R-SWYPE

By daveysludge

Genre: Christmas Crapper

With R-Swype, davey has completed his copro-trilogy and also coined another excellent poop-pun.  It bears more similarities to Dung Darach than Thunderturds, though it’s not a mere rehash – it has some pretty nifty new additions.  It should also be pointed out that like his other games, it is programmed in machine code, features great graphics making clever use of the spectrum’s attributes, is very playable and far too good for the CGC!  However, as we approach that time of year in which many of us spend a lot of time working on a hearty yule log, it is well timed.

The aim of the game is to guide Mark Barton Dung around and ram 3 poops down the bog, at which point Scott Faece appears (announced by a bit of BEEP FX digital speech) and you must collect the Omega Cider which fuels the rocket out.  There is a nifty bit of gameplay in the later levels with the bog roll, which Mark Barton Dung can shift but Scott Faece cannot.  So you have to think ahead to allow Scott to access the cider, and ensure the rocket is not impeded by the bogroll (hmm, what sort of rocket can’t go through paper?).  The time limits often prove prohibitive (see hack sack) but what can I say, this game is fantastic – play it.

Not crap at all, an afternoon consuming great game.  Thankyou davey!

Download TAP
Download inlay1
Download inlay2

HACK SACK:     Oodles of time: POKE 53499,x

                        Infinite time:        POKE 53581,0


 

Dung Darach

By daveysludge

Genre: Arcade: dungpush

 FANTASTIC GAME ALERT!

 
Here we have davey’s second entry to the competition, and like the last it revisits some of his work from the 80’s and has a scatological theme.

From a crap game point of view there are just too many things 'wrong' with this, so many in fact it’s easier to list as bullet points:

·         Nice music and sound effects (especially the YEAHHH! at each level end)

·         Amazing graphics

·         Fun and challenging to play
·         Appropriate difficulty gradient (levels 10 and 15 are when it gets tougher)

·         20 well designed levels

·         Programmed in machine code

·         Uses a multicolour effect

·         Nice looking cassette inlay

 

For shame!

Here’s the backstory:

A pink hippopotamus is on the rampage and defecating all over town, in this game you assume the role of Mark Barton Dung who must roll the giant faeces into his turd burger making machine.

 

After you pick your jaw up off the floor and start playing, you start off as a cute little bug and you must eat until you are big enough to move the hippo droppings.  Avoid the roaming baddies, some deplete your energy, others are not interested in you until you are big enough to eat – then they chase and eat you.  You can’t push the dung but instead you walk through it, and it appears in your previous space.
 

It is great to play but I’m especially impressed by the graphics.  DD works with the spectrums attribute quirks to look as if we’re getting more colours per square than normally possible.  Doing this does mean the sprites move in 2 character steps but it gets away with it (1 space would have been possible but probably harder to code).

One to enjoy, and complete.

Thankyou davey!

Tipshack: In the later levels try to eat the best placed last object, often farthest from the chasing baddies.  Levels 17 and 20 are particularly difficult, and sometimes you might want to wait (if you can last) until a blue/white pill appears to get the advantage.

Download SNAPSHOT, WAV1, WAV2, INLAY1, INLAY2

Download alternative: Thisgame is too good to sell short, so I’ve ‘done a Harry’ on it: download the toilet humour free version with QAOP keys: BugBurger.  (Sorry davey!)

HACK SACK: as this game is a bit special, I asked hacker extraordinaire Andrew Ryals to do some POKEs: <<HACKS PENDING>>

Thunderturds

By daveysludge

Genre: Scatform

GOOD GAME ALERT!  So good in fact that I’m reticent to review it as a CGC entry, especially as I know how much work has gone into it.  I’ve been following the trials and tribulations of davey’s machine code help threads on the World of Spectrum forums, and I get the impression he’s been having a lot of the same agonising bug fixing problems that I had.  Nevertheless, it has been submitted to the CGC, isn’t perfect and is called Thunderturds, so here goes.

In this game you are Scott Faece, and you must soil all the blue tiles while avoiding various dung themed baddies (oh and a laser beam).  So in principle TT is a painter game, though perhaps dirty protest would be more appropriate.

Given that it’s a wet Sunday afternoon, and davey provided me with WAV files it seemed rude not to load on it onto real hardware.  Firstly notice the lovely loading screen, which is an animated image that takes advantage of the Spectrums flash attributes (not only that, the intro screen has a rainbow effect!).

The game inlay describes the game as joystick only (but keys 67890 work fine) so for the first time ever I had a go with one.  I’ve never been a joystick waggler, and despite my unresponsive old stick (oh puhh-leees) it works ok .  All the sprites move in character steps, which enabled davey to put some fantastic colourful graphics together – these and the animations on collision are outstanding.

TT has a good difficulty gradient over the 20 levels, and gets quite frantic towards the end.  Very enjoyable.

The bad points?  A few times the baddies got trapped behind a block, which meant you couldn’t ‘get’ that square and complete the level, a small bug* when it loops around after level 20, and for me the scatological theme.

All in all though a really playable game, one that is now on cassette and in my ‘good’ games collection.  Thankyou davey!
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Download game z80 here.

WAV files here, here and here.

Inlays 1 and 2.
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Tipshack: Keep a close eye on the dung fly -the only one that chases and can move on to you, if you stay still the other baddies will treat you as a block and move around you. Not sure if that’s a bug or intentional.

HACK SACK:

Keys QAOP:

POKE 64445,251                POKE 64416,253                POKE 64474,223                POKE 64501,223

POKE 64449,1                     POKE 64420,1                     POKE 64478,2                     POKE 64505,1

*daveysludge has uploaded a bugfixed version, which gives a 'sort of' end of game sequence and loops.