaining statues fall silent and still.
"I'm here!" shouts the Doc from astride his now remote control Triceratops model. Corky sighs and tells her pop to stop messing around. Corky looks around for her sister but she is nowhere to be seen.Night Raven finds another note telling him that if he wants to see Janet again then he must go immediately to the island of Tana-Tutu.
Reel 3 - Welcome to the Jungle
The Pacific Island of Tana-Tutu has the last remnants of an ancient civilisation. In a ruined temple is the device into which Yashimoto must place his key.
Night Raven's team are reinforced by sailors under the command of his old pal Capt Quentin MacNabbe and his First Mate Charley Parker.
Yashimoto has brought with him some of his personal mercenary guards and Janet.
The temple complex in the middle of the island. The volcano smokes and rumbles.
The heroes enter the valley down the steep slopes of the volcano. Corky summons assistance from her wild animal friends. A huge pelican answers her call.
Yashimoto's personal guard make their way through the jungle.
They are set upon by vicious pygmies.
As the heroes step into the temple ruins, a giant spider swarm swarms (!) out of the the statue and rushes towards them.
Shaky camera work unsurprisingly as a Tyrannosaurus Rex races into the temple as shots and grenades head towards the spiders.
Fortunately for the heroes, the great carnivore is more interested in it's favourite webby snack. Just to give them something else to think about, the sailors in the background are also attacked by pygmies. What a day to be an extra.
Although Parker and one of the sailors are crushed by the stampeding arachnids and dinosaur. MacNabbe (right) just gets away.SPOILER ALERT!!
It turns out that Tiger Lily (she of the feminine handwriting) has been waiting to betray her cruel master Lo Shay and has not told them that a female sacrifice must take place at the same time as the device is activated. This is because she has loved Night Raven "long time". To prove herself she frees Janet and leads her to safety.
Night Raven takes pity on Tiger Lily and vows that Lo Shay will never harm her again.
The mercenaries have lost most of their men in the fight with the pygmies. They set up a machine gun just in time to be duffed up Capt MacNabbe.
Yashimoto pushes the key into the device despite the efforts of Night Raven and Tiger Lily who fail to talk sense into the wannabe dictator who descends into manic laughter. "Nothing can stop me now!"...The ground starts to shake and black smoke appears out of the volcano...
Doc Weiss has spotted that some of the local flora produces a strange acid type sap to which its own leaves are immune. He makes a football size container from the giant leaves and hands to the former college quarterback Blackjack Thrasher. Blackjack takes careful aim an throws it through the arch to Night Raven...
"Touchdown!", Night Raven catches the ball shaped leaf and throws the acid sap into the device. The rumbling continues but subsides slightly. All they can do now is escape from the island.
Remaing extras are burned alive as a great crack starts to open across the temple floor.
Lava bursts fall down onto the temple and the surrounding jungle.
The Pelican looks down on the scene.
Lo Shay realises that the game is up and makes for the relative safety of jungle...
...and is intercepted by Night Raven. They do battle across the flaming crevasse.
One of the sailors fails to leap the increasing gap. The now totally insane Yashimoto ignores his pleas and laughs as he disappears from sight.
Yashimoto falls into the crevasse and screams for mercy and help. The pelican swoops down, looks Yashimoto in the eye and pecks his fingers. Yashimoto falls to his death.
In true Reichenbach style the protagonists disappear down the crevasse into the smoke and flames. What will become of them..?Epilogue
MacNabbe sailed clear of the sinking island into the red sunset. The Doc, Janet, Corky, Joe and Blackjack Thrasher along with Tiger Lily leaned on the stern rail scanning for any sign of Night Raven.
With a flap of his great wings Corky's pelican swooped down towards the steamer. In it's beak were two items. The pelican landed on the deck in front of the distraught defenders of justice and dropped them at their feet. Janet reached down and picked them up. They were burnt, bloodied and torn but both items were unmistakeable - the mask of Lo Shay and the black hat of the Night Raven...
To Be Continued...
Looks like fun. The pelican is my friend!
ReplyDeleteThe pelican never got named. He also turned up in the museum. Not sure how he got in!
DeleteOk you have to name the pelican, he is just too strange and cool to not have a name.
ReplyDeleteThat's was one of the coolest looking games ever! Where was the volcano in the third reel from?
ReplyDeleteThe volcano was from a kids playset picked up in a discount shop ages ago. It came with some dinosaurs (always useful!).
ReplyDeleteMr. Slade, if we may be so bold, we'd like to suggest a name for the pelican. Further, we imagine the name came about as the result of the following conversation:
ReplyDeleteCorky: “ Him big pigeon, that why him name is Flappy the Squib.”
Janet: First of all, Corky, the word for pigeon is “squab” not “squib” and second he’s a pelican!
Corky: Corky raised in jungle, know all thing about animals.
Janet: Corky you were raised by giraffes, that hardly qualifies you as an ornithologist
Corky: Hey, Corky good girl, she no do orno!
Respectfully submitted,
Bob Zaccano and Jeff Wasileski (The Authors)
PS We are so very glad you enjoyed our game!
Also to clarify, we do know that Corky was actually raised by zebras, but Janet was always a bit vague on that chapter of her sister's life.
ReplyDeleteBob & Jeff