Category: General Waffle

The results of the 20th CSSCGC are in!

It’s 2016 now, surely I don’t have anything left to do now I’ve passed the baton on to this year’s host. What do you mean, I haven’t chosen this year’s host yet? Of course I have, it’s…  oh bollocks.

Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the 20th CSSCGC are now in. I was going to do this in a Eurovision stylee, but we’ve had enough nul points in this competition already, so on to the categories. Fanfare! Drum roll! R Tape loading error, 0:1!

“Best” Game

SOFD01

So many to choose from! From the drugged-up cocaine binge of catmeows‘ Line Overdrive, to the obsessive attention to detail in GReW‘s Advanced Fiesta Simulator 3D, you lot really do have far too much time on your hands. But for me the game that came first (f’nar), the one that ended up on top (oo-er), was Sex On First Date, an utterly realistic (as far as I can remember, it’s been a long time) s(t)imulator by Gabriele Amore, which was impressive on so many levels – it was written in machine code, featured great Chunk-O-Vision graphics, and even boasted a sexy font. Sqij Towers’ BloodBaz was impressed too, because of its 100% MACHINE CODE-ness: “I like coding in assembly and like doing it native rather than using toolkits for that bare metal feel.  However this game had a different kind of “bare” in mind and made me laugh quite a bit.  I’m sure the objective of a first date isn’t to re-enact a poor quality 1970’s porn star, however but the sentiment is there!  Just need some 1970s porn-music to go with it.”

Who knew sex with a rubber could be so much fun? Well done Gab! And quite an appropriate winner too, as today is Valentine’s Day! (Erm, no it’s not, except on Baker Island, and nobody lives there. Ed.)

“Worst” Game


Honey4

Look, they’re all crap! However Simon Ferré‘s buggy, slow, BASIC piece of chod Honey I Shrank The Screen has to take the (arse) biscuit. The eye-watering loading screen, the tiny playing area, the topsy-turvy key combination, and the sheer sloth of the thing… given a choice between playing this game ever again and inserting habanero peppers into one or more of my orifices, I think I’ll take the chilli enema. Well done Simon!

“Best” Graphics

Sex On First Date was a contender here too, as were Gab’s other two games Stickman Olympic Challenge and Training Of The Warrior, Guesser’s Advanced Screechy Seagull Torturing Simulator (apparently p13z did the graphics, but I can understand why he wouldn’t put his name to the whole thing), and pretty much everything by Sqij Towers’ very own Myke-P. My personal favourite was Myke’s Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Shelf Challenge, with graphics which, if Ocean or Hewson Consultants had seen them back in 1987, would’ve at the very least passed on Myke’s phone number to the head of Mastertronic. Yep, they’re that good. But what about all those Chunk-O-Vision extravaganzas, I hear you cry? Never fear…

“Best” Chunk-O-Vision Game

PointPirate8

There were loads of funky chunky games to choose from this year – GReW‘s Swingball Wizard, most of Gab or Myke’s games, almost everything produced for the ZX81Simon Ferré‘s cat squashing simulator… but MatGubbins has this category pretty well sewn up. Almost any of his games could’ve won, but my favourite was Point At A Pirate, which was elevated from simple gambling game to one of the most fun entries of the competition with the inclusion of those fantastically colourful and detailed characters, including pixellated Emilia Fox with no clothes on. Rrowwrrrr!

“Best” Sound

EV01

I have to say I loved the concept of Sunteam‘s R-Type for the Blind, and nearly gave it the “Best” Sound gong on the basis that the game contains very little else other than sound (same goes for deKay’s BEEP) but I couldn’t deny the effort that Sqij Towers’ very own Chris Young put in – I’m sure if Mozart was alive today he too would have downloaded a load of Midi files off the internet and converted them using Midi2AY, instead of learning to play the piano. So Europe-Vision 2015 it is!

“Best” ZX81 Game

Advanced Fiesta Simulator 3DAn almost unanimous vote here for Advanced Fiesta Simulator 3D by GReW – a game so realistic that when I played it I’m sure I could hear a mechanic sucking his teeth in and going “It’s gonna cost yer mate”. I did like Angus Gulliver’s Advanced Toaster Simulator too – what is it with ZX81s that brings out the advanced simulators? Whatever next, Advanced ZX81 Simulator? Oh.

 

Keyword Challenge Winner

lentils-titleSo many to choose from that it’s almost impossible. R-Tape’s VERIFY THE PIE OR NOT was a particular favourite (almost a year on and I still can’t get rid of the taste of tarpaulin and sellotape), but I feel MatGubbins has to take the prize again here, with his trilogy of CAT-based games, not to mention such delights as LENTILS FOR SATAN and CLINT AND FORESKIN (both of whom, incidentally, are supporting Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts on their worldwide tour this year).

 

CSSCGC Remake Challenge Winner

Maria_Whittaker_Strip_Snap.z80_3
I nearly awarded this to Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Shelf Challenge again – in the words of BloodBaz: “This game doesn’t need any introduction.  It has everything – good graphics, great back story and a lot of fun!”. (Fun? Was he even playing the same game?)

However it didn’t contain nearly enough digitised pictures of 1980s models for my liking, so Andrew Green is the winner here, with his

remake of Maria Whittaker Strip Snap. Hubba hubba!

Crap Idea Generator Challenge Winner

EasterBunny01

The, by Myke-P. OK, so it was the only entry in this category. Anyone would think Myke wanted to host the CSSCGC again. Well don’t worry, he’s not.

 

 

 

 

 

“Best” Celebrity Tie-In

Jezza1

Another tricky category – this year we had Stephen Hawking, Wally, another Wally, a whole host of “slebs” in Strictly Come Dancing, and, erm, Archer Maclean (I think he was the bloke in Monarch Of The Glen who wasn’t Richard Briers). I was going to award this to Geff Capes’ Number Crunch, but then I remembered that Geff Capes (unlike Geoff Capes) isn’t a celebrity at all. However, the three different Jeremy Clarkson games were all suitably crap in their own way, and I can’t choose a “winner”, so the authors will just have to fight it out amongst themselves.

“Best” Machine Code Game

Beef4

We were spoilt for choice with machine code games this year, but my vote goes to the original BEEF by Uncle “Jonathan” Chicken, a platform game that would almost be good enough for inclusion on a Beau-Jolly Computer Hits compilation if it didn’t keep skipping screens.

 

 

 

“Best” Adventure Game

Trunk05

Alessandro Grussu’s The Trunk wins by default – it was the only adventure in the whole competition. Not that it’s a bad game as such, and not being able to do anything at all makes a refreshing change from being stabbed in the left nipple by Edwin, The Goblin King of Huddersfield or whoever it was I was usually trying to avoid in all those adventure games in the 1980s.

Most Pointless Entry

LazyClint2

It would be unkind of me to say “all 81 of them”, – I thought it would be a toss-up between MatGubbins’ AND IT CONTINUED TO RAIN, Fly Catcher by Patricia Routledge’s Octopus Smells Musty, and BloodBaz’s RANDOMIZE RANDOMIZE RAND(Oh, do shut up. Ed.), but then I remembered Mat’s LAZY CLINT, a game so utterly without purpose that I couldn’t even be bothered to review it properly.

 

Best Convolution in a game

MarginalPain3

Here’s what BloodBaz thinks of R-Tape’s maze game: “I’ve nominated this award to Marginal Pain due to the huge amount of time that it takes to render the playing maze prior to the game start.  This is something that a 12 byte machine code program could do in a quarter of a second, however Mr Hughes (in his infinite wisdom) decided to in half a dozen BASIC statements line 870.” Other nominations in this category include Eye GamblerGuess My Wait and Watching Paint Dry, all of which I would recommend if you want a boring Sunday afternoon to become even more longer and boringer-er.

 

 “Best” Game Featuring a Cat

PLOT_TO_GO_TO_AND_RUN_OVER_THE_CAT_title.tzxQuoting BloodBaz again. You can tell I’m bored of this now, can’t you? “I was going to nominate Fly Catcher until a letter came down from management on the 43rd floor to tell me that ‘featuring a cat’ doesn’t mean ‘title contains Cat in the title’.  Shame really as it smells of all things Sqij.  Therefore I am nominating Plot To Go To And Run Over The Cat because I like the chunky graphics and you get the save the cat with your horn.  Rosco The Cat 2: Egyptian Hi-Jinx was a second place entry for me.” Personally I would’ve gone with Next Cat Up Or Down, but what do I know, eh?

 

“Best” Loading Screen

AllLoaders

This is the very final category, because you lot have been pestering me for the results for six weeks, to the point where I’m utterly sick of this competition now and just want to hand it over to Gab and whoever else we can rope in to help him with the CSSCGC2016. There were so many fantastic loading screens that if I try to choose one I’ll be here until next February. Myke helpfully knocked up a collage of all the loaders in one go so we Sqij reviewers could compare the things. What do you mean “it’s a bit small, isn’t it?” Sheesh, you lot are never satisfied. Well then, I’ll award it to Dave Hughes’ Driver, because after over a year of doing this shit, I look exactly like this bloke:

I assume this is a self portrait, or "selfie".

I assume this is a self portrait, or “selfie”.

 

Post-competition waffly bit

And that’s it! I’d just like to say a HUGE thank you to my co-reviewers: Myke-P, Chris Young, BloodBaz and DeKay, for all their help over the last year. A HUGE thank you to everyone reading this and those of you who commented on the games. And the HUGEST thank you of all to this year’s crap game authors… here goes, in order of how much time they wasted on this shit over the last twelve months:

MatGubbins (this year’s most prolific author, with 14 games), Chris Young (9 games), Simon Ferré (9 games), sunteam (8), Andrew Green (5), Dave Hughes (5), unclechicken (5), GReW (4), Myke-P (4), Gabriele Amore (3), PROSM (2), absinthe_boy (1), Alessandro Grussu (1), Antonio Silva (1), ben soundhog (1), BloodBaz (1), Bob Harris (1), catmeows (1), Colin Woodcock (1), David Pagett (1), deKay (1), Guesser (1), Insert Coin (1), and Jamie Bradbury (1).

Thank you, and goodnight! (It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, you dolt! Ed.)

– Lee

Update

Here is an update about the lack of updates. I haven’t been updating the site because I don’t have much time to do updates, and I haven’t had an update from the rest of the Sqij reviews team about their lack of updates, however once I have time to update the site, I will update you with an update about when the next update is likely to be updated.

In the meantime, here is an updated version of the first ever program I wrote for the Speccy:

10 PRINT “LEE IS STILL COOL”

20 GOTO 10

It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now, but a man can dream.

Musical interlude

We apologise for the break in your scheduled website. Whilst we are digging Lee out of the avalanche of crap games, here’s the theme from Lemmings as you’ve never heard it before.

Didn’t sound that good on the Speccy, did it? (Erm, has Lee woken up yet? Both our readers have wandered off to other websites… *squints* big-ti.. is that a “p” or a “t”? Ed)

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.

Welcome!

Welcome to the 20th comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition. We are now open closed for business (as in “Urgh, the dog’s done his business on the carpet!”)

Thanks for all the crap games – we’ll do a proper round-up once all the games have been reviewed.