Jet Rocket v 2.0

By Iceman (Darken)

Genre: Shoot 'em left

Here we have a piece of not so abandoned-ware, as it first made an appearance in the 2010 CGC and work began on it some 25 years ago!  So after all this time and refinement this game had better be pretty bloody perfect.

 

One of the biggest differences is that this version was done in asm rather than compiled, but the thing is I can’t tell any difference between the two!

The aim of this game is to protect your rocket from the advancing sentient boxes (sorry, robots), or something.  To do so you use the keys 6,7 for up/down and 0 to fire your fearsome laser against the random alien assault.  The position of the rocket towards the left means you don’t have that much time to move to the correct row and shoot the robot, especially if you cock up the keys which I don’t find that intuitive.  I’m not sure what your space suit is made of but you have 3 lives, but if just one robot hits the rocket it’s game over.

There’s a lot of attention to detail in this game, from the advanced loading screen to the in game animations, well animation.  While it’s a lovely animation, the thing is you see it every time you complete a level, and without a skip function it can begin to grate.  In fact I’d swear blind that Iceman has timed it so that it’s not long enough to take the mickey, but not short enough to avoid frustration.  Genius!

Though it probably should be said that the graphics are a bit simple (let’s call them rustic).  

Would be programmers may want to check out some of the support material, of which there is an astonishing amount.

The Hi-Score challenge starts around 6820, I’m sure I could do better but can’t face seeing the animation again.

Lovely little game, nice to see it (again).

Thankyou Iceman!

Download TAP.
Download game and supportmaterial.
Download Loader hack

HACK SACK:
GROUND ATTACK ONLY:        Poke 30517,62; 30518,20;30531,75
NUMBER OF LIVES:                 Poke 28978,x lives (0-255)

Encuerer

By LOKOsoft (a Mojon Twins subsidiary)

Genre: Bang bang titty titty bang bang

Well as we all know, Encuerer is Spanish for lady porridge.  So we can expect a game that contains an abundance of this, and yes, that’s exactly what we get.

 

The game has no loading screen (boo!) but we do get treated to a nice DRAW sequence of a ladies lower regions and some cumulus clouds, possibly with cumulonimbus a layer above but I can’t be 100% certain.  Definitely not altostratus though.

Press a key to start and you get an alarming (and crappy) BEEP sequence, followed by a barmy sounding level name that I’ve yet to decipher (if there is actually any sense behind it that is!) then you are thrown head first into an all action SIDE SCROLLING SHOOTER!  Well yes, side scrolling is quite advanced, especially of the pseudo-parallax nature as we see here, but don’t get too concerned it’s only the bottom few rows and it’s the same blocks repeated over and over!

This compiled BASIC game boasts some outstanding in game features (best expressed in the instructions) and if you’re game, and I hope you all are, it’s actually quite good fun to spend 10 minutes as ENCUERER, the naked flying goddess.  The game is also quite easy, I completed it on my first ‘proper’ try, which is nice.  So go to it!

 

Thankyou LOKOsoft!

Tipshack: Press the ‘M’ key a lot

Download her.  (sorryhere!)

Larry the Lander

By Jammajup

Genre: shoot ‘em down

What the devil is going on??!!  A 2 dimensional scrolling starfield?  A smooth vertical scrolling shoot ‘em up?  Sprites?  Machine code?!  Fear not, this can be explained by the fact that L.T.L was created using two designers: Intro Maker and S.E.U.D, both utilities authored by arch-enemy of the crap games competition Jonathan Cauldwell.

In LTL you scroll downwards and shoot upwards, shoot the moving objects for extra fuel, the score ticks along as you descend.  There are 4 levels in all and a fiendish end of game boss.  Check out the instructions for the obligatory barmy backstory and other info.

It doesn’t have the most sophisticated graphics in the world but the design and playability are well thought out.  Larry the Lander is as tough as old boots, the tortuous and tight maze sections are near impossible to negotiate and there are numerous lures and pincer traps along the way.  Jammajup assures me it can be completed, and has even recorded a video to prove it.  I can only assume that the cruel difficulty gradient in LTL is tailored to oldschool gamers, not modern lilly livered softies of which I am one.

The verdict?  Maybe lacking polish but certainly NOT CARP!

Still, thankyou Jammajup, I enjoyed playing this and will actually be returning to it.  Just one thing Larry....gizza smile.

Tipshack: Use the pokes!

HACK PACK: 

Anti finite lives                  POKE 48523,182

Number of lives:              POKE 48429,#lives

Download here.

Instructions here.

Peace Love and UnderStanding

Peace, Love and UnderStanding

By Steve McCrea

Genre: Lvmup

Peace, Love and UnderStanding (or PLUS from here to maintain a modicum of brevity) can only be described as a shoot em up, and before you start salivating and feverishly shouting “SMASHTHEALIENSDOOMDESTRUCTIONCRASHBANGZAP!!” take note that PLUS is a bit different.  The intro screen gives you an inkling of this when you look at the keys: Z for left, X for right, L for…Love?

On startup you get a very satisfying pause while the BASIC program configures the UDGS (and PLUS uses the full set from A-T), which the LOADING… message nicely informs you of.

The aim of the game is to pilot a talisman of sorts (for which the graphic looks more like a motorbike!) left and right and shoot love hearts (sorry - missiles) at the Doves, YinYangs, CNDs and Oms.  These symbols jerk left to right at varying rates, mostly of slow.  A direct hit gains you harmony, a miss loses it based on time elapsed since your last successful love.  Of course it does.

It’s actually quite difficult to get a successful hit, and annoyingly, once you’ve pressed fire you have to watch your love missile sloowwwwlly run its course to the bottom of the screen.  By this time it’s usually too late to attempt another shot and harmony is lost.

Nice touches include sound effects, 16x16 graphics and a little routine to cycle ink colours each time you pass the intro screen.

There is no compunction to actually ‘join in’ the game, as no harmony is lost if you don’t make any shots nor if a peace symbol makes it to the far right of the screen.  So you can sit back and watch the world go by, though you have to be at peace with the fact that the stakes grow higher with every passing ship - if at some point you do plan to join in.  A very philosophical game and quite a good analogy for life I suppose (If this was intentional Steve, may I compliment you on an ingenious idea).

The words of the great yogi spring to mind ‘Real peace is always unshakeable…bliss is unchanged by gain or loss’.

Bloody hippies.

Tipshack: Load on a real Spectrum, adopt the lotus position, and watch a world of peace and harmony pass over you.

HACK PACK: Infinity Harmony: In line 60 change LET sc=sc-INT to LET sc=sc+INT

 Download here.

Rat Mole!

By Rebelstar without a cause

Genre: Pliagamaze

Hmmm.  Rat Mole!  Reminds me of something somehow* but I just can’t think what.  Anyway, have a look at this introscreen.  You might be forgiven if you thought the asymmetry of the R-Redefine keys was a mistake, but on closer inspection it’s obviously an ingenious way to offset the whole screen and give the game an anarchic feel.

It’s rare for a crap game to have a redefine keys option, and all I will say here is that Rat Mole! takes an….alternative approach to it.

The game starts and gives the appearance of a rather nice 1980s type in maze game.  The goal, I assume, is to shoot all the other udgs on the screen (you are the black one).  The first thing to notice is the speed, Rat Mole! is excruciatingly slow and the keys unresponsive.  In fact at one point I thought the code actually intentionally waited for the baddy to pass before allowing me to shoot at it!  There’s some interesting collision detection here, sometimes you can’t shoot the baddies in the backside, and it’s funny watching them collide with each other and spend a while stationary while deciding what to do next.  The AI involves changing direction on collision with a block or another baddy, so they spend more time on the outer reaches.

It took me a little while to work this out, but when you shoot the blue udg the game completes and gives you a ‘You Success!’ message (and caused me to unintentionally guffaw – quite an achievement).  So the aim of the game is more to ‘shoot the blue UDG’.  I had a poke about in the code but couldn’t see why this was, as it uses the DIMension command which I never got to grips with while learning BASIC (for shame).  There’s some pretty decent coding behind this, especially as it was coded very quickly and after bedtime!

Rat Mole!  has a lot of great features that makes it perfect Cassette 50 material: an inkling of an idea, some effort put in, not too shabby coding, but fundamentally flawed - So well done Rebelstar!

All in all a model entry, and with some sound effects, a few bugs fixed and played on an emulator cranked right up – I would actually enjoy this.

*My lawyers will be in touch

Tipshack: the sprites spend most of the time on the outer corridor, so stay in the middle and shoot from there.

HACK PACK: Immunity 606 LET tomato=255

Download here.

EDIT-Rebelstar downloaded a bugfixed (?!) version which can be downloaded here.