Month: March 2015

Famous Crap Games Throughout History #2: Bumhandler

Archeologists are split on the original source material for this Dragon 32 game. Some academics suggest it is a video game based on the life of little known 1940s New York businessman Eric Bumhandler, who, in his later years, spent much of his time helping the homeless (“bums” in the American vernacular) find homes and jobs. His decision to do this was down to inadvisably joining a cult in 1953 where he learned that the true path to God was to “live life in his name”. Unfortunately, this was due to a broken typewriter shift key and it should have read “live life in His name”. As a result, he became a Bumhandler by trade as well as name. His fellow cultists Mario Drinkless and Mary-Ann Slaughter sadly met their end through this terrible typographic mishap. 

Alternatively, it is possible the game is a conversion of the 1981 German-only arcade machine “Der Hinterngropen”, where you play as a man in a bowler hat who waits at a bus stop and grabs the bottoms of unsuspecting passengers as they embark. 

The true origins are not provable either way.

In Bumhandler, you play as a man who wears a bowler hat and stands waiting at bus stops. As the passengers get on the bus, you have to grab their posteriors without them realising what you’re doing. Poorly laid out controls and a multitude of bugs made the game virtually unplayable, hindered even further by the instructions only existing in German.

Not surprisingly, the game never sold many copies. Also, it was on the Dragon 32 so crap by default.

Famous Crap Games Throughout History #1: Monkey Polo

In 1779 Lord Mongoose of Essex devised a simian-based ball game for two teams of eight players. Each team captain was assigned a monkey, and all other players a polo mallet. Play was on a circular field except during the winter playing season, when play was in the drawing room.

The aim of the game was to thwack the monkey off the shoulders of the team captain (ideally without also thwacking the captain’s head off at the same time), which scores the team a point. If a player managed to thwack a monkey outside of the circle (or, in winter, out the window or up a chimney), then the team was allocated a Bonus Banana allowing them to double up on monkeys for the next quarter of the game.

Play continued until either all five quarters of the game had been played, or the players had exhausted all the monkeys.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Lord Mongoose for a quick chat about the game he invented:

Lord Mongoose, sir, thank you for taking the time to talk to us about Monkey Polo.

Your Greys. You must refer to me as “Your Greys”.

Sorry, Your Grace. My ap…

GREYS. Not Grace. Did your parents teach you nothing, you beastly child?

I, er, no. Sir. I mean Your Greys. So, about Monkey Polo. How di…

Ah yes. My greatest invention that was. Monkey Polo. Did you know Queen Victoria played it at her coronation party? Of course, the monkeys were gold plated and each player was one of her personal knights. But it was still Monkey Polo.

I did not know that, no. So how did the game co…

Not like that Butter Monkey Polo “game”. From the 1960s? What rot that was. They stole my game, replaced the monkeys with knobs of salted butter, and made the circular field a pentagon! A pentagon! I sued the TV network that came up with that nonsense, I can tell you.

Interesting. I think. Perhaps you could tell me a little about how you came up wit…

I invented Exploding Chess too, you know. I admit, I took my inspiration from the normal chess game, but it was my additions to the ruleset that shows my true genius.

Exploding Chess? I don…

Of course you must have heard of it. Was an absolute riot in the opium establishments in the 1800s. The full details are far too complicated for someone such as yourself to grasp, you’d need to play a thousand games to simply understand the rules, but the main distinguishing feature over its more rudimentary fore-father is the introduction of pawns whittled from blocks of TNT.

Uh, isn’t that a little, er, dangerous?

What do you mean? Opium is perfectly safe.

No, I mean the TNT.

What TNT? The monkeys ate bananas, not TNT. What are you talking about, boy?

I meant the TNT in Exploding Chess.

Where did you hear about Exploding Chess? Are you a Nazi spy?

Erm, no, you just told me y…

Nazi! You’re a Nazi! I knew it! Get off my lawn or I’ll fetch my blunderbuss.

So there you have it. Monkey Polo. What a load of crap.

How to write a crap game

There is no sure fire way of creating the perfect crap game. Nor is there a recipe for success in the competition. But! Include as many of these things as possible (including those that contradict the other things) to try to maximise your chances.

1. The name

No matter what you’re told, the name of your game is the most important thing. The competition can be won or lost based entirely on the name. The best worst names are hilarious puns, titles as long as a B52, and names that reference silly comp.sys.sinclair in-jokes. Usually about llamas or terrible TV adverts.

2. The loading screen

Even though most emulators quick-load and the loading screen is barely seen, it is VITAL you have a terrible loading screen. You can cheat using a PC based graphics package and a converter, but the best crap screens are hand made with rubbish colour clash. For bonus points, make bits of it flash for no reason.

3. The instructions

Ideally, you shouldn’t include any. If you do, it is best if they don’t actually instruct. Or are wrong. You can unintentionally manage this by writing the instructions before you’ve finalised the game idea, meaning the game you end up with is then likely to be a mismatch with the instructions.

4. The controls

Did your instructions include how to control the game? You’ve already failed, friend. Eschew standard Speccy game conventions of QAOP (or the superior ZXPL) and try something more eclectic. However, don’t make the game unplayable with ridiculous direction remapping as that’s trying too hard. And nobody likes a tryhard. NOBODY. Joystick support? Go home, pal. Go home.

5. The music and sound effects

Catchy and ear splitting are excellent bedfellows here. Slightly out of tune earworms are perfect for crap games, and sound effects that have no bearing on the action are perfect. Having to listen to a terribly written, unskippable ditty before every game (and for extra marks, every time you start a level or lose a life) is god-tier crap gameage.

6. Game options

No. Just no.

7. The graphics

Just being crap at drawing isn’t sufficient here. Any crap game author can spunk out a few sprites that don’t resemble anything. Much better is to have awesome graphics, but then double-cross the player by having shonky animation, garish colour schemes (which we all know is very difficult on a Spectrum), or unworkable collision detection. Or just use ASCII characters.

7. The gameplay

The best way to guarantee your promotion to the premier league of crap game authors is to… oh, we’ve run out of space.

Tongue-Tied in the Dungeon

Simon Ferré is fast catching up with Dave Hughes and Sunteam in the prolificacy (LMLWD)* stakes. This, his third entry so far, is a direct result of a throwaway comment I made in the competition’s Facebook group. With the opening bars of the Smiths’ ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ echoing around my skull, I load the game…

Ooh, the screen’s gone black and I can see from the information in Spectaculator there’s a 6912-byte block. A loading screen! Simon obviously means business. And here it is:

Dungeon

Now for those of you who are thinking “It’s just a blank screen, what was the point of that?” – you’re absolutely right. However it’s still a great satire on all those “screens” that could’ve easily been done from BASIC but still took ages to appear because of some custom loading routine (I, Ball 2 and the They Sold A Million re-release of JSW, I’m looking at you)

The game loads, and the instructions appear in another custom font – that’s two in two days! I haven’t been this spoiled since I attended the Ambassador’s reception in 1993 and ended up getting my stomach pumped after an overdose of cheap Italian chocolate. I don’t know if Simon designed the font or not, but either way it’s a great choice for a crap game, as it’s barely legible even in full screen mode.

Dungeon2

Now going by the title of the game I was expecting it to feature dungeons, skeletons, goblins and creepy spidery things. In reality it’s very different – it’s a tongue twister game. A tongue twister, for those of you who have been living in a cave since human beings first learnt to say “Ug”, is a short phrase designed to, well, twist your tongue – like “She sells sea shells on the sea shore”, or “The sixth sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick”. You’re given a time to beat, the tongue twister appears and you say it out loud before pressing Space to move on.

Dungeon3

Because the Spectrum can’t hear you, it’s taken on trust that you won’t cheat and press Space before you’ve said the tongue twister. However the combination of white INK on black PAPER with the hard-to-read font soon proved too much for me – I was half-expecting there to be some anti-cheat mode, but nope…

Dungeon4

For such a simple game this is actually entertaining fun for all the family (although you might want to take out the “pheasant plucker”, “stunt kite” and “sheet slitter” rounds if you have small children), whilst still retaining a general whiff of craptitude that all competition entries should aspire to.

Score: six sheep out of sixteen sheiks.

Download .tzx here

 

 

*Lloyd Mangram’s Long Word Dictionary, as used in Crash magazine

Verify The Pie Or Not!

The terminally crap* Dave Hughes is back for this Keyword Challenge entry, entitled VERIFY THE PIE OR NOT ! Just to prove he hasn’t cheated, here’s what happens when you load the game:

VerifyPie2

Disappointingly for one of Dave’s games there’s no loading screen, but there is a small block containing some UDGs and the first use of a custom font in the competition so far (taken from ZX-Alfa by Einar Saukas) – sadly it’s far too legible to gain Dave any crap points.

After a catchy “sing the title” tune along the lines of The Sweeney or Mummy, Where’s My Bra? the instructions unfold. You work in a pie factory’s quality control department and have to check an unknown (possibly infinite) number of pies to make sure they are fit for human consumption. If the pie contains two edible ingredients, press 0. If it has one, press 1. If it’s completely inedible, press 2. Immediately Dave wins back some crap points for this topsy turvy control system, which requires you to use both hands.

VTPmenu

So the game starts, with a rather attractive user defined pie graphic, and straight away we have a pie which even Heston Blumenthal would turn his nose up at…

StrontMush

Now this sounds like it might be a delicacy in downtown Pripyat, but even the trendiest Shoreditch gastropub would have trouble sourcing Strontium-90 for its gourmet, artisan, can-I-have-a-second-mortgage-with-that pies. Although at least it’s suitable for vegetarians.

The game continues in a similar fashion, with some perfectly edible (if slightly odd-sounding) pies…CurryBacon

…and some which, if presented on a menu, you’d ask the waiter “Have you got this pie with leeks instead?”…

Verify1

…and one or two which even Eric Pickles would draw the line at…

TarpaulinSellotape

Now I don’t know if it’s the sheer weight of crap games I’ve had to endure over the last few weeks, or the gallons of alcohol I’ve had to imbibe to make the playtesting more bearable, but this game really made me laugh – I mean, proper, laugh out loud, belly laughter, to the point where I was doubled over with tears in my eyes, and my 5-year-old daughter kept asking what was the matter with me. I don’t know if it was by accident or design that the fillings got more outrageous as the game progressed, but just when I thought I’d seen every pie flavour known to man (and a few known only to people from Lincolnshire), another odd combination appeared and almost finished me off.

CricketBallCement

To make the game interesting it records various statistics including your time, number of “good” pies baked and number of incorrect answers. There were a few mystery items thrown in there too – I had no idea what “snoek” and “breccia” were until I played this game, but I now know that one’s not an Italian vegetable, and the other one isn’t a Norwegian hat – so the game also ticks the educational box!

Anyway, I’d better go, as the family are waiting patiently for me to dish up Sunday lunch. Today we’re having David Icke and dogmuck pie… mmmmm, lovely!

Score: Strontium-90 percent.

Download .tap here

*in a funky skillo sort of a way, natch

Advanced Fiesta Simulator 3D

I owned a Ford Fiesta over ten years ago. The blower stopped working except on position “4”, which necessitated turning the radio up, not that the speaker on the driver’s side worked properly anyway. One winter the internal heater decided to fail. Some time afterwards the radiator developed a leak, requiring a top-up every morning and an emergency spare bottle of water in the boot. In summer, my commute to work largely involved watching the temperature gauge slowly increase, praying that the “Road To Nowhere” wouldn’t be at a standstill, as the only way to keep the engine cool was to drive fast enough for the surrounding air to do the job. In winter I was dressed as the Michelin Man, praying that the “Road To Nowhere” wouldn’t be at a standstill, so I could get to work before I froze to death.

I figured this was qualification enough to review Garry Wishart’s Advanced Fiesta Simulator 3D for the ZX81.

I had a piece of shit car like this myself once.

I had a piece of shit car like this myself once.

The first thing which struck me was this game is HUGE. It needs a 16K ZX81, and the author advises against running it on a real machine because it “takes nearly 15 minutes to load”. However, he also advises there is a version with sound (“not included”) which only works on a real ZX81 – and requires a radio tuned to the specific frequency of 600kHz in the vicinity. That’s dedication, and I’m willing to take Garry’s word that such a thing both exists and works, as the rest of the code is unbelievably thorough – there’s even a mention of “friction coefficients”, though he has hand-rendered everything (which explains why the code takes up so much memory) rather than using his mathematical genius coupled with the ZX81’s UNPLOT command. Maybe the ZX81 wasn’t up to calculating the full first-person view of the road quick enough.

This advert was actually found next to Jim's wife in the back of Fiesta magazine, due to an administrative error.

This advert was actually found next to Jim’s wife in the back of Fiesta magazine, due to an administrative error.

The game starts with you purchasing a used car, for less than the price of a Sinclair Black Watch (probably). “One careful lady owner”, the advert states – omitting the twenty or so buffoons who also owned it at one point or another.

After that you’re straight into the action. With as many controls as your average ZX81 flight simulator[1], you can do everything from accelerating to adjusting the mirrors. Even the horn has a key despite the ZX81 having no ability to output sound. Bizarrely, there’s no option to turn on the hazards, which are the first things I’d check are working in a MkI Fiesta. Ah, well, it’s a game, you won’t need them. The game helpfully tells you the controls no matter what you answer to the question “Instructions?”, so somebody’s been reading my old guide to writing a crap game.

The main display is your classic pseudo-driver’s view – a road disappearing into the distance – but with a few features not normally found on 8-bit era driving games. Firstly, the game has a five speed gearbox (one of the speeds is “reverse”, but it still counts), whereas you’d be lucky to get Lo/Hi gears back in the 1980s. Secondly, there’s a rear view mirror, despite there being no other traffic on the road. Garry has also kitted it out with the usual computer game dashboard components – speedo, clock, brake fluid low indicator (Huh? – Ed), that sort of thing.

The A14 near Creeting St Mary.

The A14 near Creeting St Mary.

Unfortunately, the warning lights appear to be dead (It’s probably the fuse – Ed), as the first you’ll know about the engine overheating is when it’s on fire. The gearbox is faulty. The electrics are screwed up. If you slow down for the lights you’ll stall and be needing those hazard lights that haven’t been mapped to the ZX81’s keyboard. If you adjust the mirror it’ll come off in your hand.

I dare say that if you stay at a constant speed between about 20 and 40 mph, stay on the road and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING you might reach Carlisle. Or you might still break down due to lack of fuel, an oil leakage, flat tyre or total boredom.

And.... stop.

And…. stop.

Mr Lake, co-host of the 2007 CSSCGC, also had an old Fiesta. Exiting the vehicle involved winding the window down and operating the handle on the exterior of the door, although I believe in later years that failed too, and the only reasonable way to leave was via the passenger’s side.

I strongly suspect this game is based on a true story. It’s also entirely as advertised – advanced, accurate and in 3D. If you took out all the bits about the car breaking down, this would have sold as a full price title back in 1982. With them, though, it’s a superbly executed crap game which has had far too much effort spent on it. Top marks!

Download HERE

[1] There’s only one – Psion Flight Simulation, and it has twelve keys, but three of them have nothing to do with controlling the plane so I’ve ignored them.

Return Ink To Move Cat In To A Bin

MatGubbins gets straight into the Keyword Challenge with a 9-byter and then, immediately, follows it up with a second!

I’ve no idea if the challenge rules can even cope with that kind of out there thinking, but you have to admire the kid’s spirit.

Bonus Points!

Bonus points from the off!

 

A short load later and we’re presented with a marvellous title screen, in glorious chunk-o-vision™, and a colourful ‘press space to start’ prompt – the likes of which haven’t been seen since last year’s Run Ferrit.

There’s also a quick plug for some game or other, however, if this crap is anything to go by I wouldn’t give it a second thought.

No Instructions Needed!

No instructions needed? Correct

 

Onto the game itself and it’s a master class in literal titular interpretation. (F’nar – Ed)

You play Mr Fluffykins whose cat, Steve, is perched upon a fence at the bottom of the screen. A randomly placed… sack… of ink, inexplicably marked ‘Q,’ is placed somewhere on the screen and your job is to locate it, move towards it (using the predefined, but comfortably traditional, QAOP) and pick it up.

BUT WAIT! There’s more…

Ink Collector

Pick up the… bag of Q?

 

Once in possession of the ink you need to – carefully – manoeuvre Mr Fluffykins towards the bottom of the screen. BUT BEWARE! Move too quickly and the ink will spill all over your nice clean shoes! (Possibly – Ed)

Deposit the ink into the signposted area and Steve will slink forward a little, all the time seduced by the sweet smell of rotting fish coming from the Wheelie Bin® at the far right of the screen.

HANG ON! You’re not finished by a long shot! Another bag of ink appears. CAN YOU RESIST?!?

The Cat Moves

See that pussy move (‘Arf – Ed)

 

NO! Collect the ink. Deposit the ink. Steve moves. Collect the ink. Deposit the ink… You get the idea.

Unfortunately Mr Gubbins has fluffed up again, this time managing not only to produce a more-or-less playable game, but also including some great UDGs while he’s at it.

I won’t spoil the ending for you – I think you’ve had more than enough excitement for one review – but MatG does leave it open for the sequel; RETURN PAPER TO BIN TO LET CAT OUT!

Score: 3 lives out of 9!

Download: .tap

Note: No animals, apart from Steve who injured his paw when he slipped on the fence at one point, were harmed in the making of this review. This review may contains elements that have been created or exaggerated for dramatic effect.

The Thinking Brain 2

  The amazing thinking brian 2 by sunteam is a game a bit like the first game called the amazing thinking brian by sunteam except without the graficks. aparently due 2 budgie cutbacks the images wot were on the first game arent aloud on this game. something to do with lisencing or something.the artwork this time is drawn by a 11-year-old boy called billy. I i know who billy is, he goe’s to my skool. He’s good at drawing becase hes in year 6 which is like the highest year you can go in skool so he knoe’s a lot of stuff about stuff. but he’s not as good as drawing as the person what drawed the other drawings in the the amazing thinking brian 1 . I think all the text was wrote by billys’ five years old little brother, he goes to my skool too.Or may be it was a drunk person who writ everything. here ThinkBrain is a screen shot. The game is a bit hard becase you have to remember where stuff like the * key and the = key and the ! key is, which is hard when your not playing on a reel spectrum. So you have to consentrait      really hard!!!!! its even harder than that floppy birds game on ipads!

 

So what it is is, it is a game about advanced computer Artificail Intelligence AI, a bit like that film with the robot boy in it directed by steven seagal and he want’s to be a reel boy but gets dumped in a forest by his mum and then meets a hologram of robbie williams and goes underwater for 200000 years with his teddy bear and gets found by alien’s. Anyway, what happens in the game is, is theres this sientist, and this is wot he look’s like ThinkBrain3, and he lives in this lavarotary. And theres a flashing border and something about new-rons and then there’s a picture of ARNOLD SCHWARTZENGER who was in this film called THE TERMINATOR in the 1890s and here he is, ThinkBrain4 its quite a good drawing billy drawed here i think, and hes got red eyes like jeoff cape’s in that other spectrum game and hes smoking a siggeret like people did in the 1880s. the only think i didn’t like about this game was when it asked me to press the % button on my spectrum and i couldnt find it becuase i was typing it on a emulater. so i had to brake into the game at that point. and then at the end it says that the thinking amazing brain can emulate a 13 or 14 year old, so its an emulator emulating a game about emulating, on an emulator!!!!! and the funny thing is its exactly like whot my big brother whose 14 says, because it doesnt matter what you say to him, he always says “whatever” back. ThinkBrain6so its a very acurrate reprenestation of a teenagers’ brian and for that reason i give it 10 out of 10 percent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reviewed by little willy (aged 6 and a 1/2).

Download The original disk file here or theres also a tap file here as well. oh and heres and update, if you have to use the disk file it only works on an amstrad +3 and you need to type load “katakis.c64” to load but if you can’t spell it if you just type “cat” it will show you what the name of the filename is or you could use the tap file instead.

Watching Paint Dry

Golf. Social media webinars. Twenty-minute conversations with one’s significant other about washing. To me, all of these things are as boring as watching paint dry. The thing is though, how do you tell when paint’s dry if you’re just watching it, rather than, say, dabbing it at regular intervals with your finger and going “oh bollocks, still wet”?

Well there’s two ways to find out – you could paint something and watch it dry, or you could play this fantastic simulator by David Pagett which recreates all the thrills and excitement you’d expect to find from a game called “Watching Paint Dry”. David helpfully listed some of the game’s features when sending in the game, and it all sounds rather fun!

Features:

  • 16k compatible
  • Full colour
  • Sound
  • High Scores

That’s the sort of marketing blurb that would have sold hundreds of thousands of games in 1982. I can almost hear the last remaining 16k Speccy owner going “Hooray, finally someone’s released a game I can play! I’ve been patiently waiting over 30 years, my copy of Sir Lancelot is nearly worn out!”

So the game (written in good old BASIC) loads and then stops, in the style of the Cassette 50 games – a good start! On running you’re presented with red text on a yellow screen (that’ll be the Full Colour, then) and some instructions of sorts (press 1 to start, press 2 to stop), along with the high score (that’ll be the High Scores, then). However it’s not altogether clear if you need to hold down 1, repeatedly press 1 or just tap it once. I tapped it once and a patch of bright green paint appeared, along with a beeping noise (that’ll be the Sound, then).

PaintDry

However the beeping abruptly stopped and the bright green paint turned to dark green. I’d got a score of 1. Hmmmm, perhaps I need to hold it down a bit longer then. Try again. I hold down 1 for a bit, but soon get bored. I get 9. Perhaps I need to tap it a few times. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. Ooh, it’s still going. That’ll be the trick then. 44! Not bad, but not as good as David and his family who got a high score of 95 “before their eyes fell out!”

I’ll give it another go… tap… 80! Perhaps I don’t need to keep tapping after all! And another… 27… and another… bugger, only 19… 21… 15… I’m getting worse at this! What’s happening? One more go… 70… yay! 8?! Boo! 67! Yay! One more go, I can do this… it’s taking a long time…

PaintDry2

95? Exactly the same as David’s high score? Now that is a coincidence! There’s two explanations here – either I’m really great at this game (getting the same score as the game’s creator is pretty good, I’d say), or every time you load and run it, it comes up with the exact same pattern of numbers, because it uses the RND function without first RANDOMIZE-ing. However I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt here and say it’s down to my amazing paint-watching skills. David did say it kept his kids amused for about 15 minutes trying to beat each other’s score – so next time you hear “Daaaa-aaaa-aaad! I’m boooo-oooo-oooored!” on a Sunday afternoon, you know what to do!

And if the BEEPs are starting to annoy you while you play, just drown them out with this:

Score: INT (RND*100)+1 percent

Download here