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CPCretrodev 2020 lowest ranked game reviews

Started by skylas, 15:18, 15 November 20

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skylas

As last year, I created this thread in order to have reviews and opinions for the lowest ranked games. I believe that these developers mostly need the feedback and the feeling that someone played their game, and have something (negative or positive) to comment.

First of all, congratulations to all the participants. Dont forget to see the competition as a way to share your work with many people, and dont give more attention to the value points gained.
The quality of the games i think is much higher from previous years. I also liked there are more BASIC entries (.BAS files), as in previous years i was the only one. The only negative is that many dsk files are not working properly. Of course it was not mandatory, but it is the easiest way of loading, so it would be better to work properly.

I really liked CPC invaders, as it is a very good game and it is a .BAS file. Very nice work!
I also liked Bubble shark, it has a genuine retro style, good graphics and move. I think they deserved to get at least 1 point from the jury.

Furthermore, I would like to mention <Slimy>, a game that i liked a lot. It is simple, but was very enjoyable for me, needs good reflexes and has much fun. I completed it, very nice work for me, i believe they deserved to go to the final.

Istradarion has a very nice aspect, of 4 players playing simultaneously. Difficult in these times for 4 persons to get in a house and play, but we can try!

I also liked Go away Viking, it was a nice try for me.

And of course, my Stroopie!  :D

Concluding , I can say that it was nice to have nice and playable games even in the semifinal!
 
Web: https://amstradsakis.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmstradSakis
My programs (only BASIC):
RETRO-LOADSHEET ON AMSTRAD CPC!
PENALTY KICKS!
CAPITAL QUIZ!
CAPITAL QUIZ 2! (Reverse edition)
HEADS OR TAILS (ΚΟΡΩΝΑ/ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ)
HEART CHASER 1,2,3!
BARBOUTI!
STROOPIE!
BUDRUMI!
ART WAR!
BATTLE OF LENINGRAD!
AMSTABOO!
RODOLFO SKYLARRIENTE!

Gryzor

Due to lack of time I don't know when/if I'll be able to play the lot this year.

However, indeed, I believe that feedback for the lowest-ranked titles is very important, especially if you consider many people have no experience with the CPC and this is their first effort... which I find pretty amazing, to be honest!

AMSDOS

It's taken me a while to get through all the low ranked entries, the list I've compiled is by no means meant to be treated as a Best to Worst and I have tried to highlight the best from each game:



* Babylon Flotilla


I found myself playing this game for an hour, it appears to have 4 stages and gets progressively more difficult, although occasionally when the game restarts Stage 1 will throw a lot of meteors at you. The movement of the starfield is quite nice as well as your space ship and the Meteors, there was no Sound FXs or Tune, perhaps just needed some FXs in the game.
The gsme uses 'WASD' to move your ship Up, Right, Down, Left with Space for Fire, however when the stages start I use A to move the Ship back towards the Planet and then just W & S to move the Ship Up/Down and Space for Fire. There were some problems with Collisions between ship and Meteor, in stage 4 some Red Meteors are thrown in, I thought if they got through it would be Game Over, however they seem to have the same impact as the Grey Meteors. Collision with a Meteor and your Ship and it's game over though. Overall, I seemed to be going back to this game until I got through Stage 4, a skilled Shoot-em-up person might have this game whipped in 5 minutes and that would be Game Over for the game.




* Cell Block


Always enjoy playing these Maze Style games and not surprisingly have had similar ideas and created bits and pieces, this game uses the 'QAOP' key configuration for Up, Down, Left, Right, where you have to get your character to the Door on the other side and avoid the Zombies and in later levels a Ghost(s). On later levels when more characters are included the game seems to slow unfortunately, the Collision with the Ghost is a little Rusy maybe that's a good thing since the Coordoors are very Narrow. The game has a Tune which is very Reminiscent of the early tunes and a Theme tune on the Title Screen, which seems slightly better than the Ingame Tune, there were no Sound effects.




* CPCInvaders


A very polished game written entirely in BASIC, with Theme Tune, a short Introduction, which has you up against the usual Invaders. Game is quite playable and adequite Sound FXs. While I can only compare with an old Invaders Style game from The Amstrad User, the Invaders in this game move in an very advanced way with their behavour becomming quite random when they move and swoop, when I first play this game, I thought it was really difficult, and in a way, the 1st level is somewhat unforgiving, though always seems to have that one more go appeal , even though I've only managed to get to the 3rd stage. Otherwise this Invaders game is something of a stand out.




* Cursed Fort


Another well written BASIC game, which feels very extensive with lots of Role playing scenarios from the Indians, Wolves and other hazards, your character also hunts for food supplies in the endurance part of the game, which helps if Combat isn't going well for your character with the appropriate course of action needed when your opponent attacks. There is a tune and some Sounds effects in this game, although simplistic though didn't find them annoying. The game play is more typical of a Role playing game and it seems to take a while to get into this game, though overall another interesting entry.




* Fitzroy goes Sweeping


Unfortunately I had trouble playing this game as well, I tried redefining controls, though unlike the Video, have been unable to move my character anywhere! :( Hard to say if the game would have performed well, the Graphics are nice and move in Role-play style, no Tune or Sound FXs, which is a bit of a shame, I hope things go well in v1.1, as it looks quite interesting.




* Go Away Viking


Very straightforward Platform/Ladders game. Graphics are simple, though function adequitely, there's no animation though.Gameplay is sufficent, the Collisions seem to be okay, though not super accurate. A tune plays throughout the entire game with no Sound FXs, wouldn't want to listen to it all day. The degree of difficulty seems to be the best thing about the game, however if you die, you simply return to the current level, so it's quite easy to figure out the mistakes made and learn immediately from it, which simply lets you get through to the end.




* Istrader


As a single player, I cannot comment properly as I cannot fully enjoy the game, though it's rather interesting being a Multiplayer Bomberman clone, using simple MODE 1 graphics. The main problem I found in this game is it's not 464 compatable because the Instructions and other Text which are included in the game use the dredded 'CLEAR INPUT' command. I'm not sure if that's the reason why this game in particular didn't make the finals, the main game runs fine, which I guess is the main thing, but still 'CLEAR INPUT' is easily accomplished on a 464 in BASIC 1.0 with 'WHILE INKEY$<>"":WEND', though is easily fixed.




* Jumperman


The main character for this game is rather cute and apart from the smooth scrolling, the game lacks Music and Sound Effects, the Bolders which look nice and the difficulty of the levels gets progressively harder there's no lives, though fortunately the game doesn't revert to the 1st level. Other noticable issues I noticed while playing this game was flicker, though not a big issue, the interaction between your main character and the bolders seemed to be problematic with your character falling through cracks in area where you could not jump out of, it kinda felt in some places you were jumping where there was no Bolder to Jump off, though the game runs at a cracking pace, however the game was also slowing down in places, which seems to happen during the Jump sequence.




* MoonBreak


The original DSK didn't function since it was overwriting AMSDOS while in the loading process, however I added a simple loader to rectify:



100 ' MOONBREAK LOADER
110 MODE 1:INK 0,0:INK 1,26
120 LOCATE 1,1:PRINT"Loading..."
130 OPENOUT"d":MEMORY &9FF
140 LOAD"MOONBREA.BIN",&1000
150 FOR a=&BE80 TO &BEAD
160 READ a$
170 POKE a,VAL("&"+a$)
180 NEXT a
190 CALL &BE80
200 DATA 21,50,4F,11,00,C0,01,70,26,ED,B0,21,00,10,11,50
210 DATA 4F,01,50,3F,ED,B0,F3,21,00,C0,11,A0,8E,01,70,26
220 DATA ED,B0,C3,5C,96,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00



Once I had the game loading, it seem to be a very straight exploration game with 3 Stages. The graphics were simple though adequite, there was no Music or Sound FXs. The first 2 stages are very straightforward with plenty of O2 supplies scattered around, the last stage being much harder with O2 supplies being located on the opening screen, though is still possible to complete. Overall I felt there's some bugs and other things to suggest the game is incomplete. The most annoying bug seems to be loosing control of your character, the menu also became corrupted. Your character can fire, through the other moving hazards don't seem to respond to that and your character only seems to die when no Oxygen is reached. The exploration seems to be the best part of the game with nicely layed out rooms to explore, though the game could do with the pieces to collect placed in a random location and perhaps the Oxygen supplies could disappear once your character reaches them.




* RAMAN


I quite enjoy this little platformer, the graphics are simple, though worked, there's the occasional graphical glitch, though nothing serious & collisions between your character and the others was on par. If you loose your 3 lifes, the game returns you to the start. The game just seems to be missing Music and Sound Effects, difficulty wise it's fairly straightforward getting through the stages, the game becomes a little bit more difficult the last couple of stages with the 2nd last stage being the most difficult. Overall a nice game which didn't quality for the finals.




* Shoot to Move


An interesting idea I thought, use A,S & D to shoot the Left Side, Bottom Side & Right Side to move. The idea being to move your Ball away from the Dangerous Red Strips and get to the Green. Unfortunately the game is buggy and the Shots fires impact the scenary in some areas. Collision is also rought with objects being wiped clean. There's a Tune, but there's nothing special about it, which leeds me to believe it would of been better with some Sound FXs.




* Slimy


Guide Slimy through 30 Stages of hazards. There's some nice graphics, the collision is a little rusty, otherwise playable. The gameplay for Slimy is nice with the ability of having Slimy move Left/Right as Slimy moves up the screen to dodge the hazards. A tune is present, though nothing to write home about. The game while bug free there's no Lives or Game over, you simply return to the start of that level you got to, which makes it quite possible to get through the entire game. A little prize awaits once you complete Level 30, otherwise one of the nicer games which didn't make the finals.




* Speeb


Like MoonBreak the file from the DSK file wasn't loading, I tried to rectify with a Loader of it's own, through unlike MoonBreak, it wasn't working, so I'm guessing the file is corrupt, which is a shame. I tried loading the CDT in Winape, though while midway through the loading, it reset back to BASIC. I gave the CDT one more go with WinCPC, which finally worked. I thought the graphics were cute although I was unsure what my character was, the game I thought is quite difficult, though if you work at it, the game will return you to the start of the stage you got to, for me I got to stage 3 and I just couldn't get any further with Birds, Clouds dropping things as well as the hedges to jump, making it seemily impossible, though I had a few cracks at it, mainly thanks to the Music, which seems to be the best part of the game. Just a shame I couldn't get working initially, which perhaps placed it out of the finals.




* STROOPIE!


Was glad to have helped and has gone a long way in making this enjoyable game written in BASIC. I also liked the idea of making choices based on what you see, rather than having your mind read what's being said, which makes your mind play tricks by going with what's been written instead of identifying an object or the  Colour it's written in. Put together different stages and difficulty settings and it's rather impressive, there's plenty of points to score and the quicker you are the more you score, make 3 mistakes and it's all over with a Hiscore table to record your result. There's nice little jangly sound effects and Tune, which I could find myself playing from time to time.
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

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asertus

Several BASIC games.., maybe people are asking for a BASIC prize :)

skylas

Thx Amsdos! Good to have nice and detailed reviews for these games!
Web: https://amstradsakis.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmstradSakis
My programs (only BASIC):
RETRO-LOADSHEET ON AMSTRAD CPC!
PENALTY KICKS!
CAPITAL QUIZ!
CAPITAL QUIZ 2! (Reverse edition)
HEADS OR TAILS (ΚΟΡΩΝΑ/ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ)
HEART CHASER 1,2,3!
BARBOUTI!
STROOPIE!
BUDRUMI!
ART WAR!
BATTLE OF LENINGRAD!
AMSTABOO!
RODOLFO SKYLARRIENTE!

Gryzor

Enjoyed all those mini reviews... :)

awergh

#6
Left this a little bit later then I should have  :P  but I have played them all now.
Some of these were played in November and some were played today so I might not remember what I was thinking when I wrote the original notes.
I have put a few notes in brackets (N:) guessing what I was thinking now when I am posting this. I don't think I've been really blunt in any of my comments that I wrote now or previously.

I played them all on my 464 except for Speeb and Moonbreak which wouldn't load from disk. Unfortunately my CPCRetroDev 2020 tape would only give me error b so I couldn't load them from the official tape either  :'( .

CELL BLOCK
Had music but was not something of note (N: I'm guessing I found it repetitive or forgettable.), qaop - no joystick though.
This is a puzzle game it seemed OK but I got sick of replaying the same levels. The ghosts remind me of caves of doom where you have to move around quickly to avoid them but there isn't a lot of space sometimes so its hard not to get stuck (N: presumably I meant not get cornered by enemies). I feel this would work better if you had a code so you didn't have to start at the beginning after losing all your lives. I admit I gave up because I didn't want to keep replaying the same levels.
(N: top down maze\puzzle game)

Slimy
Music is incredible short but seems nice for what it is when on the title screen, qaop no joystick though.
Finished all 30 levels (I was just about to give up). Got very sick of the music after a while, was ok on the title screen but not for 10 minutes of repeat. I liked the use of the gesture as it was nice to see and changed it up as I was starting to think it was a bit samey I like how it really feels like it sticks to the surface. A fun little game to play through to completion.
(N: not sure what genre this is, like the infinite runner but with more movement)

Jumper Man   
QAOP - no sound or music it seems, Had fun with the concept. I am pretty sure I finished this as it appears to repeat itself once you finish the last level. Should really have made it clear somehow to make you feel like you have achieved something. I am generally not a fan of repeating the levels over and over. The problem I had with this was the slowdown. It made the game very inconsistent to play as it was always speeding up and slowing down. It could have used more variety in the level graphics as the levels did not feel very distinct. I found that I kept running into the same structures (and resulting deaths).
(N: infinite runner style game)

moonbreak
disk failed to load
played it in an emulator this time
qaop.
Played through all the levels I think, there was no end screen so I couldn't be completely sure.
I found it reasonable to play but the levels were a bit bare, really needed a bit more to do in this game. Not sure if I took damage from the enemies or not, didn't seem to die from them only from running out of oxygen. very silent (especially as I played it after speeb which had music the whole time).
(N: top down game, a bit maze like)

babylon flotilla
No sound or music, wasd for controls.
Took me a while to realise that game over meant you started at level one again. Not sure if that reflects badly on the game or not. It seems competent side scrolling shmup but it wasn't exciting (N: presumably I did not find this compelling). I think it would be better if you could allow the player to have more then one life. It felt very passive to play instead of actively attacking the rocks.

Has a nice starscape. If feels a bit unforgiving with one hit death and you go back to the start of the game. This is exacerbated by some slightly dubious collision detection that makes deaths feel cheap. I feel like I am always playing the same thing because you die and go back to the beginning again and for a long time I didn't realise I was going back to level one because there is no indication of what level you are on unless you win the level.
(N: horizontal shmup style game)

Istradar
nice loading screen
not sure this game can work without only one player
qasd is a bit weird (N: Given this is a four player game having strange controls is not really surprising).
The screen feels like a little bit too small, I think id like something more zoomed in but this possibly makes sense, not really able to evaluate it when I'm playing by myself.
(N: its a bomberman style game I think with fairly simple graphics, but with only one person its hard to play)

STROOPIE
Fun little basic game that made you think.
I liked this more on a harder difficulty, less time to think. Was quite compelling for what seems like a fairly simple idea.

Speeb
disk didn't load
played it in an emulator this time
space a d for controls.
Music was quite nice, even with it playing for the whole time I played the game.
A simple game that I played for far longer than I expected to.
Got to level 3 The pixel perfect jumps at time were a bit frustrating Would not have kept playing if you went back to the start Infinite runner style game
There is a little bit of slow down but it didn't effect the game experience too much.
(N: infinite runner style game.)

RAMAN   
qaop for controls.
Single screen platform game, looks ok, plays ok enemies remind me of caves of doom actually (whether that is a bad thing or not is up to you), that said enemies in Caves of Doom didn't actually go around corners like this game.
I think the difficulty is about right. I imagine if I had more willingness I would play this to completion but I died so maybe not today (N: this implies that I got sick of replaying levels or ran out of time playing). No sound or music. What was the purpose of the short jump I never used it (N: I remember always using the big jump as it seemed better).
(N: single screen platformer)

Go Away Viking
qaop and space for controls.
Somewhat repetitive but not annoying music (for the most part) (N: At least that day I didn't find the music too repetitive). Well presented, seems like a nice fairly simple puzzle game, 3 enemies on screen makes it slow down though. Some of the levels seem a bit easy, I think the difficulty didn't seem to really scale up very well. More variety in the level graphics could have been nice. Sometimes I wonder about the collision detection. I ended up finishing this game.
(N: single screen platformer with some puzzle elements)

CURSED FORT   
It is written in BASIC, I typed LIST and there were a lot of lines in it.
You can use the joystick or arrows (I appreciate that) (N: so many games you have no way to set your own controls). It has some music and there is some sound although limited. Simple presentation that seems to work. Took me a while to figure out what was happening. However it was a bit unclear and seemed like it was random whether you won the fight initially. I would have liked to see the labyrinth (fort4.png) but died as it sounds like it would have been more interesting to see. I didn't really get into this, there just wasn't enough to see or do that made me want to play again after I died.
(N: I don't know what genre I would call this, text based fighting and a labyrinth I couldn't see)

Shoot To Move
Music is very quiet but very repetitive so turn that off anyway.
wasd for controls. Played through all the levels (there really weren't that many in the end). I thought the concept was pretty interesting although sometimes it didn't feel as controllable as I think it should be. Would have been better if the levels could have introduced more concepts to effectively expanding the game. It was somewhat of the meatboy formula (sigh again) but it did its own thing so I am not too bothered here . (N: Less like meatboy than a lot of other games but I expect I am going to be disappointed when there are yet more meatboy style games in 2021)
(N: single screen platformer)

Fitzroy Goes Sweeping   
My game, make sure to play v1.1 as v1.0 is broken.
(N: I didn't go back and play my game again as I have already written plenty about it in another thread. I never really did get any suggestions on how to improve it so I didn't do v1.2)
(N: turn based strategy game, CPC Power calls it a reflex game which I don't really see how it could be anything like boulderdash.)

skylas

Thank you for your time and the detailed reviews!
Web: https://amstradsakis.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmstradSakis
My programs (only BASIC):
RETRO-LOADSHEET ON AMSTRAD CPC!
PENALTY KICKS!
CAPITAL QUIZ!
CAPITAL QUIZ 2! (Reverse edition)
HEADS OR TAILS (ΚΟΡΩΝΑ/ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ)
HEART CHASER 1,2,3!
BARBOUTI!
STROOPIE!
BUDRUMI!
ART WAR!
BATTLE OF LENINGRAD!
AMSTABOO!
RODOLFO SKYLARRIENTE!

Gryzor

Thanks for the reviews :) Wish I had time to play them, so reading about the entries is something in itself. Wish there were screenshots ;)

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