Mountains of Ketchup

By Rebelstar without a cause
 
Genre: Adventure sauce
 
Mountains of Ketchup (a pun on the ZX Spectrum adventure classic Mountains of Ket of course) marks Rebelstar’s 15^th entry to this year’s CGC.  First impressions suggest a rather simple poorly presented BASIC adventure (though is faithful to Ket’s layout) but don’t be fooled – still condiments run deep.

I like the use of action keys instead of typing commands, and the fact there is no limit on how much you can carry (though I’m not sure if I could carry a lawnmower and a mine detector at the same time in reality).
 
I’m not going to spoil the surprise but in addition to the simple text puzzles, there are some built in arcade style mini-games embedded in MOK which brought the biggest smile to my face.
 

Mountains of ketchup is tinged with tripe but is an excellent kernel of an idea that I’d love to see expanded upon.  I have to say I was disappointed it finished so quickly!
 
It’s crap, but play it, really – it’s great.

Thankyou Rebelstar!

<What the hell are the slippers for?>
 
Download here.
Download Game Map.

Dearest Urinals

By Steve McCrea

Genre: Text: typing pirates

Garrrr!  Come ‘ere Jim laaaad, come sit on Cap’n Long John Silver’s knee, I ahhzz a deal for ye.  See this in my chest me hearty?  That be a ZX-Spectrum, the finest booty I’ve ever swagged during my sweet trade, from a bald pated lubber while aaat port o’ Cambridge.  Let’s be playing a grand game, called dearest urinals – that be an anagram of the finest story evarrrr told me hearty.  This cassette I be holding here has but one and twenty kilobytes of text from it, some fine graphics to boot and makes fine use of the F, the Z and the X.

 

Now then matey, here’s what we do.  Said Speccy be quoted a passage from said book and you must unjumble them there letters as quick aaaazz you can, the longer you wait the further me and my gen’lmen o’ fortune go.  First one to treasure island wins, or rather Jim laaad, if the jolly roger gets thaaar first, the squiffies aboard your swaggy will experience a keelhauling they’ll never forget.

Thankyou Steve!  (Now pass the grog)

Download here.

EDIT - reading that back I realise at some point I lost 'Pirate' and took on 'Cornish'

Dr Who Adventure

Dr Who Adventure

By Steve McCrea

Genre: Text Lords

 
Oh No!  The tardis has spun after control after a heavy session of Galiferian whistling angel juice, or something.  Unlike Steve’s other games this one is programmed in C and despite being probably impossible without reading the tips/walkthrough it is rather good (I say probably impossible, but that might just be because I’m rubbish at text adventures).

 You don’t have to be a Dr Who expert to recognise the chilling scream of the Dalek – “EXTERMINATE”, superbly rendered using BEEPFX.

 Have a bash & see how far you get (clues are cunningly hidden in the text), then read the tips and see if you can solve it.  It has some crap qualities but at its heart is a well designed puzzle with some depth to it.

 Also put your hands together to Steve’s entry number 21, equal to the record of most CGC entries in one year.

Thankyou Steve! 

Download TAP here.

Download tips here (recommended!)

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. 

Pope Springs Eternal

By Steve McCrea

Genre: Text Salvation

A second entry from Steve in the Papal minicompetition.

You are the Pope (YEAH!!) and you must ‘get out’ before too much damage occurs to your reputation and still reach the first circle of heaven.  How long can you last?

 

Another excellent (well crappy) program, with some superb swearing detection.  Top satire too, and a flamboyant way with words, thankyou Steve!

Tipshack: Quit while you still can!

HACK PACK: at the start of line 20 change to FLASH 1: BORDER 2:INK 3: PAPER 6:CLS, this will give the game a sense of urgency to make you do the right thing.

Download here.

127 Hours

By Steve McCrea

Genre:  Text amputation

Just imagine.  While out for a little potter you fall and get your arm trapped under a heavy boulder in an isolated canyon.  There is no chance of pulling your arm free intact….what to do?  Obviously you cut your arm off (unless you’re a big girl), but how to decide the optimal amount of time to wait until doing so?

Some of you may spot similarities between this game and the story of Aron Ralston.  A climber who had a similar experience while out ‘canyoneering’ in Utah.  Now, I would have done more research on the hinterland of this topic, but couldn’t be bothered, because as we all know all extreme sports are a pointless waste of time.

I assumed this was created using a designer but the code is done from scratch in BASIC.  This means it can have as many quirks as the author wants, including some amusing curse detection – very pleasing to see good old fashioned British swearing catered for!  It’s just a shame “Balderdash” is not there.

So the question still remains?  How long would you wait until you did the deed?  Well, I can give you a bloody big clue: 126 hours is not enough, but 128 is too many.

As usual with text adventures though, it’s worth exploring it without looking at the code first, just to see what you might have tried.  It didn't recognise everything I thought of.

An amusing entry, and crap.  Thank you Steve!

Tipshack: don’t go east.  But if you must wait 127 hours then cut your arm off.

HACK PACK: Stop faffing and grasp the nettle!  Add at the start of line 210 LET a$=”cut off arm”: LET h=127

Download here.

Type C for Crap

By Rebelstar without a cause

Genre: Text sojourn

Ooh a text adventure, I didn’t expect one of these in the CGC.  It was authored with P.A.W  (professional adventure writer), but that’s fine because crap games can still be made in a quality designer – as Rebelstar demonstrates here!  I didn’t have a clue what to expect from the title and got a big surprise when the game started.

In TCFC you play a beleaguered crap games competition host called R-Tape (poor sod) and you have to try and join the games club, where apparently they play nothing but quality games.  There are a few references to the attendees of the World of Spectrum forums that regulars there will be able to spot.

I always been hopeless at text games, and have bad memories of the Hobbit when I was younger grasping to find the correct word to take the tankard off the table (or something).  So phrases like ‘I don’t understand’ or ‘You cannot do that’ give me the whirlies.  Type C for Crap is no different in this respect, and after spending a fruitless amount of time trying to get a bleeding video game off the shelf I decided to cheat instead.  On discovering the solution it’s clear that seasoned text gamers will get through this game in no time.

TCFC has quite an extensive vocabulary, the phrase detection is not quite perfect, but you can’t have everything can you…

Also, whatever you do don't ask for HELP!

The swearword detection is quite poor however, and only detects ‘F-bomb’ and ‘Swear’, mind you just as well I suppose because you’ll be needing a few choice words to describe this game.

Download here.

Tipshack: SPOILER ALERT! 12 moves:
EXAMINE COUCH/TAKE KEY/EXAMINE DESK/TAKE DVD/UNLOCK DOOR/OPEN DOOR/W/GIVE DVD TO BOOZY/TAKE BADGE/WEAR BADGE/W/W

100% Unofficial First Entry Simulator

By Shaun Bebbington (DONKEYSOFT)

Genre: diabolical adventure

The 100%UFES gets off to an excellent start by not autorunning upon loading.  Having to type RUN and press ENTER is not a particularly onerous task but is just irksome enough to add crapness.  And as the 3^rd entry in the competition the title is rendered completely redundant!  So before even starting the player knows they should brace themselves for something special (granted the coder has added the caveat that it may not actually be the first entry).  It’s this level of attention to detail that gets bonus points in the CGC.

They say the pictures are better on the radio, and that modern fancy effects cannot outstrip the power of the players imagination – which is just as well because 100%UFES seems to have just one screen!  It does however, transport you to an eerie dark cavern, Why are you there?  What lurks behind the veil of darkness?  Powerful stuff.

The aim is to escape the caverns without being eaten by a Grue.  The tension rises as you walk (signified by an optimal ~2.7 second PAUSE) between caves, and you are warned when a hungry Grue is near – a terrifying thought.

On examining the code you can tell the game engine is driven by the powerful RND command.  So as you wander N,S,E or W your fate is (almost) entirely dependant on the Spectrums random seed variable.  From about 10 tries 2 of them resulted in success.

I don’t know much about non speccy games, but it’s encouraging to see that 100%UFES has not been on general release a day yet and there are already remakes!

If you are lucky enough to escape the caverns without being eaten, you are treated to the hallmark of a truly crap game: the STOP statement.  On reaching this point, if you have any sense, you will turn right around and get back into those caverns for another exciting game!

CRAP!

Download game and instructions here.

Tipshack: The game code checks that you are moving in a straight direction when it is ready to let you escape, so pick a direction and stick to it!

HACK PACK: Grue not hungry: 13 LET zork=170