Elfmania is a 2D beat 'em up

Beat 'em up

Beat 'em up is a video game genre featuring melee combat between the protagonist and a large number of underpowered antagonists. These games typically take place in urban settings and feature crime-fighting and revenge-based plots, though some games may employ historical or fantasy themes...

 game developed by Terramarque and released by Renegade Software

Renegade Software

Renegade Software was a UK based games publisher, founded in 1991 by the Bitmap Brothers.Initially the Bitmap Brothers used the new label to publish their own games, after they had become dissatisfied with the practices of publishing companies . Their stated goal was to give game developers more...

 in 1994 for the Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

 .

Gameplay

The gameplay is a standard fighting game, but Elfmania does not have special moves triggered by various button combinations, as is typical in most other games of this type. Instead, there are only a few standard attacks and one special move for each character. In order to win the game, different characters have to be used, which need to be bought. To buy more expensive and stronger characters, the player collects gold coins as a reward for beating enemies.

Multiplayer fights use an odd variation of tic-tac-toe

Tic-tac-toe

Tic-tac-toe, also called wick wack woe and noughts and crosses , is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The X player usually goes first...

: the game has an overhead map consisting of squares. Players choose where to fight, and the square is marked with the winner's symbol. Getting a line of six squares wins the game.

Reception

The game enjoyed mixed reviews. One group received it very well, for example a CU Amiga review rated it as 93% and praised it for bringing the quality of console beat 'em ups to the Amiga . Amiga Magazine rated it 10/10 , and Amiga Format

Amiga Format

Amiga Format was a British computer magazine for Amiga computers, published by Future Publishing. The magazine lasted 136 issues from 1989 to 2000. The magazine was formed when, in the wake of selling ACE to EMAP, Future split the dual-format title ST/Amiga Format into two separate publications...

 92% .

On the other hand, Amiga Power

Amiga Power

Amiga Power was a monthly magazine about Amiga computer games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing, and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996....

granted it only 61% , and the Swedish Datormagazin awarded only 1/5 points . This latter group argued that while the game was outstanding graphically, it fell short of any real gameplay.