Maggie Thatcher: Milk Snatcher

By Steve McCrea

Genre: Arcade: Rickets

Firstly, congratulations to Steve on his world record 22^nd entry to the CGC.

This entry takes us all the way back to 1971, and you are a primary school teacher trying to evade the milk snatching talons of Margaret Thatcher.

It’s actually a pretty nice maze game, the object of which is to run around the school desks collecting milk and giving it to the pupil most in need.  Instead of the traditional symptoms of malnutrition, this game demonstrates need for milk by the sprite flashing on and off!  Once delivered, another carton appears elsewhere in the maze (you can only carry one at a time naturally) and you continue until you’ve done 12 pints or Maggie gets you.  The further you progress in this maze Maggie seems to become better at chasing you, to the point that it does get pretty frantic toward the end of each level (Steve informs me Maggie uses A* pathfinding!).

MT:MS has plenty of crap qualities but I must confess to being disappointed to have completed it so quickly, so it can’t be that bad eh?

 The game is silent, apart from when Maggie does catch you, and you hear her utter those terrifying words… “I want milk”.

(either that or ‘I like pomme frites’, I can’t quite tell).

Thankyou Steve!  There’ll be an appropriate prize with your name on it at the end of the year.

Download here.

Collateral Damage

Collateral Damage

By Steve McCrea

Genre: Text - back door war.

After a long summer pause, it’s lovely to see another crap game from Steve in the inbox again.  This mean he is but one entry away (I think)  from equalling the most games entered into the CSSCGC since its conception.

 Collateral Damage is a nice little text adventure with, like some of his other games, a point to make.  No instructions are provided but it is assumed you are the president of the United States, and for posterity it should be noted the USA is currently in an attempt to engineer a military strike against Syria.  The game was submitted before some surprising events that may actually mean on this occasion, the USA will not end up bombing another middle eastern country without UN backing (what’s even more astounding is that the UK voted against being the obedient sidekick).  Let's see.

 However, enough of that, the game itself.  This is coded entirely in BASIC and I was ready to think the slow text printing was a carp feature, though it turned out to be the text wrapping.  The normal text game phrases do not apply here, and you can only type the words in white from the main text.  The game is short and, depending which route you decide to take, open ended.  I do love the little puzzles and humour this game is liberally sprinkled with.

 The big question is: do you go east or west down the corridor?

 Excellent work Steve.

 Download here.

Tipshack: knowing the structure of a doughnut can be useful to this game.  Also, if you choose to, never go to war on an empty stomach.

 HACKSACK: Drone attacks that might not annoy the locals quite as much as usual.  In line 889 change to LET Z=2. 

Dastardly Dave

By Rebelstar without a cause

Genre: Arcade: Satire

 

Never trust a man called Dave, especially when he’s really a David.  Dastardly Dave wants to give tax breaks to his friends but there’s a fly in the ointment: poor people are getting in the way.  You must help Dave destroy the poor people, save a fortune and keep favour with business!

From the indirect references of gritty realism in games like Trashman to the more blatant parody of Denis through the drinking glass, many a ZX Spectrum game has a powerful political message.  I may be slow on the uptake, but I think Dastardly Dave has a subtle and cryptic political edge to it too.

 

The game itself is a good old fashioned shooter, but with a somewhat less aggressive foe than the advancing aliens of Space Invaders.  You are the UDG at the bottom of the screen, which represents either a pointing hand or an amorphous blob (my money’s on the latter).  You must move left and right zapping the meandering paupers, the longer you take to get them all, the more your support dwindles.  It’s a nice touch that each successful hit saves you a whopping 53 pounds, and also that your support can go into negative percent!

 

Poor key response, long soundless pauses when you shoot, no sound at all in fact, jerky slow char movement.  CARP!

Dastardly Dave proves that art is better during a recession, thankyou Rebelstar!

Tipshack: Don’t shoot the poor people!

HACK SACK: Large majority: Line 9050 LET SUP=10000

Download here.

And hells bells, this game has not even been on the web 1 hour and hacked versions are already appearing!  Nick’s Nightmare.  The author is as yet unknown, but I've uploaded this as a warning to others that cracked software is not, I repeat NOT welcome on this site, please do not take this as an invite to do more of the same ;-p.