Otters on a Plane

By Anders Carlsson

Genre: Strategy: Otter management

 
It gives me great pleasure to announce the second entry to the CGC 2013 Otter competition, and what a corker it is!

Otters on a Plane whisks us to the very plausible scenario in which you want to fill a plane with live otters.  The otters come in 4 different flavours – black, red and blue, and for some other (unexplained) reason they can only go into a cage of the same colour.  On occasion you get ‘purple’ otters, which can go into any colour of cage or will mate with an already caged otter – which obviously causes both to be removed and the cage made free.  So in this sense you can think of the purple otter as the game’s power up.

 

If all that wasn't barking mad enough then there’s the lawnmower.  I’m not too familiar with air freight, but I now assume that any cargo flight, instead of a hospitality trolley, has a lawnmower trundling down the aisle every so often.  If you activate the lawnmower while it passes through it destroys the adjacent otter, and the cage becomes one of random colour.

 

If you fail to manage your cages correctly and are unable to place your otter you will need to dispose of it, and you are allowed a total of 10 otters before the game is over.  Successfully place 18 otters and you get to do the whole thing all over again.  It’s worth it though, because OOAP contains fantastic use of UDGs and BEEP sounds….and is full of otters of course.

Keys- Space to place the otter, K to destroy said otter.

In summary I’m not sure how much of this game is down to chance or strategy, but it’s hilarious, totally insane and above all – CRAP.  It is also worth bearing in mind that the winner of the otter competition will (if I can still afford it at the end of the year) get a british otter sponsored in their name, so on balance we can turn a blind eye to the game's ottercidal content.

Thankyou Anders!

Tipshack: use the purple otter (ooh err) wisely, use it to fill the as yet most filled cage.  Try to avoid using the lawnmower but remove the most abundant otter if you have to.

HACKSACK:
                        Abundant otters: in line 22 change to LET OT = desired number of otters

                        Infinite otters: in line 50 change to LET OT =OT

                        Infinitely incrementing otters: in line 50 change to LET OT=OT+1

Download the game here and the instructions here.

Futuristic F1 Championship

By Spud

 Genre: Race ‘n’ Cheese

I can’t help but feel I’ve made a rod for my own back here! here we have another entry made using CGD (Classic Game Designer).

 

Picture the scene: it is the year 2143 and it gives me enormous pleasure to say that humanity’s biggest problem is over regulation of Formula 1 racing.  To counter this a new dangerous form of racing has evolved: F FEET.

Motor racing isn’t exactly my thing but as far as I can tell the winner is the one who goes fastest and crosses the line first.  And while using the standard QAOP this may be easy enough, but in FF1C you need to achieve this feat with your own feet!

 At first I genuinely thought you were supposed to play FF1C with your feet, but I’ve since worked out from spud’s nonplussed reply to my email mentioning this that it actually refers to the sprites feet in the game – not the players.  Didn’t stop me having a go though, still managed to complete it.

 

This game makes some of the bugs in my game designer annoyingly apparent – some of the directional blocks make the sprites flicker badly (more accurate would be disappear), and another one that corrupts the font.

Another kernel of a good idea, but compliments to spud for making it crap.  As per the rule – spud now owes us a good game made with CGD (outside of the CGC).

 Thankyou spud! (also the 'effort' prize for the amazing loading screen!)

 Download here.

Parking Meter Simulator

By Angus Gulliver

Genre: Utility: Patience

 We’ve all been there: It’s Saturday, you’ve popped into town with the other half because for some reason or other, you have to go to B&Q.  Again.  If this was all the trip entailed the £2.20 you’ve put on the old jalopy would be ample, but as usual you have to start looking at new bathroom fittings because the old ones "aren’t exciting anymore", then you have to traipse around clothes shops and go into that nice new café.  All the while the parking meter is ticking away.

  
 
 
















Like Angus’s other crap games, it was programmed and tested on a real Spectrum so a trooper award is in order.  (Photos supplied by Angus)

Before the game starts we are treated to a magnificent flashing border effect, and be sure to enjoy it because the excitement ends there!
 

A parking meter is drawn on the screen and you watch and wait for it to tick down, when it gets low you must press the magic ‘M’ key to top the meter up.  It takes about 2 minutes for the meter to exhaust fully, and it does so in ~5 big steps, getting slightly faster each time.  We should thank Angus for this simulator, because in the modern fast paced world we are constantly reacting, and rarely have the time to just pause, and contemplate what’s important.  So if Parking Meter Simulator was designed with this in mind, may I be the first to congratulate on an ingenious idea.
 

TOTAL CARP!  Thankyou Angus and Nita!

Tipshack: Never go shopping again.

Download Parking Meter Simulator here.
Download a faster arcade hack here.

The Lost Treasure of Something

By Rebelstar without a cause.

Genre: Arcade: floppy disk hunter

Like the previous entry, Rebelstar has used the powerful utility that is CGD to create this game.  And it’s a guddun.

As the title suggests there is not much in the way of a backstory, but the object of the game is to collect the yellow floppy disks (or treasure chests if you like) then make your way to the exit.  It’s actually pretty challenging as the guardians of said treasure chase you continuously.  You have to work out how they move and employ a strategy to lure them away or get a solid wall inbetween you.  There is also a beautiful luminous snake swimming away in the middle of the screen.

 

If you don’t like the old school early 1980’s games that use UDGs and move in character spaces, then this game will definitely seem crap to you.  But for me it’s a sheer pleasure, perhaps especially so as it uses my own game designer – so I am predisposed to be fascinated as to which features it uses.

 Things that do make it crap are the absence of any effects when you complete or fail the level, the border colour could match the game better, and there is only 1 level.

In fact the disappointment I felt when a level 2 failed to appear suggests to me we have a good game here.  One that I hope Rebelstar soups up a bit, gives more levels, a backstory, a loading screen, and maybe a spot of music (but this would not be a game I want to see in the CGC inbox).

 Thankyou Rebelstar!

 Download here.

Pixy the PIxel

This entry from Lee Spoons uses a new, groundbreaking game designer that will be hitting the shops soon called C.G.D (Classic Game Designer).  So with such a powerful tool at his disposal, let's see what Lee has come up with (and it had better not be a lazy hack of my Pacman demo).

Ah.

This is a pacman game in which all the sprites are replaced with single pixels, which to my eye looks very atmospheric.  It would also be a playable game, if the ghost sprites weren't invisible when on blank background!  You can only see them moving as they overshadow the pellets.

It drew me in though, as it is so difficult.  I'm pleased to say, by chance as much as anything that I managed to complete it.

So, Pixey the pixel is a bit crap, but I'd say it's a seed that could sow a mighty oak if explored further...

Thankyou Lee!

Download here.

AWFTRBTSFTVOTWWPRSWWSBASS

A topical new entry from Lee Spoons, who is building up quite a portfolio.  Lee's description of the game:

For anyone who wants to re-live the thrilling experience of watching the outside of a hospital, may I present to you, "Advanced Waiting for the Royal Baby to Spring from the Vagina of that Woman whose Parents run some Website what sells Balloons and stuff Simulator"...

I'm really pleased Lee has sent this in, because like the whole rest of the bloody country I was waiting with bated breath the arrival of the royal baby from the Duchess of Cambridge's loins.  Now the poor bugger has emerged I feel hollow.

To emulate the exciting waiting time Lee has used a FOR NEXT loop that has 100000000000 repeats, though I have no intention of finding out exactly how long this takes.  What he has failed to do in this entry is capture the newsfeed of journalists saying the same thing every 15 minutes in the absence of facts, and interviewing rebarbative fools with equally little to say on the subject. 

Now I can get on the train south to drop of some flowers at the palace, and thanks to Lee's simulator I can do so safe in the knowledge I can relive that wonderful day en route.

All we need now is the waiting for that rich family to give the baby a name simulator.  My money's on Bob.

Thankyou Lee!

Download here.

Alan Whicker Simulator

By Andrew Green

Genre: Text:Travel

This little game is in memory of the late Alan Whicker, who passed on last week.  For those not familiar with Alan he is a suave moustached British journalist famous for his travel broadcasting.  Although he did speak to people of all classes most will think of him talking to a dignitary sitting by a swimming pool with a glass of chilled champers in Monaco.

After the strange EMUZ loader that I’m not familiar with we have an excellent 'start' – not only does the program not autostart it finishes loading with a D – BREAK CONT REPEATS, 0:1 message.

The game gives you 4 choices, and you must enter the mind of Alan Whicker to see which is correct.  If you are eagle-eyed however, you might spot a pattern that option 1 tends to be somewhere nice (like San Tropez or Monte Carlo) and 2,3,4 are usually erm, a bit less nice.  Successfully choosing the correct location allows you to interview someone rich and famous, and failing to do so gives you this screen:

10 successful interviews completes the game.

A crap game, but a funny one.  Thankyou Andrew (and thankyou Alan!)!

HACK SACK:  Interview paradox 615 LET r=1, 8040 DATA “Alan Whicker”

Download here.

 

 

 

 

Is that a snake or are you just pleased to see me?

By Rebelstar without a cause.

Genre: Arcade: ampersat eater

 (Rule 1 of this review is that I will not be doing any double entendres)

Rebelstar has broken from previous form here by providing a game that’s almost not crap.  Despite its less than catchy acronym, I.T.A.S.O.A.Y.J.P.T.S.M is a half decent BASIC snake game.  Use QAOP to move the snake around the erm, well let’s call it a maze, and eat the ‘at’ symbols (which I’ve learned are also called ampersats).  Each ampersat eaten gains you an extra link in your increasingly ungainly snake.

The game plays at a decent rate and has some appropriate sounds.  So what’s wrong?  Well not much, I was going to say the scoring was flawed because it increments every move so there is no incentive to eat the red ampersats.  But from looking at the code I can see that Rebelstar has already thought of this, and the score is related to snake length already.  It’s even got a bit of machine code to refresh data.  Ho hum.

Not only that but could I.T.A.S.O.A.Y.J.P.T.S.M be a comment on the psychology of the concept of a High Score?  The higher your score the longer your snake?  Probably not, and just as well because I’d like to start the challenge with 23691 and a snake length of 41.

 But I still say you should gauge your performance by the length of your snake, and quite predictably there goes rule 1.  Thankyou Rebelstar!

 Tipshack: Be especially vigilant around snake length ~35 as at this point the chuntey field is most likely to cause your attention to wander and make a mistake.

Download here.

Teach yerself Australian

Genre: Utility: Antipodator

By Lee Spoons

You might be forgiven for thinking it would be safe to speak the Queen’s English if planning a jaunt to Australia.  This is not the case unfortunately, as there are a number of things you need to take into account when speaking the uncivilised, backward dialect that the uncouth yobs are pleased to call ‘Australian’.

TYA, like all of Lee’s entries, features a non standard loader.  It’s not quite as good as the Henry’s cat one but I like it – it does the whole thing in reverse:  attributes first followed by an upside down pic of Ayres rock (all loaded bottom to top), partially obscured of course by the loading message.

 

Like all the translators in the competition it features an advanced algorithm that translates any phrase you care to type in.  In this case it is takes advantage of Hugh Shaw’s Inverter and turns your text upside down and back to front.  If you leave the program it leaves the whole BASIC listing inverted (poke 23606,0 23607,60 sorts it natch).

So what do we think of TYA?

So if planning a trip to Oz do you want to go to bed with a ‘hottie’ or a ‘dog’ and wake up to a ‘dingo’s breakfast’ or a ‘dog’s eye’?  Well, If you think Lee’s utility is going to help then you’ve got kangeroos loose in the top paddock!  Thankyou Lee!

Download WAV here .
Download TZX here.

(And you could try the alternative translating engine Teach yourself AQI)