ChinnyVision - Crazy Legs

[chinnyhill10]

It's not every day type-in games appear on Youtube, but I decided to take a look at one of ACU's 1985 fine crop:



www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb-9aLKlMLU


As I say in the review, I've played BBC Micro commercial releases of a lower quality! Replace those UDG's with proper sprites and beef it up a bit and it has the makings of a good commercial game.

[EgoTrip]

That does look pretty good, especially for a type-in. Maybe someone should polish it up.

[chinnyhill10]

That does look pretty good, especially for a type-in. Maybe someone should polish it up.

If you look at 1985 editions of ACU, the standard of type-ins were really high. The highlight of which was Splatch, a Boulderdash clone with rabbits.


Two other games I recall from that time were N-Sub and Rock Hopper. Rock Hopper was another Boulderdash clone.


Polishing the games up should be fairly easy. The biggest problem with the BASIC type ins were that the controls were often laggy. IIRC Splatch really suffered from this. Crazy Legs was slightly laggy and you can see that in the video where I sometimes overshoot where I need to be. That's because you press the direction on the joystick, for a split second nothing happens and then it responds and you overshoot.


I was wary about covering a type in game but I figured who else is talking about this stuff? These games were actually quite widespread and ACU used to sell them on tape and disc. Granted many type ins were crap (Computing With The Amstrad used to publish some right old dross) but during the time ACU ran the £2000 software competition the standard seemed to be really high.

[chinnyhill10]

Just to add, before anyone tarts up Crazy Legs for a modern audience, I'd much rather you ported the superb Speccy game Pippo to the CPC instead. It's much the same game really minus the spaceships that shoot at you.

[tastefulmrship]

The guy who wrote CRAZY LEGS (Craig Mitchell) also wrote the amazing PAK CAVERNS; which was the first type-in I really enjoyed typing in back in the day (other than SPACE MANIA, of course, by Neil Kolban!)

[chinnyhill10]

The guy who wrote CRAZY LEGS (Craig Mitchell) also wrote the amazing PAK CAVERNS; which was the first type-in I really enjoyed typing in back in the day (other than SPACE MANIA, of course, by Neil Kolban!)

Fantastic! Must try that.


On that page there is a link to other ACU type ins and I also found N Sub!

[tastefulmrship]

ervin, Johnny Olsen (95% of the work) and I typed in every ACU type-in ever.
I posted them all on this forum somewhere... here, infact : Splatch uploaded.

[chinnyhill10]

ervin, Johnny Olsen (95% of the work) and I typed in every ACU type-in ever.
I posted them all on this forum somewhere... here, infact : Splatch uploaded.

Well done and thank you for doing that. That's preservation in action!

[mr_lou]

The guy who wrote CRAZY LEGS (Craig Mitchell) also wrote the amazing PAK CAVERNS; which was the first type-in I really enjoyed typing in back in the day (other than SPACE MANIA, of course, by Neil Kolban!)

I played Pak Caverns too in the old days, and agree that it was quite enjoyable.
Today it's a nostalgic trip. 

I also remember trying Crazy Legs, but not finding it that enjoyable. It was partly too boring and too difficult for me at the time.

[CanonMan]

Speaking of ACU type-ins, I'd love to see Peter Wiseman's Poker game again.


Does anyone know if it's available for download?

[Puresox]

After seeing this vid , I was inspired to check out some type-ins, and came across an excellent light cycle clone , which I have to say is one of the best I have come across. Not perfect , the size of your line is a little on the large side , but it has all the elements for a challenging game.
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=4131

[mr_lou]

After seeing this vid , I was inspired to check out some type-ins, and came across an excellent light cycle clone , which I have to say is one of the best I have come across. Not perfect , the size of your line is a little on the large side , but it has all the elements for a challenging game.
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=4131

Yea, Blokker was one of the games I played a lot in my childhood.
I always thought the movement could have been much more smooth though, especially in the later levels when your opponents move by 2 characters.

Some of the hardcore CPC coders should really make a multiplayer light cycle game. One to be enjoyed by 4-5 players when having retro-gaming days with the mates.