0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - 40 Winks

        

40 Winks subtitled Conquer Your Dreams is a Platformer developed by Eurocom and published by GT Interactive for the Playstation 1, it was released in Europe and North America in late 1999, a version of the game was planned for release on the N64 and even had review copies sent to Nintendo Offical Magazine UK and Nintendo Power with the January 2000 issue of the latter even having a strategy guide, however the game was axed very close to it’s release date the N64 version was initially delayed before being cancelled due to the PS1 version not selling well.

The game allows the player to take on the role of either of the main characters Ruff or Tumble, the pair are trying to free 40 winks from a man named Nitekap and his accomplices, the Winks are small white creatures which make dreams, there are also creatures called Hoodwinks these small green terrors are responsible for the nightmares.

During the course of the game the player collects several different types of item, moon shaped tokens are used to scream at apparitions, Z shaped tokens are used to keep the player in the dream world and prevent them from waking up, the player also collects cogs that are used to open doors.

Each of the three levels in each world, the player collects four dream keys that are used to challenge the boss of the world before moving on to the next world, in total there are six different world that the player can go to they are Nightmare, Underwater, Space, Prehistoric, Castle and Pirate, the player can also transform into different beings during the game, Caveman, Robot, Jester for Ruff only while Tumble can turn into a fairy and Ninja.

Nitekap is a bitter man who has been deprived of sleep, driven to insanity by his lack of sleep he plots to rid the world of good dreams by kidnapping small creatures called Winks that are responsible for making good dreams.

With the Winks all kidnapped, Nitekap’s minions called Hood-winks are able to turn all the good dreams in the world to nightmares, the player takes on the role of Ruff or Tumble and is tasked with rescuing all the 40 Winks at the end of each level the daring due must face off against Nitekap’a sidekick Threadbear who is an anthropomorphic teddy bear.

Once the player has rescued all of the 40 winks, Ruff and Tumble can take on Nitekap, who for one last time sends his sidekick Threadbear, who accepts defeat and tries to convince Nitekap to do the same however he refuses, Ruff and Tumble learn from Threadbear that a loud clock has been keeping Nitekap awake the pair destroy the clock and Nitekap is able to sleep at last, with the game ending showing Nitekap trying to get rid of all the Hood-winks.

Despite the poor sales that saw the N64 version being cancelled the game had some solid review scores Game Vortex leading the rating chart for the game coming in with 88/100, Official Playstation Magazine US gave the game 4/5, Total Video Games and Game Informer scoring the game a 7/10, most reviews however fell between 5 or 6 out of 10.

GameSpot however could only give the game a 4.1/10 concluding their review with, 40 Winks might be a good purchase for a parent with a 6- to 10-year-old who's just starting to play video games, but other than that, anyone looking for a quality platformer should look elsewhere.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit five online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific but from a podcast I listen to and  I have heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com as well

So lets get down to business with Gamedude if you are looking to sell your copy of 40 Winks then Gamedude will offer you $3 and if you are looking for a copy of the game it will set you back $9 at Gamedude,  moving over to the uk site Retrogames who sadly don’t have a copy available, eStarland.com has a used complete copy of the game available this used copy will set you back $11.50 if you are looking to trade in your copy of 40 Winks to eStarland.com they will give you $5.

Moving over to Amazon.com the cheapest used copy on offer at the time of writing is an acceptable condition copy for $6.11 this copy Is fulfilled by Amazon and has free shipping on orders over $25 so with the likely shipping fee if you don’t spend that $25 you would likely be looking at a $10 cost for the game.

Which means you may as well pay slightly more for a better quality game, a very good quality used copy of the game will set you back $11.98 + $3.99 for shipping with most copies on sale around the $15 to $20  mark including one copy for $20 with free shipping, and as always the obligatory over priced copy with a fulfilled by Amazon copy on sale for $79.99.

That previous used copy is definitely over priced with a brand new copy of the game with free shipping is available for $54.99 which is £42.27 in the UK and in the Euro Zone that comes to €46.56, the highest price you will be looking at for a new copy of the game is around the $60 + shipping so around $64.

Moving onto Ebay.com where the cheapest you are looking at for a used copy of the game is $6.45 this time the shipping is reasonable with a $2.54 shipping charge most used copies are priced between $10 and $20

Written by

P J Gibbon