Rick is armed with a pogo stick (which can temporarily stun some enemies), gun, and dynamite. Both gun and dynamite have limited uses, which are replenished by certain Power Ups. The first game starts out with some adventures in the jungle and pyramids, when you find out about a Nazi plot to destroy London, and have to take out their missile base. The second game starts with an alien attack on London, and has you hijacking the alien ship and taking it to their planet to stop them.
This game provides examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Rick has escape some "angry amazonian antagonists" in one level and rescue the "cruelly captured commandos" in another.
- Badass Cape: In the sequel.
- Detail-Hogging Cover: The cover art depicts Rick as a realistic human.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: the second game allows you to start at any of the four levels. However, to actually open the fifth level, you must start at the first and play all four, with no continues. To win the game, you must again start at the first and play all five with no continues.
- The End... Or Is It?: Both games end like this. The first one concludes with Rick's triumphant return to London, but a flying saucer — a part of incoming alien invasion — is clearly visible in the sky overhead. In the sequel, Rick defeats and seemingly kills the Big Bad and returns home via teleporter... only to be closely followed by the Fat Guy, who apparently managed to survive after all. In each case, a comment "...what Rick will do next?" is displayed.
- Expy: Rick is an Expy of Indiana Jones. Rick runs from boulders, fights Nazis, and even has a similar hat. In the sequel he's an Expy of Flash Gordon.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: A nice touch, however, is that all the Malevolent Architecture will also kill the enemies if they run into it. The enemies are not the dangerous part of the game.
- Eye-Obscuring Hat: In the first game Rick's eyes are always hidden under his hat. In the sequel they're hidden under his quiff.
- Fake Trap: Final room in Egypt, where the spikes retract. 8-bit platforms do not have this room.
- Human Aliens: The space invaders from evil Barfian Empire in the second game look basically like ordinary humans, except they come from a different planet.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: One level has Rick trying to recover the "Jewel of Ankhel". Will he succeed or will he end up with a "broken Ankhel"?
- Indy Escape: As soon as the first game starts, you have to run from a boulder.
- Keystone Army: In a way. The flying saucers which attack the Earth in the sequel are all remotely controlled and their crews are entirely robotic. Thus, when Rick takes the fight to the enemy territory and destroys their machinery, the whole invasion is instantly thwarted at the source.
- Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: The cover art for the first game shows a woman who's nowhere in the game.
- Notice This:
- The Commodore 64 version had moving blocks colored differently.
- In the first level of the sequel, little arrows conveniently point buttons that allow you to switch off obstacles blocking your way — usually in form of security guns that are firing constantly in such short intervals that it's impossible to pass by. However, on one such occasion, pressing a button that arrow pointed at will fire the gun that's currently aimed at your hero, killing him instantly. In order to go further and survive, you have to press the button next to that one instead.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: There is no health bar in this game — the main hero dies the moment he is touched by an enemy or anything lethal.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The Big Bad in the sequel is never called by his true name and referred to solely and only as the "Fat Guy". Because he's... well, fat.
- Perpetual Smiler: In-game, Rick is constantly bearing the very same, wide grin the way he is on the title screen.
- Platform Hell: Both games are full of hidden traps, spikes that only appear the moment they kill you, and hidden missile throwers.
- Schizo Tech: The second game takes place in year 1945 — but in the meantime, Rick somehow managed to switch his revolver and dynamite for futuristic blaster and delayed-detonation bombs.
- Schmuck Bait: There's an idol that appears for half a second, with an audio cue. It's really a Spikes of Doom trap.
- Sequel Hook:
- In the first game's epilogue, Rick returns to London after thwarting the plans of the Nazis so he could get some well-deserved rest... however, if you look closely at the sky, you may notice a flying saucer approaching in the distance. Cue "...what will Rick do next?" comment.
- At the end of the second game, Rick retrieves his iconic hat and vanishes into a teleporter, then it's revealed that the Big Bad "The Fat Guy" survived and the text "...what will Rick do next?" is once again displayed on the screen.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The aptly named Caves of Freezia in the second game.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: You have two paths. Sometimes the more "dangerous" route is the one to pick, sometimes it isn't.
