MZXWiki - User contributions [en]

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-08-04T17:28:43Z

Kuroneko:

{{Competition
|title = Summer 2012 Day of Zeux
|image =
|host = [[KKairos]]
|judges = [[KKairos]], [[Wildweasel]], [[Insidious]], [[Wervyn]]
|dates = July 6-7th, 2012
|topics = Individuality (abstract)

Alternate History (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2011 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2011 Day of Zeux]]
|next = Most recent
}}

The '''[[Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux]]''' was held by [[KKairos]] on July 6-7th, 2012. The topics were '''Individuality''' and '''History'''. The competition received a low-average number of entries, albeit relatively high compared to the three prior competitions (7 non-DQed, 6, and most recently '''3'''). Several high quality submissions were released in this DoZ, including a top-down racing game by [[Risu2112]] and [[Otto Germain]], a violent shoot-em-up ''sequel to another Day of Zeux entry'', an RPG, and a resource conservation almost-roguelike. Only one game was disqualified, due to using conversions of images created before the competition.

This Day of Zeux was also notable for reintroducing the [[Day of Zeux drama]] in the form of the community reaction to Wildweasel's sheet, which was released three days after the competition ended and contained countless mindboggling internal inconsistencies that could have been fixed easily, as well as admitting in the sheet itself to having ''not even bothered to finish playing Thanatos Insignia 2''. He also notably failed to score Thanatos Insignia 2 with the correct scoresheet initially, until it was beaten over his head on IRC for an hour that README files have been explicitly noted within the DoZ rules to be an acceptable place to put the game's theme/scoresheet for several years and counting.

==Scores==
{|
! Place
! Number
! Title
! Team
! Score
|-
| 1st
| 80483
| [[DUI 20XX]]
| Shark Force 7 ([[Otto Germain]], [[Risu2112]])
| 1250/1600
|-
| 2nd
| 49932
| [[Thanatos Insignia 2]]
| Making Our DoZ Game With PZX And Forth Codes ([[Lancer-X]], [[Lachesis]])
| 1140/1600
|-
| 3rd
| 20027
| [[Wild Fire]]
| GOD DAMN YOU! I CAN STILL FIGHTING! ([[Maxim]])
| 1088/1600
|-
| 4th
| 74588
| [[Spirit Quest]]
| Quizzical Conniption ([[ThdPro]])
| 983/1600
|-
| 5th
| 74770
| [[Ununhexium]]
| 親戚とFILHÓSを食べるクリスマスの霊 ([[nooodl]])
| 882/1600
|-
| 6th
| 83889
| [[weltschmerz]]
| devNEKO ([[TOXi]])
| 676/1600
|-
| 7th
| 30154
| [[President Skeleton]]
| a skeleton ([[ough]])
| 525/1600
|-
| 8th
| 24966
| [[Hipster Quest]]
| Bronami ([[CaptainFailmore]])
| 413/1600
|-
| 9th
| 85538
| [[Ken: A Matter of Individuality]]
| Wombat's Eye Productions ([[Zappman]])
| 375/1600
|-
| 10th
| 69245
| [[Final Kamikaze]]
| Cute Bounty Hunter ([[Baby Bonnie Hood]])
| 368/1600
|-
| DQed
| 82246
| [[ffffff...]]
| i broekd 4 ([[Old-Sckool]])
| 397/1600
|}

==Judging Sheets==
Main page: [[:Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

*[[Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:KKairos|KKairos]]
*[[Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel|wildweasel]]
*[[Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Insidious|Insidious]]
*[[Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Wervyn|Wervyn]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-08-04T17:27:11Z

Kuroneko:

Winter 2007 DsDoZ

2012-07-31T00:57:59Z

Kuroneko: /* Scores */

[[category:Competitions]]

{{Competition |title = Winter 2007 Day of Zeux
|image = Pending
|host = [[wildweasel]]
|judges = [[CJA]], [[Mr_Alert]], [[Terryn]], [[ShloobeR]]
|dates = December 29-30, 2007
|topics = Tranquility (general)

The Wild West (specific)
|scoresheet = Theme-dependent
|previous = [[Summer 2007 DsDoZ|Summer 2007 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2008 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2008 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The Winter 2007 DualStream Day of Zeux was hosted by [[wildweasel]] during
the month of December 2007. The competition ran from December 29th to 30th, and the topics were '''Tranquility''' (general) and '''The Wild West''' (specific).

The judges were [[CJA]], [[Goshi]], [[Mr_Alert]], and [[Insidious]]. However, due to fallings-out, Goshi and Insidious were deemed too late to submit their scores and replacement judges were selected instead. These judges were initially [[Terryn]] and [[RoSS]], but RoSS also had personal problems and was forced to retire his judging post, leaving [[ShloobeR]] as the final fourth judge.

==Scores==
*1st Place - Entry 71046 - '''Tranquility''' - ''[[Ataraxia]]'' - Team Grumpy + Quasar ([[Exophase]], [[Lancer-X]], [[Quasar]]) (Score: 1432/1600)
*2nd Place - Entry 50482 - '''Wild West''' - ''[[A Fist Full of Entrails]]'' - Devils ([[Maxim]], [[Klinger B Goode]]) (Score: 1206/1600)
*3rd Place - Entry 48198 - '''Tranquility''' - ''[[The Tranquil Journey]]'' - Mao Xian Bin's Team ([[Kom]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 1170/1600)
*4th Place - Entry 80677 - '''Tranquility''' - ''[[Rage Channeler]]'' - OH MAN I'M OBSESSED WITH FF8 ([[NihilistMatt]]) (Score: 1030/1600)
*5th Place - Entry 33938 - '''Wild West''' - ''[[Gay Cowboy and his Adventures in the Wild West with... Mecha Zombie Hitler]]'' - ([[Malwyn]]) (Score: 1022/1600)
*6th Place - Entry 86709 - '''Wild West''' - ''[[Stan Dirtbike in Space Gold Is Where The Heart Used To Be]]'' - Toot toot mr train ([[Revvy]], [[Wervyn]], [[asgromo]]) (Score: 1019/1600)
*7th Place - Entry 79075 - '''Wild West''' - ''[[western_civ]]'' - [[Team DAiJOBU]] ([[afkHideki]]) (Score: 1018/1600)
*8th Place - Entry 95831 - '''Wild West''' - ''[[The Technicolor Adventures of Sheriff Bob]]'' - Mighty Morphin' Failure Rangers ([[Captain Failmore]], [[Ceresyne]], [[paul]]) (Score: 1004/1600)
*9th Place - Entry 78046 - '''Tranquility''' - ''[[Tranquility (DoZ game)|Tranquility]]'' - Da Contender ([[Old-Sckool]]) (Score: 982/1600)
*10th Place - Entry 48631 - '''Tranquility''' - ''[[LumineSMZX]]'' - Technocracy of Planets ([[pyro1588]], [[commodorejohn]]) (Score: 946/1600)
*11th Place - Entry 84567 - '''Tranquility''' - ''[[Disturbin' Tha Peace]]'' - THA JENA SIX ([[Luke Drelick|SEGA]]) (Score: 932/1600)
*12th Place - Entry 49946 - '''Wild West''' - ''[[No Reason]]'' - Team Naked Books ([[KKairos]], [[Mshprk11]]) (Score: 495/1600)
*13th Place - Entry 50121 - '''Wild West''' - ''[[Gold Crush]]'' - NeoFunk Industries ([[NeoScriptor]], [[k1ngfunk]], [[Wz886]]) (Score: 279/1600)

==Judging Sheets==
''See [[:Category:Winter 2007 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheets|Winter 2007 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheets]]''

==External Links==
* [http://www.digitalmzx.net/doz/Winter2007/ Official Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
* [http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=13421 DoZ Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

Busyloop

2012-07-27T05:02:14Z

Kuroneko:

In [[MegaZeux]] parlance, a '''busyloop''' is any program loop designed to execute continuously during the game, such as:<tt>
: "loop"
. "do some code here"
goto "loop"</tt>
More specifically, this term often refers to a loop like the previous one that does not have an explicit [[cycle]] terminator, and thus does more work than it should per cycle. In the past this wasn't a big deal and had few negative effects, since the [[commands]]-per-cycle limit of 40 forced execution to move to the next robot fairly quickly. Since the addition of the "commands" counter, which can variably set this number into the billions, a loop like this becomes a far more serious problem, and can easily cause a game to hang. For this reason, it is recommended that all busyloops contain either of the commands "[[wait]] 1" or "[[cycle]] 1" at some point in their execution. Usually the best place is right after the loop label, if there are multiple points of return; or right before the "goto" command if there is only one.

[[Category:MegaZeux]]

Busyloop

2012-07-27T05:01:36Z

Kuroneko:

In [[MegaZeux]] parlance, a '''busyloop''' is any program loop designed to execute continuously during the game, such as:<tt>
: "loop"
. "do some code here"
goto "loop"</tt>
More specifically, this term often refers to a loop like the previous one that does not have an explicit [[cycle]] terminator, and thus does more work than it should per cycle. In the past this wasn't a big deal and had few negative effects, since the [[commands]]-per-cycle limit of 40 forced execution to move to the next robot fairly quickly. Since the addition of the "commands" counter, which can variably set this number into the billions, a loop like this becomes a far more serious problem, and can easily cause a game to hang. For this reason, it is recommended that all busyloops contain either of the commands "[[wait 1]]" or "[[cycle]] 1" at some point in their execution. Usually the best place is right after the loop label, if there are multiple points of return; or right before the "goto" command if there is only one.

[[Category:MegaZeux]]

Day of Zeux

2012-07-24T03:45:40Z

Kuroneko: /* Past Days of Zeux */

A '''Day of Zeux''', typically abbreviated as '''DoZ''', is a competition invented by [[kvance]] in which teams and solo competitors are assigned a topic and must create a game within 24 hours based on one of the topics. The submitted games are then scored by a number of judges (usually four) selected by the DoZ's host to determine the winner. Day of Zeux competitions pre-summer-2001 were confined to one topic; however, the two-topic "Dualstream" format (abbr. '''DsDoZ''') popularised by [[Terryn]] has since replaced it. The terms "Dualstream Day of Zeux" and "Day of Zeux" are now synonymous.

Days of Zeux competitions are typically held twice per year, within the first month of summer and first two weeks of winter. There have been some exceptions (such as Easter 1999).

==Day of Zeux Rules==
Most current Day of Zeux competitions typically run under these default rules, with minor variations:
===Teams===
Teams consist of one to three people. If necessary, competitor(s) may also appoint an alternate member who can take the place of any member of their team should they be unable to attend the Day of Zeux. This alternate member can only be added to the team at the start of the DoZ, before the topics are announced. Sign-ups are typically accepted from the time the form goes on the page until the Day of Zeux ends (for obvious reasons, the alternate member field should be removed when the topics are announced).

===Topics===
When the Day of Zeux starts, two topics are presented: an abstract topic and a concrete topic (often referred to as "general" and "specific" topics, respectively). They are posted in as many places as possible - e.g. [[DMZX|DigitalMZX]], IRC, the email addresses of the host(s), and on the DoZ site if one was created. A team or solo competitor may only use one topic as the game's theme. If the average score in the theme category for a game is below a certain threshold (currently 5 (25%) for the Specific theme only), it is automatically disqualified.

===Anonymity===
Up until 2005, the Day of Zeux enforced an anonymity rule, which forbade contestants from disclosing their identity within their games. This was done to prevent biased scores from judges, but has since been removed from the rule set.

===Team Numbers===
Each team receives a number prior to the start of the competition. These numbers were originally used for anonymity purposes; however, since the anonymity rule typically no longer applies to DoZs, they are now merely for traditional and organizational purposes. The ZIP/RAR file that competitor(s) submit must have a filename that matches their team number. Failure to follow this rule results in disqualification.

===External Material===
All material except music, sound, and the default MZX charsets/palette must be created within the 24 hour period. If any evidence is found that the competitor(s) used material such as engines, character sets, palettes, and artwork created before the announcement of the topics, the competitor(s) are disqualified. Use of external programs such as [[CharWorks]] and [[Palzor]] during the Day of Zeux is permitted, as long as it is done within the 24 hours.

===Game Submission===
Before submission, the competitor(s) must make sure that the ZIP matches the team number (ie. 424.zip for team 424). The game is expected to run as intended when it is unzipped, so care must be taken include all music, WAVs, and (of course) the .MZX file. Games must be submitted to, and received by, the host of the Day of Zeux in any way possible. [[ajs]] has assisted in running an FTP server for this purpose in many of the recent DoZs, but the host is generally expected to provide as many fallback options (e.g. HTTP upload, email, AIM file transfer) as possible.

===Grace Period===
Following the end of the 24 hours, a one hour grace period goes into effect for late submissions and patch submissions. Scoring penalties have varied widely across DoZs, but they usually look something like the chart seen below. Any games submitted after the DoZ and grace period have ended are judged, but disqualified.

* 1-30: no deduction from final score
* 31-40: 7.5% deduction from final score
* 41-50: 15% deduction from final score
* 51-60: 30% deduction from final score

===Patch Submissions===
The rules regarding exact handling of multiple patches are less set in stone and tend to vary, since in practice this scenario almost never occurs. But current rules work as follows: Competitors are allowed unlimited patch submissions during the first half hour of the grace period, with no penalty. After that half hour has passed, competitors are allowed one patch submission, which will suffer the score penalties above depending on lateness. (If the first submission is received during this half hour, it will count as your patch submission.) Any further patch submissions suffer the score penalties, PLUS an additional 5% penalty for each patch submission.

===MegaZeux Version===
The judges play all games in the latest stable version of MegaZeux (2.83), so competitors are generally recommended to create and test their games in that version. SMZX mode is permitted, but not specifically rewarded, and most DoZers avoid using it since it generally has a low return on investment.

==Current Day of Zeux Scoring==
'''Theme - 100/400 (General) 20/400 (Specific)'''
For the general theme, this should be the most important category. You'll be scored on how well you interpret and use the theme, as well as how much the theme can be felt in all elements of the game. For the specific theme, the purpose of the theme category is more to ensure that you're following the rules than it is to get you points. That said, you'll be sorry if you completely neglect this, since as outlined in the rules, if you receive an average of 5 or less, you will automatically be disqualified.

'''Gameplay - 90/400 (General) 120/400 (Specific)'''
The meat and potatoes of any game, if you don't have gameplay, what DO you have? This encompasses how well the game works as a whole, how fluid the play is, and most importantly, whether it's FUN or not.

'''Graphics - 70/400 (General) 90/400 (Specific)'''
All this emphasis on graphics over game these days is sickening! But even so, graphics are an important part of the game, since without them, we'd just be playing text adventures (not entirely a bad thing, but still). So, does your game look nice, have you made good use of space and color, or do I want to stab out my eyes as soon as I load the title screen?

'''Technique - 60/400 (General) 80/400 (Specific)'''
This is a game-making competition, and so each game is expected to use at least some Robotic. However, all code is not created equal: some code is cooler, faster, shorter and generally just better than other code. Does your code make movement feel slow or smooth? Is your entire game spread out over many, many boards with a lot of repetition, or is it modular and on one board? Is the programming generally impressive?

'''Story - 50/400 (General) 50/400 (Specific)'''
Me, I'm a sucker for a good story, I can almost forgive a game for being buggy as hell and for looking like my monitor threw up, if the story sends me into raptures of ecstacy. Almost. Story is important, but it's not going to carry your game any more than your nifty sword engine will. Also, story will be scored according to how important the judge thinks story is to the game. You probably won't get a perfect score here without a perfect plot, but you might get a decent score here for no plot at all, if your game is designed to be a mindless arcade shoot-em-up.

'''Sound - 30/400 (General) 40/400 (Specific)'''
Music does for the ears what graphics do for the eyes. Humans being (by and large) visual creatures, this category is only worth about half as much, but it's still important. Music creates ambience, and sound effects heighten the atmosphere. If they don't work with the game, then they might as well not be there. For this reason, you may be awarded a few pity points for having no sound or music , since we firmly believe that no audio is better than bad audio. 
[[image:DoZ_General_Theme.png]][[image:DoZ_Specific_Theme.png]] 
Four judges, 400 points each, 1600 points total. Late penalties incurred during the grace period described in the rules will be deducted from this final, 1600 point score.

==Past Day of Zeux Scoring==
The scoreset and text in this section were written by [[Wervyn]] in Summer 2003, with slight alterations over time. This scoreset was used with minor variations in point value from Winter 2001 to Summer 2006.

The maximum score that any judge can give to a game is 400 points (300 before rank weighting is factored in). After rank weighting is applied, the sum of all judges' scores, minus late penalties incurred during the grade period described in the rules, will be the final score (1600 points is the maximum score if there are four judges).

'''Gameplay'''
75 points max. The meat and potatoes of any game. If you don't have gameplay, what DO you have? This encompasses how well the game works as a whole, how fluid the play is, and most importantly, whether it's FUN or not.

'''Graphics'''
60 points max. All this emphasis on graphics over game these days is sickening! But even so, graphics are an important part of the game, since without them, we'd just be playing text adventures (not entirely a bad thing, but still). So, does your game look nice, have you made good use of space and color, or do I want to stab out my eyes as soon as I load the title screen?

'''Innovation'''
45 points max. Mother is the necessity of innovation, or something like that. We at the DoZ value creativity and new design concepts highly. Of course, make sure your brilliant idea WORKS, first. Innovation that makes the game new, interesting, on basically makes me go "hmm, never thought of doing that before" is a good thing. Innovation that crashes my computer, not so much.

'''Plot'''
40 points max. Me, I'm a sucker for a good story, I can almost forgive a game for being buggy as hell and for looking like my monitor threw up, if the story sends me into raptures of ecstasy. Almost. Story is important, but it's not going to carry your game any more than your nifty sword engine will. Also, plot will be scored according to how important the judge thinks plot is to the game. You probably won't get a perfect score here without a perfect plot, but you might get a decent score here for no plot at all, if your game is designed to be a mindless arcade shoot-em-up.

'''Music/Sound'''
35 points max. Music does for the ears what graphics do for the eyes. Humans being (by and large) visual creatures, this category is only worth about half as much, but it's still important. Music creates ambiance, and sound effects heighten the atmosphere. If they don't work with the game, then they might as well not be there. For this reason, you may be awarded a few pity points for having no sound or music , since we firmly believe that no audio is better than bad audio.

'''Theme'''
30 points max. The purpose of the theme category is more to ensure that you're following the rules than it is to get you points. That said, you'll be sorry if you completely neglect this, since as outlined in the rules, if three or more judges score your theme less than 33% (less than 10 points), you automatically lose.

'''Discretion'''
15 points max. For all the niggling little details that just don't seem to fit in any other category. Mostly, this is about using common sense and good taste. Loads of pointless obscenity, obvious pandering to the judges (as opposed to subtle pandering, which can be a good thing if done right), and sometimes particularly addle-brained bugs, all will get you counted off here.

'''Rank Weighting'''
100 points max. This is a special score for the judges, so that they can incorporate their gut instinct into an otherwise methodical system. Unlike the other scores, which are directly designated by the judge, the rank weight is awarded proportionally based on the judges personal ranking of the games from best to worst. What happens is the judges favorite game receives a full hundred points, the judges least favorite game receives no points, and the games in between receive a percentage of the points based on how high they are on the list. For those interested in the formula, RW = (N - R)/(N - 1) * 100, RW is rank weight, R is the judge's awarded rank, and N is the total number of entries. IMPORTANT: This is NOT simply a restatement of the games' ranks as calculated from their other categorical scores. This is so that the judge can express their personal feelings on the submissions as a whole, independent of any other scoring they might have made.

==Variations==
There are a few variations of the Day of Zeux, most of which increase or decrease the time limit. A ''Week of Zeux'', or ''WoZ'', ends exactly a week after topics are announced. A ''Weekend of Zeux'', or ''WEoZ'', usually begins on a Friday or Saturday and lasts for 48 hours. These extended time competitions are extremely rare, as people often lose interest before the competition ends and very few quality submissions are actually received. The longer the competition, the fewer the entries.

The ''[[Blitzkriegzeux]]'', or ''BKZX'' (alt ''BkZX''), which the DoZ itself was originally based on, is usually organized on IRC and can last up to two hours, or on rare occasions, even longer. Day of Zeux scoring rules rarely (if ever) apply to a BKZX. Most BKZXes taking place after 2004 are scored by peer ranking; in rare cases such as tie for first place with fewer than five competitors, or whenever there are fewer than three competitors, the person organizing the BKZX decides which game is the best.

Past Variations:

*[[Week of Zeux 1999]] - [[Magus919]], "Experimentation Gone Wrong", 2 entries.
*[[The Summer Weekend of Zeux 1999]] - [[ChryoZak]], "Reality", 7 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Weekend of Zeux 2001]] - [[joshdw1]] and [[Maverick]], "Conspiracies", 3 entries.
*[[Zeuxworld's First Annual Week of Zeux 2002]] - [[ZzCrook]], "Dinosaurs" and "The Afterlife", 4 entries.
*[[Quarter Day of Zeux 2010]] - [[Maxim]], "Make a game in 4 colors" or "Make a game using only the default char. set", 5 entries.

==Rule Variations==

*Almost all DoZ competitions prior to December 2005 used an "anonymity rule" where teams hid their identities from the judges; only the host or file administrator knew the people's identites. The notable exception is the first DoZ in 1998. Since the anonymity rule was rescinded in [[Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux|the Winter 2005 DoZ]], no further DoZs have had an anonymity rule. Several DoZ entries have been thrown out over anonymity violations, notably [[Nash|Nash's]] [[Porno Creep]].
*The [[Christmas 2006 Dualstream Day of Zeux|December 2006 Day of Zeux]] marked the introduction of the split scoresheet detailed above. Previous Dualstream DoZs used the same scoresheet for both themes, and included a rank weight category which applied a scaled modifier based on a judge's ordering of the games from most to least favorite. In an effort spearheaded by [[Wervyn]], new scores were proposed which would weight the "theme" score far more heavily and restructure the categories; however, compromise between dissenters such as [[Exophase]] over the theme weighting led to two separate scoresheets (one per topic; one as Wervyn proposed and one more closely resembling the default). The scoresheet and debate are detailed [http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11315&st=0 here.]
*In one DoZ, teams were allowed to have four members total ([[Newyear Dualstream Day of Zeux Q4 2002|Winter 2002]]).

==Past Days of Zeux==

*[[Day of Zeux 1998]] - [[Wondercow]], "Time Travel", 6 entries.
*[[Day of Zeux, Icy Season 1999]] - [[kvance]], "War", 10 entries.
*[[Day of Zeux, Easter 1999]] - [[Stargazer]], "Stress", 12 entries.
*[[The Winter 1999 24-Hours of MegaZeux]] - Ibrahim, "C.O.S.T.A.N.", 13 entries.
*[[Summer Day of Zeux 2000]] - Ibrahim, "Freedom", 14 entries.
*[[Winter 2000 24 Hours of Zeux]] - Ibrahim, "Exploration", 10 entries.
*[[Summer Dualstream Day of Zeux 2001]] - Terryn, "Rebirth" and "Bloodthirsty Plants", 15 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Newyear Dualstream Day of Zeux 2002]] - Terryn, "Stability" and "Forces of Nature", 14 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Dualstream Day of Zeux Q2 2002]] - [[Exophase]], "Disease" and "Solar Energy", 20 entries.
*[[Newyear Dualstream Day of Zeux Q4 2002]] - Terryn, "Equilibrium" and "Medicine", 13 entries (6 DQed).
*[[Summer 2003 Day of Zeux]] - Exophase, "Trust" and "The Internet", 20 entries (2 DQed).
*[[12th Biannual 2004 New Year's DualStream DoZ]] - [[Wervyn]], "Intelligence" and "Swords", 13 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Summer DsDoZ 2004]] - Terryn, "Fate" and "Mines", 9 entries.
*[[Christmas 2004 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[User:Kuddy|Kuddy]], "Fear" and "Ancient Ruins", 17 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Summer 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[Insidious]], "Growth" and "Space Exploration", 20 entries (3 DQed).
*[[Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[Kuddy]], "Valor" and "Organized Crime", 16 entries (8 DQed).
*[[Summer 2006 DsDoZ]] - [[Insidious]], "Death" and "Pirates", 13 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Christmas 2006 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[RoSS]], "Memory" and "Flight", 15 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Summer 2007 DsDoZ]] - Lancer-X and Terryn, "Genetics" and "Sentient AI", 15 entries (3 DQed).
*[[Winter 2007 DsDoZ]] - WildWeasel, "Tranquility" and "Wild West", 13 entries.
*[[Summer 2008 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[asgromo]], "Bureaucracy" and "Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the End of the World", 10 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Winter 2008 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[Insidious]], "Water" and "Murder Mystery", 15 entries.
*[[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Wervyn, "Paranoia" and "News Reporters", 12 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Kuddy, "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders", 14 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Terryn and Lancer-X, "Immortality" and "Nanomachines", 13 entries (6 DQed).
*[[Winter 2011 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Insidious, "Violence" and "Espionage", 6 entries.
*[[Summer 2011 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Kuddy, "Anger" and "Nightmares", 3 entries.
*[[Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[KKairos]], "Individuality" and "Alternate History", 11 entries (1 DQed).

==Miscellaneous==

*The longest-standing scoring system was contentiously hammered out between [[Exophase]], [[ajs]], and [[Terryn]] in late 2001, and lasted five years before being retooled into the current system. Before that the scoring sheet was often in flux, with wide variation in categories and point ratios from DoZ to DoZ.
*The entire set of scoresheets of the Summer 2000 DoZ ("Freedom") is missing.

[[Category:Community]]
[[Category:Competitions]]

Day of Zeux

2012-07-24T03:44:05Z

Kuroneko: /* Variations */

A '''Day of Zeux''', typically abbreviated as '''DoZ''', is a competition invented by [[kvance]] in which teams and solo competitors are assigned a topic and must create a game within 24 hours based on one of the topics. The submitted games are then scored by a number of judges (usually four) selected by the DoZ's host to determine the winner. Day of Zeux competitions pre-summer-2001 were confined to one topic; however, the two-topic "Dualstream" format (abbr. '''DsDoZ''') popularised by [[Terryn]] has since replaced it. The terms "Dualstream Day of Zeux" and "Day of Zeux" are now synonymous.

Days of Zeux competitions are typically held twice per year, within the first month of summer and first two weeks of winter. There have been some exceptions (such as Easter 1999).

==Day of Zeux Rules==
Most current Day of Zeux competitions typically run under these default rules, with minor variations:
===Teams===
Teams consist of one to three people. If necessary, competitor(s) may also appoint an alternate member who can take the place of any member of their team should they be unable to attend the Day of Zeux. This alternate member can only be added to the team at the start of the DoZ, before the topics are announced. Sign-ups are typically accepted from the time the form goes on the page until the Day of Zeux ends (for obvious reasons, the alternate member field should be removed when the topics are announced).

===Topics===
When the Day of Zeux starts, two topics are presented: an abstract topic and a concrete topic (often referred to as "general" and "specific" topics, respectively). They are posted in as many places as possible - e.g. [[DMZX|DigitalMZX]], IRC, the email addresses of the host(s), and on the DoZ site if one was created. A team or solo competitor may only use one topic as the game's theme. If the average score in the theme category for a game is below a certain threshold (currently 5 (25%) for the Specific theme only), it is automatically disqualified.

===Anonymity===
Up until 2005, the Day of Zeux enforced an anonymity rule, which forbade contestants from disclosing their identity within their games. This was done to prevent biased scores from judges, but has since been removed from the rule set.

===Team Numbers===
Each team receives a number prior to the start of the competition. These numbers were originally used for anonymity purposes; however, since the anonymity rule typically no longer applies to DoZs, they are now merely for traditional and organizational purposes. The ZIP/RAR file that competitor(s) submit must have a filename that matches their team number. Failure to follow this rule results in disqualification.

===External Material===
All material except music, sound, and the default MZX charsets/palette must be created within the 24 hour period. If any evidence is found that the competitor(s) used material such as engines, character sets, palettes, and artwork created before the announcement of the topics, the competitor(s) are disqualified. Use of external programs such as [[CharWorks]] and [[Palzor]] during the Day of Zeux is permitted, as long as it is done within the 24 hours.

===Game Submission===
Before submission, the competitor(s) must make sure that the ZIP matches the team number (ie. 424.zip for team 424). The game is expected to run as intended when it is unzipped, so care must be taken include all music, WAVs, and (of course) the .MZX file. Games must be submitted to, and received by, the host of the Day of Zeux in any way possible. [[ajs]] has assisted in running an FTP server for this purpose in many of the recent DoZs, but the host is generally expected to provide as many fallback options (e.g. HTTP upload, email, AIM file transfer) as possible.

===Grace Period===
Following the end of the 24 hours, a one hour grace period goes into effect for late submissions and patch submissions. Scoring penalties have varied widely across DoZs, but they usually look something like the chart seen below. Any games submitted after the DoZ and grace period have ended are judged, but disqualified.

* 1-30: no deduction from final score
* 31-40: 7.5% deduction from final score
* 41-50: 15% deduction from final score
* 51-60: 30% deduction from final score

===Patch Submissions===
The rules regarding exact handling of multiple patches are less set in stone and tend to vary, since in practice this scenario almost never occurs. But current rules work as follows: Competitors are allowed unlimited patch submissions during the first half hour of the grace period, with no penalty. After that half hour has passed, competitors are allowed one patch submission, which will suffer the score penalties above depending on lateness. (If the first submission is received during this half hour, it will count as your patch submission.) Any further patch submissions suffer the score penalties, PLUS an additional 5% penalty for each patch submission.

===MegaZeux Version===
The judges play all games in the latest stable version of MegaZeux (2.83), so competitors are generally recommended to create and test their games in that version. SMZX mode is permitted, but not specifically rewarded, and most DoZers avoid using it since it generally has a low return on investment.

==Current Day of Zeux Scoring==
'''Theme - 100/400 (General) 20/400 (Specific)'''
For the general theme, this should be the most important category. You'll be scored on how well you interpret and use the theme, as well as how much the theme can be felt in all elements of the game. For the specific theme, the purpose of the theme category is more to ensure that you're following the rules than it is to get you points. That said, you'll be sorry if you completely neglect this, since as outlined in the rules, if you receive an average of 5 or less, you will automatically be disqualified.

'''Gameplay - 90/400 (General) 120/400 (Specific)'''
The meat and potatoes of any game, if you don't have gameplay, what DO you have? This encompasses how well the game works as a whole, how fluid the play is, and most importantly, whether it's FUN or not.

'''Graphics - 70/400 (General) 90/400 (Specific)'''
All this emphasis on graphics over game these days is sickening! But even so, graphics are an important part of the game, since without them, we'd just be playing text adventures (not entirely a bad thing, but still). So, does your game look nice, have you made good use of space and color, or do I want to stab out my eyes as soon as I load the title screen?

'''Technique - 60/400 (General) 80/400 (Specific)'''
This is a game-making competition, and so each game is expected to use at least some Robotic. However, all code is not created equal: some code is cooler, faster, shorter and generally just better than other code. Does your code make movement feel slow or smooth? Is your entire game spread out over many, many boards with a lot of repetition, or is it modular and on one board? Is the programming generally impressive?

'''Story - 50/400 (General) 50/400 (Specific)'''
Me, I'm a sucker for a good story, I can almost forgive a game for being buggy as hell and for looking like my monitor threw up, if the story sends me into raptures of ecstacy. Almost. Story is important, but it's not going to carry your game any more than your nifty sword engine will. Also, story will be scored according to how important the judge thinks story is to the game. You probably won't get a perfect score here without a perfect plot, but you might get a decent score here for no plot at all, if your game is designed to be a mindless arcade shoot-em-up.

'''Sound - 30/400 (General) 40/400 (Specific)'''
Music does for the ears what graphics do for the eyes. Humans being (by and large) visual creatures, this category is only worth about half as much, but it's still important. Music creates ambience, and sound effects heighten the atmosphere. If they don't work with the game, then they might as well not be there. For this reason, you may be awarded a few pity points for having no sound or music , since we firmly believe that no audio is better than bad audio. 
[[image:DoZ_General_Theme.png]][[image:DoZ_Specific_Theme.png]] 
Four judges, 400 points each, 1600 points total. Late penalties incurred during the grace period described in the rules will be deducted from this final, 1600 point score.

==Past Day of Zeux Scoring==
The scoreset and text in this section were written by [[Wervyn]] in Summer 2003, with slight alterations over time. This scoreset was used with minor variations in point value from Winter 2001 to Summer 2006.

The maximum score that any judge can give to a game is 400 points (300 before rank weighting is factored in). After rank weighting is applied, the sum of all judges' scores, minus late penalties incurred during the grade period described in the rules, will be the final score (1600 points is the maximum score if there are four judges).

'''Gameplay'''
75 points max. The meat and potatoes of any game. If you don't have gameplay, what DO you have? This encompasses how well the game works as a whole, how fluid the play is, and most importantly, whether it's FUN or not.

'''Graphics'''
60 points max. All this emphasis on graphics over game these days is sickening! But even so, graphics are an important part of the game, since without them, we'd just be playing text adventures (not entirely a bad thing, but still). So, does your game look nice, have you made good use of space and color, or do I want to stab out my eyes as soon as I load the title screen?

'''Innovation'''
45 points max. Mother is the necessity of innovation, or something like that. We at the DoZ value creativity and new design concepts highly. Of course, make sure your brilliant idea WORKS, first. Innovation that makes the game new, interesting, on basically makes me go "hmm, never thought of doing that before" is a good thing. Innovation that crashes my computer, not so much.

'''Plot'''
40 points max. Me, I'm a sucker for a good story, I can almost forgive a game for being buggy as hell and for looking like my monitor threw up, if the story sends me into raptures of ecstasy. Almost. Story is important, but it's not going to carry your game any more than your nifty sword engine will. Also, plot will be scored according to how important the judge thinks plot is to the game. You probably won't get a perfect score here without a perfect plot, but you might get a decent score here for no plot at all, if your game is designed to be a mindless arcade shoot-em-up.

'''Music/Sound'''
35 points max. Music does for the ears what graphics do for the eyes. Humans being (by and large) visual creatures, this category is only worth about half as much, but it's still important. Music creates ambiance, and sound effects heighten the atmosphere. If they don't work with the game, then they might as well not be there. For this reason, you may be awarded a few pity points for having no sound or music , since we firmly believe that no audio is better than bad audio.

'''Theme'''
30 points max. The purpose of the theme category is more to ensure that you're following the rules than it is to get you points. That said, you'll be sorry if you completely neglect this, since as outlined in the rules, if three or more judges score your theme less than 33% (less than 10 points), you automatically lose.

'''Discretion'''
15 points max. For all the niggling little details that just don't seem to fit in any other category. Mostly, this is about using common sense and good taste. Loads of pointless obscenity, obvious pandering to the judges (as opposed to subtle pandering, which can be a good thing if done right), and sometimes particularly addle-brained bugs, all will get you counted off here.

'''Rank Weighting'''
100 points max. This is a special score for the judges, so that they can incorporate their gut instinct into an otherwise methodical system. Unlike the other scores, which are directly designated by the judge, the rank weight is awarded proportionally based on the judges personal ranking of the games from best to worst. What happens is the judges favorite game receives a full hundred points, the judges least favorite game receives no points, and the games in between receive a percentage of the points based on how high they are on the list. For those interested in the formula, RW = (N - R)/(N - 1) * 100, RW is rank weight, R is the judge's awarded rank, and N is the total number of entries. IMPORTANT: This is NOT simply a restatement of the games' ranks as calculated from their other categorical scores. This is so that the judge can express their personal feelings on the submissions as a whole, independent of any other scoring they might have made.

==Variations==
There are a few variations of the Day of Zeux, most of which increase or decrease the time limit. A ''Week of Zeux'', or ''WoZ'', ends exactly a week after topics are announced. A ''Weekend of Zeux'', or ''WEoZ'', usually begins on a Friday or Saturday and lasts for 48 hours. These extended time competitions are extremely rare, as people often lose interest before the competition ends and very few quality submissions are actually received. The longer the competition, the fewer the entries.

The ''[[Blitzkriegzeux]]'', or ''BKZX'' (alt ''BkZX''), which the DoZ itself was originally based on, is usually organized on IRC and can last up to two hours, or on rare occasions, even longer. Day of Zeux scoring rules rarely (if ever) apply to a BKZX. Most BKZXes taking place after 2004 are scored by peer ranking; in rare cases such as tie for first place with fewer than five competitors, or whenever there are fewer than three competitors, the person organizing the BKZX decides which game is the best.

Past Variations:

*[[Week of Zeux 1999]] - [[Magus919]], "Experimentation Gone Wrong", 2 entries.
*[[The Summer Weekend of Zeux 1999]] - [[ChryoZak]], "Reality", 7 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Weekend of Zeux 2001]] - [[joshdw1]] and [[Maverick]], "Conspiracies", 3 entries.
*[[Zeuxworld's First Annual Week of Zeux 2002]] - [[ZzCrook]], "Dinosaurs" and "The Afterlife", 4 entries.
*[[Quarter Day of Zeux 2010]] - [[Maxim]], "Make a game in 4 colors" or "Make a game using only the default char. set", 5 entries.

==Rule Variations==

*Almost all DoZ competitions prior to December 2005 used an "anonymity rule" where teams hid their identities from the judges; only the host or file administrator knew the people's identites. The notable exception is the first DoZ in 1998. Since the anonymity rule was rescinded in [[Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux|the Winter 2005 DoZ]], no further DoZs have had an anonymity rule. Several DoZ entries have been thrown out over anonymity violations, notably [[Nash|Nash's]] [[Porno Creep]].
*The [[Christmas 2006 Dualstream Day of Zeux|December 2006 Day of Zeux]] marked the introduction of the split scoresheet detailed above. Previous Dualstream DoZs used the same scoresheet for both themes, and included a rank weight category which applied a scaled modifier based on a judge's ordering of the games from most to least favorite. In an effort spearheaded by [[Wervyn]], new scores were proposed which would weight the "theme" score far more heavily and restructure the categories; however, compromise between dissenters such as [[Exophase]] over the theme weighting led to two separate scoresheets (one per topic; one as Wervyn proposed and one more closely resembling the default). The scoresheet and debate are detailed [http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11315&st=0 here.]
*In one DoZ, teams were allowed to have four members total ([[Newyear Dualstream Day of Zeux Q4 2002|Winter 2002]]).

==Past Days of Zeux==

*[[Day of Zeux 1998]] - [[Wondercow]], "Time Travel", 6 entries.
*[[Day of Zeux, Icy Season 1999]] - [[kvance]], "War", 10 entries.
*[[Day of Zeux, Easter 1999]] - [[Stargazer]], "Stress", 12 entries.
*[[The Winter 1999 24-Hours of MegaZeux]] - Ibrahim, "C.O.S.T.A.N.", 13 entries.
*[[Summer Day of Zeux 2000]] - Ibrahim, "Freedom", 14 entries.
*[[Winter 2000 24 Hours of Zeux]] - Ibrahim, "Exploration", 10 entries.
*[[Summer Dualstream Day of Zeux 2001]] - Terryn, "Rebirth" and "Bloodthirsty Plants", 15 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Newyear Dualstream Day of Zeux 2002]] - Terryn, "Stability" and "Forces of Nature", 14 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Dualstream Day of Zeux Q2 2002]] - [[Exophase]], "Disease" and "Solar Energy", 20 entries.
*[[Newyear Dualstream Day of Zeux Q4 2002]] - Terryn, "Equilibrium" and "Medicine", 13 entries (6 DQed).
*[[Summer 2003 Day of Zeux]] - Exophase, "Trust" and "The Internet", 20 entries (2 DQed).
*[[12th Biannual 2004 New Year's DualStream DoZ]] - [[Wervyn]], "Intelligence" and "Swords", 13 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Summer DsDoZ 2004]] - Terryn, "Fate" and "Mines", 9 entries.
*[[Christmas 2004 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[User:Kuddy|Kuddy]], "Fear" and "Ancient Ruins", 17 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Summer 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[Insidious]], "Growth" and "Space Exploration", 20 entries (3 DQed).
*[[Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[Kuddy]], "Valor" and "Organized Crime", 16 entries (8 DQed).
*[[Summer 2006 DsDoZ]] - [[Insidious]], "Death" and "Pirates", 13 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Christmas 2006 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[RoSS]], "Memory" and "Flight", 15 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Summer 2007 DsDoZ]] - Lancer-X and Terryn, "Genetics" and "Sentient AI", 15 entries (3 DQed).
*[[Winter 2007 DsDoZ]] - WildWeasel, "Tranquility" and "Wild West", 13 entries.
*[[Summer 2008 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[asgromo]], "Bureaucracy" and "Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the End of the World", 10 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Winter 2008 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - [[Insidious]], "Water" and "Murder Mystery", 15 entries.
*[[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Wervyn, "Paranoia" and "News Reporters", 12 entries (1 DQed).
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Kuddy, "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders", 14 entries (2 DQed).
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Terryn and Lancer-X, "Immortality" and "Nanomachines", 13 entries (6 DQed).
*[[Winter 2011 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Insidious, "Violence" and "Espionage", 6 entries.
*[[Summer 2011 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] - Kuddy, "Anger" and "Nightmares", 3 entries.

==Miscellaneous==

*The longest-standing scoring system was contentiously hammered out between [[Exophase]], [[ajs]], and [[Terryn]] in late 2001, and lasted five years before being retooled into the current system. Before that the scoring sheet was often in flux, with wide variation in categories and point ratios from DoZ to DoZ.
*The entire set of scoresheets of the Summer 2000 DoZ ("Freedom") is missing.

[[Category:Community]]
[[Category:Competitions]]

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel

2012-07-22T06:08:02Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets Weasel SummerDsDoZ2012 sheet Summer 2012 DsDoZ Topics: Individuality (abstract) and Alternate History (concrete) Ho..."

[[Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]
Weasel SummerDsDoZ2012 sheet

Summer 2012 DsDoZ

Topics: Individuality (abstract) and Alternate History (concrete)

Hosted by KKairos; this judging sheet written by wildweasel on 7/7/2012

A Foreword, Yet Again

This DoZ might not have been quite as huge of a clusterfuck as some of them were, but there was a scary part just after the competition where people were uploading their entries to an FTP that wasn’t quite set up for us, or something. Only now, about half a day after the competition’s end, do I have the games to play and judge. That’s alright though, because for once, I’m not going to just blow through all of these in one day. (And from the sound of things, I’m still going to end up being the first judge to turn in results...but why do I care? It’s not a friggin’ contest. Well, it kind of is. Just not like that. *cough*)
#20027 - Wild Fire

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Unspecified, assuming Theme-Light.

This entry screams “Maxim” to me - the old-school arcade action, the flashy colored bullets, relatively smooth movement, and strict adherence to normal MZX graphical conventions. Let’s face it, the dude knows his arcade gameplay.

(template: theme-light)

Theme - 10/20

I gotta admit, World War II was pretty much exactly what I had in mind when I suggested the Alternate History topic to KKairos, but I really must be honest here, there is virtually nothing World War II to be seen aside from the story text, since all of the enemy fighters you’ll fight are far more sci-fi (but this is justified in the story text by saying the Japanese got them through unknown means...time portal may actually be the thing in play, here...)

Gameplay - 100/120

This game plays as a horizontal scrolling shooting game (or “hori-shmup” as certain forums might call it). Your “hybrid craft” can transform back and forth between jet mode and mecha mode at the press of a button, and launch a gigantic wall of missiles with the Bomb key. The overall feel of this one reminds me of the Sega Master System game, TransBot.

However, there is a slightly questionable move with the game design here. Every stage requires you to meet a score quota, or you are required to play the level over again. I’d say this is an unpleasant reminder of Cave’s games, but I actually haven’t played any of Cave’s games, so that is likely inaccurate...however, I still don’t really like it; I feel that if I managed to survive the level without dying, I should be allowed to progress regardless. It’s like being told by your commanding officer, “Well, you got through that enemy blockade without getting shot, but you only managed to kill three baddies, so we’re gonna make you go back there until you’ve killed more.”

But really, though, I don’t have any complaints about movement, shooting, and the general feel of gameplay. I just wish the score quota system weren’t in here. Perhaps you could have altered it so that the level just keeps going infinitely until you’ve scored enough points, and then the boss shows up?

Graphics - 65/90

No surprises from Maxim here - just solid character work and a palette that is not unkind to the eyes. I am particularly amused by the mecha characters, which are apparently supposed to be carrying guns, but it looks more to me like they’re just folding their arms.

Technique - 70/80

There is but one presentation issue I have with this, and that is that death just immediately redirects to Game Over instead of showing you exploding or something similar. It’s rather jarring and gives me very little chance to see what it was that killed me. Aside from that, programming work is fairly solid.

Story - 25/50

Alternate World War II is probably one of the most classic sub-genres of the alternate history mold. Everything from figuring out how to kill Hitler early, to making sure he survives another year, to what if the Manhattan Project didn’t exist, to what if Pearl Harbor never happened, etc. In this case, Japan is attacking the Eastern Front, and being Japan, they have jet planes that turn into mechs (how very Macross).

Sound - 25/40

A handful of Amiga-esque selections for music, and sound effects once again provided by a synthesizer, providing a classic Apogee shareware game feel.

Total - 295/400

#24966 - Hipster Quest

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Heavy

It’s not often, strangely, that a “retro” title patterns itself after the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which for those that weren’t British in the 1980’s, was an 8-bit home computer that was primarily known for essentially acting like a really old, lower-resolution version of MZX. There were a number of famous Spectrum games like Jet Set Willy...but that’s apparently not what was in mind when Hipster Quest was made.

Theme - 15/100

The “hipster credo” is basically “I liked ____ before it became mainstream”; if a given interest is not unique to the person, it is no longer cool. So I suppose “individuality” could be a decently fitting topic for this...it expresses individuality by sucking in a unique way.

Gameplay - 5/90

Virtually none. It’s one of those “touch everything!” games, but without the benefit that previous genre entries had, i.e. writing that was worth a crap. The game ends as suddenly as it begins, with a trite little message about how if you don’t feel victorious, you never will, or something like that.

Graphics - 5/70

While it does remind me of the ZX Spectrum, it does so more in a manner befitting of Don't Buy This, the infamous compilation of terrible games. The graphics are mostly black shapes on light backgrounds, and I fail to see any real artistic merit to it at all - it’s probably this awful on purpose.

Technique - 10/60

It didn’t crash. This is a rarity in that this is the only time which I would have been happier if it had.

Story - 5/50

Story? What story? Was that supposed to be a story? Still, it could have been worse; it could have been about ponies.

Sound - 0/30

I ordinarily award pity points here to games that go completely without sound, reasoning that I only award zeroes to games whose sound effects inflicted physical pain. This is one of those games. The ZX Spectrum loading noise really should never be heard again.

Total - 40/400

A mere ten percent score to the game that I am glad I was not wearing headphones for.

#30154 - PRESIDENT SKELETON

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Light

Theme - 1/20

Is there something historical here? All I see is a skeleton killing a robot to win the presidency...again...I guess. This would have gotten at least a few points if the author had even bothered to say like “IN THE YEAR 1984” or something like that...there’s only a bit of alternate, and no history, therefore this doesn’t get much at all.

Gameplay - 15/120

Typical built-in-style MZX action game, right down to the boss consisting mainly of GO RANDNB. Random explosions. Lasts less than a few minutes. I’ve spent more time writing this paragraph than I did playing the game, and that is really saying something.

Graphics - 25/90

While the actual game aspect is pretty terrible (being primarily made of default char set), the BMP images used for the story segments are not bad, so this at least gets some points for that. Sadly, a few cutscene images aren’t really enough to keep it up.

Technique - 10/80

The robots on the boss board are still visible. The BMP-to-MZX loading is really the only impressive bit here, and really, how many times have we seen that done already?

Story - 15/50

Robot is going to win the election. The only way you can prevent this is by killing him - which might be illegal, except skeletons don’t leave fingerprints. Beyond this initial concept, there’s some ham-tastic writing for the dialogue between Skeleton and Robot...that’s really it. Earns a few extra points for making probably the longest chain of “bone” jokes on one screen that I’ve ever seen.

Sound - 20/40

Chippy music for most of the game, and then the boss fight has Second Reality playing in the background...great song, yeah, but many, many others before you also thought the same, and it is now a cliché.

Total - 86/400
#49932 - Thanatos Insignia 2

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Light (revised due to pressure to read the goddamn readme file)

And I’m reasonably sure this one has Lancer involved...also, I’m pretty sure this is the first time that a Day of Zeux entry has been a sequel (if we had the anonymity rule in effect still, this would probably kill it, but thankfully we don’t).

Theme - 2/20

Lancer and Lachesis were hinting on IRC that the theme would become evident by the final boss. I never made it there. I suppose “individuality” could be justified in the RPG level-up system, in that every player has a unique character build, but if you ask me, that’s kind of stretching the definition.

Gameplay - 80/120

Really impressed with how this feels. It’s an action-RPG, emphasis on the action. The control layout seems to indicate that you can shoot in eight directions, but this isn’t really so much an aiming system as it is a way to influence the auto-aim, since your attacks will generally just fire off at the nearest enemy. I was slightly confused at first that both the melee and ranged attacks could be charged, but once I figured that out, I was slaughtering giant faces and tentacle things...and Tom. Yes, for some reason, the boss fights in this game are versus the “faces” of popular websites like MySpace and Wikipedia (though I must admit, dueling a money-grasping Jimbo Wales is somewhat cathartic).

A big complaint I have with this, though, falls to a rather common complaint with many DoZ entries, and that’s the length, or rather, how long it is. How does one make a DoZ entry that takes more than 15 minutes to complete? Answer: padding. The enemies have plenty of health, and the spawn rate goes through the roof after you beat Jimbo, making it just as much a fight to stay alive as it is to clear enough of a path to get through. I mean, as games go, this is better and more fun than a lot of DoZ entries I’ve played, but I really wish the enemies spawned a bit less often. One boon, I suppose, is that the screen is cleared of baddies when you level up, but later in the game this happens so rarely that I couldn’t count on it happening.

Another issue I have, and this is nearly the same one as with Maxim’s entry above, is that Game Over happens way too suddenly - no low-health warnings, no sounds, just screen cuts black and says Game Over. The chaos of the game really distracts me from the all-important task of actually watching my health, so I end up just suddenly dying for what feels like no reason at all. Thank you, at least, for not disabling save games. (why is that even allowed in MZX, by the way...)

Full disclosure: I didn’t finish this game. I can only take so much of this crazy enemy spawning and I keep dying quite a lot.

Graphics - 83/90

A muted color palette combined with some pretty nice scenery characters, a generally well-animated player character, and a handful of enemy sprites that at times are pretty weird. Enemies range from weird smiley things to bigger less-smiley things to spidercrabthings to tentacle monsters and eventually Tom from MySpace. No idea who the final boss is, because I didn’t make it that far.

Technique - 60/80

The other judges did report seeing enemies spawning in walls, but I hadn’t seen it myself. Maybe it only happens late-game. The team also apparently let a crippling bug with the final boss slip in, but since they put the fix (which was very easy to apply) into the Quick Fixes thread, I won’t be taking points for that. I just really think that they should have toned down the enemy spawning. I’m told the spawning system will actually stop the enemies spawning if the player kills enough without leaving their current 5x5 square, but I think this should have been raised to a 25x25 square, or possibly the size of the screen, because again, there are waaaay too many enemies spawning that are too hard to kill in a timely fashion.

Story - 10/50

I have no clue what this game is about. The bosses I fought both spouted out nonsensical dialogue before the battle. And from what I’ve heard, it probably isn’t much clearer by the end. But it could have been worse - they could have made the main character a Mary Sue self-insert. (Actually wait, I have no evidence that this isn’t what what they were going for! OH NOOOOO)

Sound - 25/40

Backed with some sort of orchestral score (my guess is it’s public domain classical music), the sound effects are meaty and work well for the game’s feel, though it’s hard to hear the music over the sound. The Flay glyph causes quite a cascade of sounds. I wonder if this would sound better or worse without MZX’s strange sound buffer limit in place...

Total - 260/400
#69245 - Final Kamikaze

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Theme - 10/20

Another alternate World War II, again involving the Japanese, except this time actually casting you as a Japanese pilot that intends to stop the first atomic bomb from being dropped. I suppose this one is more committed to its WW2 setting, though.

Gameplay - 15/120

This one’s only a step away from an old-school MZX-style shooter, except you can only shoot to the right. Also, why call it Final Kamikaze if you can’t actually, y’know, be a kamikaze? You can’t even summon the fabled Divine Wind that gives it its name. Default MZX bullets make it difficult to hit anything, since you’re more likely to destroy a bullet than a plane, thanks to the bulletspam. No on-screen health indicator means Game Over is just as sudden as anything else in this contest so far.

Graphics - 10/90

I think there are only maybe two custom characters in the set: the clouds, and the plane (the same character is used for both player and enemy planes, so the enemies appear to be flying backwards). But it still looks better than Hipster Quest.

Technique - 10/80

Programming’s pretty simplistic; there are probably only six robots on the board. One controls the player, two are random enemies, two of them are for the fake-scrolling, and the last checks the victory condition (i.e. if you’ve killed 25 planes to spawn the bomber yet). It seems bug-free, but it’s hard not to be, considering how simple it is.

Story - 10/50

You are the last Japanese fighter pilot. Stop Little Boy and Fat Man from being dropped on your country and turn the tide of the war. Pretty serious-sounding stuff, but aside from a couple of text blurbs, there’s not much here. Then again, I suppose it could have been worse...it could have involved Giant Robots.

Sound - 10/40

The sound is that one overused .44 Magnum sound that’s been in hundred of Doom mods back in 1996, and the music is really overdramatic and a bit irritating after a while. At least it wasn’t as bad as Hipster Quest.

Total - 65/400
#74588 - Spirit Quest

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one’s a full-on RPG (I never understood why people try to churn these out in 24 hours...) with a stats system similar to Final Fantasy 2 or the SaGa games, where you build stats by using the actions associated with them.

Theme - 15/20

Here, the author expresses individualism via purity; the villain treats living beings as his personal cattle (as one character puts it). The protagonist, Crohn, is the last “pure” being. The actual word “individuality” is tossed around quite a bit (get a thesaurus!), but of all the ways I’ve seen this topic expressed, this is probably one of the better ones. I’m just glad the author decided to pick the theme-light scoresheet.

Gameplay - 70/120

The RPG battle system is not complicated. You have three actions (technically four, but the fourth one just “confirms” whichever attack you’ve selected): attack with your weapon (a non-elemental physical attack), attack with your Spirit (elemental, useful to exploit weaknesses), and run from the battle (which makes the enemy just disappear on the spot - it’s important to run from battles on occasion, not just to not get your ass kicked but also to build your Speed rating).

There is an inherent flaw here, in that you can only build your Speed up by running from battles. Speed is a massively important stat, because if it’s too low, enemies will soon be able to score consecutive hits on you, up to the double-digits (one enemy hit me twelve times before I could react at all). Also, health is limited, since the only way to heal is by picking up flowers from the ground in the overworld map. This makes it more difficult than it needs to be, because you can’t really do much in the way of grinding (since there are only so many flowers around to pick up), and enemies will always respawn.

Graphics - 70/90

Actually reasonably impressive, even in the face of Temporal Insignia 2 up there. The spirits look kind of like oversized sperm, and I initially mistook the Firebirds for butterflies, but the environments at least don’t look terribly monotonous, and the important things stand apart nicely from the background.

Technique - 40/80

Had the game actually freeze on me in a dialogue after beating Jalvech. I’m pretty sure I applied the hotfixes correctly...there are other issues I found here, too. The Equip menu, while it does try to tell you you’re short on a certain stat to equip an item, lets the message pass by too quickly, making it difficult to figure out why I couldn’t equip the Shortsword I found in the first board. The game just seems horribly broken. I think this author should have spent more time on the bugs and less on the music.

Story - 30/50

While not terribly well expressed (the dialogue and general quality of writing needs some work), Spirit Quest’s story is unique and not extremely overbearing, nor is it unceremoniously shunted into the background. It’s not really that irritating, either.

Sound - 27/40

The music’s actually kind of alright, but really short, and there aren’t very many tracks. The sounds seem to be generally played through PC Speaker SFX, which makes them difficult to hear under the music. The “level up” sound seems thrown-together and not especially...level-uppy.

Total - 252/400

They really should have taken more time for bug-testing. This one really could have gone somewhere, were it not for the game breaking issues.
#74770 - Ununhexium

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Theme - 10/20

Individuality expressed through being alone. The all-caps introduction message sure does make a point of this. And then there’s all the skeletons. What is it with all the skeletons in these games? Some cultural thing I haven’t picked up on? I...guess it works, but...

Gameplay - 65/120

A sort of lite-Rogue game with a mouse-aiming system. Your goal is to collect 30 squares of Ununhexium, which is radioactive and will slowly kill you if you carry too much. You can counteract that by collecting the green squares of Ununoctium every so often, which resets the radiation counter to zero and stops the poisoning effect. You kill skeletons by clicking on them twice. The mechanics are honestly simple enough that I didn’t have much trouble with this one; I do notice that the dungeon doesn’t get randomized, so there’s little point to continuing once you’ve completed it (unless you want to beat your score - the game helpfully keeps track of those, but in a separate MZX file for some reason). Since the game is inherently turn-based and the dungeon layout never changes, this is almost so easy it’s funny. The most difficult part of it was aiming at the skeletons, which is also laughably easy if they are stuck behind walls or pickup items.

Graphics - 55/90

Simple, effective, no-nonsense. Not as pretty as some of the others above, but no real complaints here either. The skeletons look better than the protagonist in PRESIDENT SKELETON (outside of the cutscenes, I mean).

Technique - 70/80

Really my only complaint here is that, were it not for the high score sheet saying I “survived”, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish winning from losing. Same music plays, game suddenly ends and asks me for my name.

Story - 12/50

Your crew is poisoned, and Ununhexium is the only antidote. Therefore, you must venture down into some dungeon to pick up dangerous amounts of it (that are arguably more lethal than the poison that’s killing your crew) and not get killed by skeletons. Could have been worse - could have been a Kingdom Hearts sequel.

Sound - 35/40

I like the old-school FM sound this has. Sound effects are all OPL2-derived and I rather like that. The music is also pretty cool, and the high scores music almost makes me want to play it again. Really could have used an alternative track for victory, though, to set it apart from losing.

Total - 247/400

Not bad, actually.
#80483 - DUI 20XX

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Theme - 86/100

Hitler apparently won the war (boy, isn’t that the point of reference for a lot of historical changes?), and it’s now 20XX and our protagonist is going to go back in time and Change Things. Which things will change is not made entirely clear, just that he’ll be “in charge” - though since Joe Protagonist is completely drunk at the time, his plans probably have little chance of actually working (let alone being executed, or even remembered in the morning). This team seems to have had the most fun with the theme, and the historical settings of 20XX, 1918, and...er, 2012, are distinctive enough from each other that the time travel bit doesn’t seem like it was shoehorned in at the last second to make it relevant to the topic.

Gameplay - 80/90

This is a surprisingly fun overhead racing game in the fine tradition of World Rally, Super Sprint, Great 1000 Miles Rally, and the like. While the car graphics only have eight rotations, the typical ASCII-resolution choppiness is remedied by a pair of directional indicators. The far, lighter-colored one indicates which direction you’re facing, while the near, dark-colored one indicates which direction you’re actually moving. The gas/brake pedals and steering are “analog” in the way a Super Nintendo racing game would have been analog, i.e. the longer you hold the key, the harder they’re pressed, so subtle steering requires button-mashing (not that this is a problem - it could have been much worse; it could have been Inmate2993’s clunky old driving-around-town engine!). The state of the steering and pedals is helpfully displayed on the screen along with a bar graph representing your speed, which came in really handy in the 2012 track.

The game offers three tracks in sequence, in which you are required to complete an increasing number of laps within a time limit or else need to repeat the track from the beginning. My one problem with this is that the map for the track is only displayed once, on the screen where you select your car - each course actually took me a number of retries while I actually figured out the layout of the track. I think that’s honestly more my fault, but I really wish there was an on-screen map during the race.

Graphics - 65/70

Actually quite well drawn! The track scenery is not boring, and there’s a really neat system in place where your car actually leaves skid marks when braking or driving off the road. The cars are really well drawn too, but if I have one major complaint (actually not so major, just a huge nitpick), it’s that selecting the different cars does not actually affect the color of your car during the race. Or perhaps that was planned but never implemented. If this feature were cut to make time for improving the physics, I do not blame the team for that decision.

Technique - 55/60

Outside of a small quick-fix that I had to apply after the fact (no points docked there, by the way - it was an easy fix!), this game is actually really competently coded and I don’t think I encountered any huge, game-breaking glitches. There was one rather amusing moment on the 20XX track where I accidentally wedged myself between two obstacles and crashed so many times that my car shot out at a speed well in excess of the car’s actual top speed. I think that’s hilarious enough that it might as well be a proper feature, even though the car is really hard to control (and in fact it took about three screens to brake to a halt from that). I do wonder if it was intentional that the lap times remain on screen for the cutscenes, and speaking of the cutscenes, I really wish I could speed through the dialogue!

Story - 22/50

Space Hitler’s moon regime really sucks, and it’s up to Joe Protagonist to go back to 1918 and get massively drunk. Then he hits 2012 and goes bar-hopping to collect a bunch of little umbrellas, and then back to 20XX to get home. And then, while drunk, he comes up with a Grand Scheme to take over the world - much like half the drunks I’ve met in real life. I really give this one points for being silly in a way that isn’t irritating.

Sound - 20/30

This one’s loaded with Sega music from classic arcade games like Outrun and After Burner II. I really like those soundtracks. But there’s a lot that’s missing here - I really wish this game had some sound effects, like engine noises, brakes squealing, fenders crumpling when I inevitably park myself up a tree. The Sega music does fill what would otherwise be a blank void, but it really needed some awesome car sounds!

Total - 328/400

#82246 - Argrablehuble

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Light

This one’s so unfinished that the only really playable bit is a sliding tile puzzle...

Theme - 5/20

The author jokingly claims that they had a better entry that was lost in an alternate history. The sliding tile puzzles (argh) are purported to restore the history, but once they’re all finished, the entry is still lost and the game is unfinished. =P

Gameplay - 30/120

I’m pretty terrible at sliding tile puzzles, especially 5x5 ones, but this one is at least not implemented badly. Arrow keys move the tiles, and you can press H to see what it’s supposed to look like when you’re done. Or you can do like I did and press S to skip it.

I just kinda wish there was more to this than the slider.

Graphics - 45/90

The puzzles are pretty much bitmap images converted to display in SMZX mode. There’s a ZZT-looking one, a photograph of a man on the moon, and a kind of ugly-looking screenshot from Ocarina of Time. There’s also a sketch in there that doesn’t look too bad, actually, but that’s just because that sort of thing seems to convert better. There’s also some tile graphics in the unfinished boards, but since those boards are unfinished, we don’t really see much more than a couple things.

Technique - 25/80

The sliding tile puzzle was implemented pretty cleanly, with a much-appreciated skip button, but this seems to be the victim of bad time management.

Story - 5/50

Not really much to see here. I can only really see what might have been - a slightly alright idea involving history having been erased, which could have been cool if it were actually implemented correctly. As it stands here, though, I’m just glad it wasn’t a campaign setting for F.A.T.A.L. (for the love of God, don’t look that up!).

Sound - 25/40

The music’s pretty cool, I suppose. Could have used swishy-clicky noises for the tile sliding though...

Total - 135/400
#83889 - Weltschmerz

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Here is another unfinished one...

Theme - 10/100

There really isn’t much here that indicates towards the theme at all...not even direct name-dropping the theme. Though I suppose I’ll have to give some pity points here for the fact that at least this is pretty clearly made during the competition, and not just borrowing a previously (un)finished game and slipping in some topic references.

Gameplay - 10/90

There’s some walking around and touching things, then you have to mash Spacebar a bunch of times to pull a crate. Then you just walk to the right, touch some other stuff, and the game ends. I do appreciate the attempts at making a more in-depth story in these kinds of games, but seriously, you only have 24 hours to do everything, so you might as well spend some time making something playable. That said, I do hope the author takes the time to finish this outside the competition, because it might go somewhere.

Graphics - 55/70

Reasonably good character work, not a lot of animation aside from the scrolling train background. The selection of color seems to favor grey and a shade of dark red, which implies the author intended to make this bloody at some point. It does feel like there needed to be some more spit-and-polish in places, though, with some visual glitching happening when jumping train cars at the “end” of the game.

Technique - 25/60

While what’s here is not unstable code, I think there are some places where there could have been more clarity. When pulling the crate, all the game shows is “[SPACE] PULL CRATE” - the word SPACE changes colors when you press it. I at first thought I was supposed to hold Space and use the arrow keys to pull the crate, but apparently what the author wanted me to do was rapid-fire the Spacebar a lot. Do what console games do here, and have a little animated icon representing the space bar being pressed up and down repeatedly, so it’s more clear that you’re supposed to mash that thing for all you’re worth. But what docks the most points here is that this is another victim of poor time management. Spend less time on your epic storyline and more time actually making the game.

Story - 25/50

This author really seems to be focusing more on the story than anything else. You’re a rebel (or something) and you (and a friend?) apparently volunteered to destroy a train. But as you’re crossing the train to get to your objective, your character is apparently having second thoughts about whether it’ll be worth it, especially since everyone on board will die. Unfortunately, that’s where the story stops; again, I really hope this author takes time after the competition to finish this one up, because it could be an interesting story to play through.

Sound - 15/30

The music is halfway from other games; the “main” music is E1M5 from Doom, and the actually quite tense orchestral bit during the crate-pulling sequence is from Indigo Prophecy. Good pick there, but I think maybe they should have picked something a bit less obvious than Doom music (though at least that’s one of the better tracks!). Not really any sound effects except for a couple of event scenes.

Total - 140/400
#85538 - KEN: A Matter of Individuality

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Heavy

Theme - 18/100

The theme is named in the game’s title. The bare framework of the story does seem to indicate that the protagonist is trying to get out of the shadow of his older siblings, but this never actually happens in the game because, yep, it’s unfinished. I wonder how it is that the last three entries are all unfinished.

Gameplay - 10/90

The entire game consists of touching things and waiting for the ssslllooowww text lines to go past. I ended up setting MZX’s speed to 3 for the game because I’m an impatient bastard. Oh, and lo and behold, only the first board got done, and barely at that. But hell...at least this wasn’t Hipster Quest! (Oh dear.)

Graphics - 3/70

ZZT-derived ASCII graphics and one of the ghastliest color palettes I think I’ve seen this whole competition (excepting Hipster Quest...). All the colors seem to get lost in each other, which is not a good thing if you want the player to notice things. However, I give it pity points for - once again - not being Hipster Quest.

Technique - 10/60

This is really elementary programming work here. How long has this guy been making MZX games? Also, in order for the “To Be Continued” screen to actually show up, I had to go into the editor and rename the board; since it was in the Quick Fixes thread, that won’t be docking it any points...not that there’s much to dock from. I was able to interrupt some sequences (like picking up the stuff out of Ken’s drawer) by bringing up the in-game menu and trying to sell my 0 Credits, which meant touching the drawer again. These kind of situations really could have used a text box instead of the message row and a LockPlayer command.

Story - 5/50

Ken goes on a journey of self-discovery. There’s so little to work with here that, in all honesty, it’s no wonder this game’s author fell asleep. =P (note: I am joking here, so Zappman, please do not lynch me.) However, it is loads better than James Patterson’s “Maximum Ride.”

Sound - 15/30

How many times have I heard halucin8.mod in my career as an MZX community member? Answer: too damn many. Thankfully, it only plays on the title screen - there is a quota here of one .mod file for each board, and the one on the main board is generally inoffensive but otherwise kind of unremarkable. I imagine that, had I had the chance, I probably would have listened to the track in question back in the early 90’s back when Dad downloaded them from BBS lines.

Total - 61/400

The Standings

Team
Title
Total Score

80483
DUI 20XX
328

20027
Wild Fire
295

49932
Thanatos Insignia 2
260

74588
Spirit Quest
252

74770
Ununhexium
247

83889
Weltschmerz
140

82246
Argrablehuble
135

30154
PRESIDENT SKELETON
86

69245
Final Kamikaze
65

85538
KEN: A Matter of Individuality
61

24966
Hipster Quest
40

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:KKairos

2012-07-22T06:05:53Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets Scoring methodology: * Rank each game as a raw decimal score from 0 to 1 in each category. * Rank the games in each..."

[[Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

Scoring methodology:

* Rank each game as a raw decimal score from 0 to 1 in each category.

* Rank the games in each category to make sure they make sense, e.g. a graphics ranking, a theme ranking, and so on. Note that ONLY the raw decimal score is being considered here; a team's choice of score-sheet may make or break their fate in the end.

* Adjust as necessary until individual categories make sense.

* Check to make sure the final rankings do, at least, make some sort of sense, once category scores are calculated.

There is some subjectivity in these things of course. Here's an idea of what I went for in each category.

Theme was one of the harder categories because I felt like I was comparing apples to oranges. But there were some games that clearly made better use of theme than others. At least judging by my judgments, which are not infallible, the concrete theme was much, much easier to play with to in this competition than the abstract.

In the gameplay category, I took both scope / volume of actual gameplay, and fun factor, into account. So how impressive is the scope and amount of gameplay, and how fun is it in the end? Things affecting flow of gameplay that fell outside of design itself mostly went to

In the graphics category I was mostly trying to think about how charming / beautiful the games were on, well, a visual level.

In the technique category, I scored on ambitions (stuff required to do what the game does) and success (how well it did the stuff, visual glitches, stuff like that.) I kind of felt a bit of the comparing-apples-to-oranges problem with the top four, because the games were all different genres, but I hope I pulled it off alright.

In the story category, I scored on creativity and substance of story as far as I could tell it, and quality of story-telling. There's bound of course to be some subjectivity here. But there it is.

In the sound category, I scored on pleasantness/appropriateness of the music to the game. I also gave more points for sound effects than for not having sound effects, though I gave the lowest score to the game that insisted on having sound so bizarre it was almost painful. I also tried to give a bit more to games that actually used sound in gameplay sections.

Most of my anxiety in scoring came to trying to sort out the top four and where each would land. All are impressive games for this competition, and I'm not sure I could come up with a ranking that I really feel does them all justice, particularly since I've been in a state of flux as to whether my personal feelings do or do not match my initial impressions and do or do not match the final rankings. I'm fairly certain the answer to both questions, at some point or another, is "no."

AND NOW THE GAMES, IN ASCENDING ORDER OF SCORE.

<pre>82246 Theme-Light
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| ffffff... | --------------------------------------------- |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 2/20

The game boldly asks us to solve slider puzzles to restore an alternate history. I suppose the puzzles were vaguely historical in theme, but I'm not counting that enough to save this theme score.

GAMEPLAY: 12/120

It's a slider puzzle. Joy.

The other portion of the world provides a short glimpse at what might have been; it's too bad it wasn't.

GRAPHICS: 41/90

They're pretty okay!

They're mostly converted images, though.

TECHNIQUE: 28/80

It takes a bit of technique to code a slider puzzle, after all.

STORY: 6/50

See "theme." Not much there.

SOUND: 14/40

There was a good choice of mod for the slider puzzles. I'll definitely give it that.

TOTAL: 103/400

I really wish this had gone further. I would've liked to see where the not-slider-puzzle portion was going.

<pre>24966 Theme-Heavy
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Hipster Quest | ----------------------------------------- |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 50/100

The game questions individualism in hipsters. I can deal with that.

GAMEPLAY: 18/90

You move around and touch some things. It was mildly entertaining.

GRAPHICS: 25/70

This one actually had a decently charming aesthetic, at least in my humble opinion.

TECHNIQUE: 27/60

It required some spriting and whatnot. Decent technique for what it was.

STORY: 10/50

Reflections on hipster individuality. Check.

SOUND: 2/30

The feeling wasn't exactly pain, but the title screen...gah. Even given a slight amount of charm in the rest of the soundtrack, I'm just...no. I think this is the only game that got what is best called an active penalty for a sound snafu.

TOTAL: 132/400

Well, that worked out decently for the author. I think it's alright for what appears to be an art-game, I just wish it had been a bit more of a game and a bit easier on my ears.

<pre>69245 Theme-Light
+----------------+------------------------------------------+
| Final Kamikaze | ---------------------------------------- |
+----------------+------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 13/20

An alternate telling of the dropping of the atom bomb...or the not-dropping thereof. Check.

GAMEPLAY: 51/120

You're piloting a ship against a bunch of other ships. Then you have to stop a special ship. Fairly basic, but not badly programmed.

GRAPHICS: 34/90

They're alright graphics. They get their job done, but not too much else.

TECHNIQUE: 20/80

Not too much is attempted here with the robots, but what there is is programmed decently.

STORY: 20/50

Stop the bomb. Check. Not much other writing to speak of.

SOUND: 18/40

The main chosen track was decent and got the job done.

TOTAL: 156/200

This was a decent entry; I hope its author eventually gets into doing the sprite thing; I feel he has some real potential to do more in MZX than he does right now.

<pre>30154 Theme-Light
+--------------------+--------------------------------------+
| President Skeleton | ------------------------------------ |
+--------------------+--------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 8/20

I'll count an incumbent Skeleton and challenger Robot as an alternate history, sure.

GAMEPLAY: 36/120

You get to fight some things in classic MZX style. Fairly basic.

GRAPHICS: 47/90

The story boards are fantastic, but the gameplay graphics aren't so much. And the gameplay boards matter.

TECHNIQUE: 32/80

Goop responds with a short story when touched. Stuff seems to sometimes explode, sometimes not. The level generator doesn't do too much good; the author might've been better off with intentional design rather than designer-design.

STORY: 30/50

A somewhat creative use of theme in story, and the writing is clever in a punny way. Its writing is actually the main thing pushing this game to the third-highest score for story.

SOUND: 20/40

A decently-chosen set of songs. But they don't do all that much work for the game itself; they do get the job done, though.

TOTAL: 173/200

Graphics and humor really saved this one from being lower on the list.

<pre>85538 Theme-Heavy
+--------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Ken: A Matter of Individuality | ------------------------ +
+--------------------------------+--------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 60/100

Ken starts fairly strong with the main character trying to figure out who he is, as opposed to those around him. For what was there, the use of theme was pretty good.

GAMEPLAY: 32/90

Walk around the house in a typical wake up and save the world style ZZT/MZX game; I would've liked to see where this was going. The menu was partially functional!

GRAPHICS: 28/70

Ken's house needs a new interior designer. The title screen wasn't bad, but palette could use work here; a little of that could've gone a long way towards graphics on this one, even keeping the char-set as-is.

TECHNIQUE: 20/60

Robots! Also, the menu was partially functional! Good for what it was. I would've liked a shorter wait time on the dialog.

STORY: 29/50

It's a shame there's so little of this. I have hopes for where it could've gone if it had gone beyond leaving the house.

SOUND: 9/30

The music was alright in this one. There wasn't really any sound to speak of.

TOTAL: 178/400

Overall, I liked this one; it had its charm. It's a shame it didn't get finished further, I wanted to know where it was going.

<pre>83889 Theme-Heavy
+--------------+--------------------------------------------+
| weltschmerz | ------------------------------------------ |
+--------------+--------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 45/100

Totalitarian government kills individuality. I can dig it.

GAMEPLAY: 36/90

Hot crate-pulling action.

GRAPHICS: 53/70

Fairly decent graphics, actually. Somewhat reminded me of an old Unique software game, in a good way.

TECHNIQUE: 26/60

Nothing particularly ambitious here, and I think there's some flickering on the train jumps.

STORY: 28/50

I enjoyed where this started and was curious about where it was going; it's too bad the author ran out of time.

SND: 15/30

This wasn't too bad at all. The music fits the mood.

TOTAL: 203/400

<pre>74770 Theme-Light
+------------+----------------------------------------------+
| Ununhexium | -------------------------------------------- |
+------------+----------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 6/20

Yes, we got that the player is alone. I don't know if solitude was particularly the notion I was looking for, but it's close enough for me to avoid a DQ.

GAMEPLAY: 60/120

It was pretty alright technically, definitely. I wasn't totally engrossed, but I enjoyed the runs I did well enough.

GRAPHICS: 54/90

I liked the game's aesthetic, as far as it went. Fairly simple.

TECHNIQUE: 53/80

Definitely not badly programmed by any stretch. Hits the mark it sets, and the snazzy title screen helps a bit. Not all the PGC is equal, though.

STORY: 25/50

You're alone. There's stuff trying to kill you. It gets the job done.

SND: 22/40

It got the job done, sound-wise.

TOTAL: 220/400

A fun little diversion with decent aesthetic, and fairly decent tactical gameplay.

<pre>74588 Theme-Light
+--------------+--------------------------------------------+
| Spirit Quest | ------------------------------------------ +
+--------------+--------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 10/20

Individuality was involved, but things kind of took a turn into more generic save-the-world territory. Still fairly solid implementation.

GAMEPLAY: 78/120

I seriously enjoyed this. I liked the battle system, it was quite enjoyable, and the scope of the game was fairly impressive; a couple of initial design/exceution flaws keep this one from getting higher scores.

GRAPHICS: 72/90

These were fairly well done. The running char maybe ran a bit fast, but I'm not sure what else there is to complain about.

TECHNIQUE: 56/80

Technique was actually pretty good in this game. There's a few visual glitches that result when things don't go as planned, and there was a fatal bugfix in the bug-fix thread on DigitalMZX, but overall the author did a good job here.

STORY: 31/50

Fairly standard stuff, the story of being joined by different spirits as you went along was entertaining. Writing was alright.

SOUND: 26/40

I liked the music; more sound effects would've helped this one along in this category; instead it seems to be mostly a 'bump' effect during battle. And while the battle music somewhat fits the game in its brooding-ness, and definitely isn't bad, it also seems like something more upbeat might've better fit battle.

TOTAL: 273/400

I very much enjoyed this one. If I were scoring all on the fun factor, it would be second place in the competition. I'm looking forward to the post-contest version that the author is working on.

<pre>20027 Theme-Light
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| Wild Fire | --------------------------------------------- |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 13/20

Alternate WWII where the Japanese have technology from the future, or something. I can dig it.

GAMEPLAY: 84/120

Solid gameplay. I was quite happy for a this side-scrolling shooter, I'm not gonna lie. While the quota system took a bit of getting used to, it made sense in the end, and the game might've been too easy without it. Having options for how to play was also cool.

GRAPHICS: 65/90

Standard graphics. These work pretty well for the author. I might've liked a bit more from the background, though.

TECHNIQUE: 60/80

Technique was all-around solid, and the ambitions of this author push the score up. There's one random fatal bug (randomly getting killed) but there was a fix posted in the DigitalMZX bug-fix thread.

STORY: 28/50

Fairly standard "save Europe" stuff, except "hey, people have stuff from the future." It definitely does the job.

SOUND: 34/50

Having sound effects really helps. The game tracks weren't too bad either.

TOTAL: 284/400

I appreciated this game. It wasn't my absolute favorite but it holds its own with good, solid shooter convention. If anything, gameplay suffered from the limitations of MegaZeux.

<pre>49932 Theme-Light
+---------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Thanatos Insignia 2 | ----------------------------------- |
+---------------------+-------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 8/20

You're inside your self? I can dig it. And I guess the line at the end sort of comes together with the rest, but this one was pretty weak on theme, to be honest, to me.

GAMEPLAY: 89/120

Gameplay was all solid. A bit much of grinding for my taste, as someone without Amazing Gameplay Skills. But still solid.

GRAPHICS: 80/90

These were pretty awesome graphics. I enjoyed them.

TECHNIQUE: 64/80

Technique was good. Having to release a fatal bug-fix, not so much, but still good technique. For the record, in my raw scores, this one gets the biggest technique score, with or without factoring in buxfix thread fixes.

STORY: 20/50

Dialogue is somewhat clever. I'm not sure I caught most of what the plot was, or if there really was much that could be discerned. Writing, what there was, pushed it up a bit.

SOUND: 33/40

Sound effects are your friends. I honestly wasn't the biggest fan of music, but sound effects helped here. By their default volumes, sounds were maybe a bit high for me, so I wasn't the absolute viggest fan of the game's dynamics, but the sounds fit decently enough to bump this up.

TOTAL: 294/400

A very solid entry from the author here. I'm very technically impressed. I kind of wish there'd been a bit less grinding, but I'm also not the Best Gamer Ever. It's worth noting that I did manage to beat the game once with more of a stats focus, and again with more of a glyph focus.

<pre>80483
+----------+------------------------------------------------+
| DUI 20XX | ---------------------------------------------- |
+----------+------------------------------------------------+</pre>

THEME: 75/100

Solid, solid use of theme here. Time travel is maybe a bit off the mark, but the game definitely begins with an alternate history.

GAMEPLAY: 65/90

Thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay on this; the flow is fairly solid and it doesn't wear itself out before it wears me out, which is something that I don't think I can really say for any other entry on the list.

GRAPHICs: 60/70

These are charming graphics. Backgrounds could have been a bit better on the tracks, perhaps, but little details helped get across the different time periods visited.

TECHNIQUE: 48/60

Technique is absolutely solid here, the game does what it sets out to do: MZX racing, and does it well. I don't know if there's going to be a game with similar physics that looks this smooth in MZX for a very long time.

STORY: 33/50

Hands down, this was the best/most creative story in the competition, combining substance and execution. Humor never hurts either.

SOUND: 24/30

Music was pretty solid in this game. I don't know if the chosen songs fit the time periods perfectly, but they definitely got the job done for a racing game. Sound effects would've been helpful here.

TOTAL: 305/400

Good use of theme and story really helped pull this one ahead. On fun-factor alone this game would be the winner, but other considerations like length/ambition of gameplay and technique requirements made it a closer match. However, I'm as pleased as with any other result, if not moreso, that this one came out on top.

FINAL RANKINGS:

*11. 82245 ffffff... __________________________ 103/400
*10. 24966 Hipster Quest ______________________ 132/400
* 9. 69245 Final Kamikaze _____________________ 156/400
* 8. 30154 President Skeleton _________________ 173/400
* 7. 85538 Ken: A Matter of Individuality _____ 178/400
* 6. 83889 weltschmerz ________________________ 203/400
* 5. 74770 Ununhexium _________________________ 220/400
* 4. 74588 Spirit Quest _______________________ 273/400
* 3. 20027 Wild Fire __________________________ 284/400
* 2. 49932 Thanatos Insignia 2 ________________ 294/400
* 1. 80483 DUI 20XX ___________________________ 305/400

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Insidious

2012-07-22T06:02:13Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets JUDGING SCORES SCORE SUMMARY (in order of effective rank): *80483 - DUI 20XX - AH - TH - Theme 65/100 Game 85/90 Gr..."

[[Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]
JUDGING SCORES

SCORE SUMMARY (in order of effective rank):

*80483 - DUI 20XX - AH - TH - Theme 65/100 Game 85/90 Graphics 57/70 Technique 58/60 Story 35/50 Sound 25/30 Total 325/400
*49932 - Thanatos Insignia 2 - IN - TL - Theme 8/20 Game 118/120 Graphics 70/90 Technique 55/80 Story 23/50 Sound 40/40 Total 314/400
*20027 - Wild Fire - AH - TL - Theme 14/20 Game 90/120 Graphics 55/90 Technique 55/80 Story 12/50 Sound 35/40 Total 261/400
*74770 - Ununhexium - IN - TL - Theme 5/20 Game 63/120 Graphics 60/90 Technique 57/80 Story 25/50 Sound 25/40 Total 235/400
*74588 - Spirit Quest - IN - TL - Theme 15/20 Game 70/120 Graphics 58/90 Technique 30/80 Story 30/50 Sound 20/40 Total 223/400
*83889 - weltschmerz - IN - TL - Theme 45/100 Game 5/90 Graphics 35/70 Technique 15/60 Story 20/50 Sound 12/30 Total 132/400
*30154 - President Skeleton - AH - TL - Theme 7/20 Game 15/120 Graphics 43/90 Technique 5/80 Story 26/50 Sound 12/40 Total 109/400
*24966 - Hipster Quest - IN - TH - Theme 60/100 Game 1/90 Graphics 8/70 Technique 10/60 Story 1/50 Sound 4/30 Total 084/400
*69245 - Final Kamikaze - AH - TL - Theme 5/20 Game 10/120 Graphics 2/90 Technique 2/80 Story 8/50 Sound 0/40 Total 027/400
*82246 - Whale Guts - AH - TL - Theme 2/20 Game 5/120 Graphics 2/90 Technique 5/80 Story 0/50 Sound 10/40 Total 024/400
*85538 - KEN - IN - TH - Theme 10/100 Game 1/90 Graphics 0/90 Technique 0/60 Story 2/50 Sound 5/30 Total 018/400

20027 - Wild Fire - Theme Light - Alternate History

This is quite a fun but deeply flawed game. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but was also very frustrated by the game's unforgiving difficulty and lack of save feature or a judging 'skip level' feature to make judging the game easier. The quota system seems pointless and only seems to add a level of further unnecessary difficulty. However, the game itself is still quite fun.

Theme: 14/20

The game takes place in an alternate history world war II where Japan has used advanced technology to insert itself into the western front. Thats certainly good enough for a pass, though I'd like to have seen more of this put into the game itself, thus why the score isn't higher (maybe little rising sun flags on the mechs? I dont know, just an idea).

Gameplay: 90/120

This game takes shots out of its gameplay score for two reasons. Technical difficulties (which I'll go into in the Technique section) leading to slow framerate and thus sluggish controls leading to frustrating gameplay, and general way-too-high difficulty level. Also, I consider the removal of the ability to save, without providing a substitute such as an automatic save between the two levels, to have been a very poor choice. Those things are responsible for taking 30 points out of the score of a game that I otherwise found quite enjoyable, and a great example of how a side scrolling shooter can be done properly in MZX. I'd like to see a tweaked, re-released version of this down the road some day.

Graphics: 55/90

The graphics were interesting but fairly standard fare, and don't score lower than this because they are used quite well, and provide great feedback into the gameplay itself. You quickly learn what an enemy does based on its shape and how much damage it can take based on its color, and thats something more games should take into account, how graphics can feed the gameplay. Unfortunately, the graphics themselves, especially the backgrounds, are nothing to write home about. Also, the pallete choices strike me as a little harsh on the eyes.

Technique: 55/80

A few big chunks are taken out of the technique score for the fact that, on my very recently built system, the game moves along in a somewhat slow and noticably blocky manner, with the controls feeling noticably sluggish. Also, the game contained a potentially game breaking bug that was not fixed before release, and unfortunately I can't give any technique points back for a fix posted after release (though the fix did enable me to complete the game).

Story: 12/50

The story here is noticably thin on the ground, consisting of only a paragraph of intro text and a simple blurb of ending dialogue. The scenario presented, one of Japan invading Western Europe in the days of World War II, is quite interesting, but should have been expanded on further if more points were desired here.

Sound: 35/40

The music and sound effects were great and fit in perfectly with the game. My only complaint regarding them is that destroying an enemy should have more 'punch' and thus feel more rewarding, but thats something to think of for next time!

Total: 261/400

Overall, I really did enjoy this game, even if the scores might seem to point otherwise. Unfortunately, the game was released with a number of major flaws that didn't do it well when push came to shove. And while I didn't take points off for the fact the game was released with its gameplay on one board and no way for the judges to save or skip a level should they want to replay a later level, it makes it easier on the judges and I'd really appreciate it if people using a 'one board game' layout would consider this in future!

24966 - Hipster Quest - Theme Heavy? - Individuality? (Theme not indicated, scoresheet not indicated. Assumed.)

This game is... unique. It seems to be reaching for a theme of "Commodore 64 game programmed while high on acid". Its not, however, really much of a game. The objective is to merely flail around waiting for the condition that allows you to change boards to trigger. That seems to be about it.

Theme: 60/100

The game incorporates throughout its various random dialogue and symbolism a theme of people attempt to be "indivdual" by conforming to a specific standard, specifically making a commentary on the hipster community that has arisen in the past 15 or so years. You're frequently the only recognizable object on the board, so the "indidivduality" is felt throughout the entirety of the gameplay. Also, the game has a very unique visual style which also stresses the individuality of its author. Overall, I think this 'game' used the theme relatively well.

Gameplay: 1/90

Unfortunately, the gameplay consists entirely of, as I said earlier, running around helplessly searching for how to make the game progress so that you can finally finish it. One board proudly proclaims "You are having fun". I was not. This is barely a game, and definitely doesn't deserve any more than a token point in this category.

Graphics: 8/70

What's there is fairly simple, but this gets a few points for its very convincing reproduction of the Commodore 64 aesthetic, especially in the 'loading screen' intro.

Technique: 10/60

Nothing used here is particularly impressive... EXCEPT for the intro sequence consisting of a very convincing reproduction of the effect of loading a Commodore 64 game off of tape. A very annoying reproduction, but a very convincing one. That took a fair amount of code to pull off, thus the points given here.

Story: 1/50

As far as I can tell, there is none. This would be excusable if the game also had gameplay. There's none of that either.

Sound: 4/30

Consists of random "Commodore 64 having a seizure" glitch sounds, including a very loud and annoying simulation of the sound of loading a program onto the C64 from tape. Quite authentic, but it gave me a major headache.

Total: 84/400

An amazingly high score for a game with absolutely no real gameplay, that seems to be designed primarily to frustrate you. I commend the author on their masterful (mis)use of the Theme Heavy scoresheet here.

30154 - President Skeleton - Theme Light - Alternate History

This appears to be this DoZ's obligatory joke game. However, I consider it a fairly well executed one, if only for the amount of time and effort put into the cutscenes before the actual rather paltry 'game' itself.

Scores and Explanation:

Theme: 7/20

The game quite clearly takes place in an alternate history where america had a presidential election in 2012 that consisted of a contest between a robot and an evil skeleton. Thats about all that can be said. The gameplay itself didn't particularly reference this other than the boss fight at the very end, thus the somewhat low score, but it certainly deserves a pass on theme.

Gameplay: 15/120

This is where the game suffers the most. While I do appreciate the sort of reference to the mid-90s style guilty pleasure MZX games like VIOLENCE or ARENA with the random badguy shooting and the completely blank except for a few unhidden robots boss board, it doesn't make for particularly engaging, interesting, or even long lasting gameplay. There are a number of seemingly deliberate annoyances put in as well, for example the fact that whenever you touch the sides of the first board, you are greeted with a long diatribe about how horrible goop is.

Graphics: 43/90

This is a hard category to score for this game. The cutscenes are beautifully rendered mostly-static images which prevent the game from sliding down further on the graphics score. However, the graphics during the actual gameplay are barely modified default MZX, with no attention paid to composition, pallete, etc. Basically, the only reason this isn't a 1/90 is due to the cutscenes.

Technique: 5/80

Very little within this game required any skill at all to program. The intro cinematic is simply displaying static scenes and waiting for space to be pressed, the 'random generation' engine just randomly places objects all over the board (admittedly avoiding placing them in the goop) without really generating anything else (such as level layout, different enemies, etc). Unhidden board bots on the boss board also take this down a few pegs, as does the overreliance on [ text boxes.

Story: 26/50

Well, the story is actually, while short, quite amusing and interesting. A robot is running for president against an incumbent skeleton, and the skeleton decides to take matters into his own hands because he's losing. Thats... Really all that can be said. The story is definitely where I found the most amusement in this game, and in fact I was chuckling all the way through because of it.

Sound: 12/40

This would be a far easier category to judge for this game if it were broken into "music" and "sound effects". Fortunately for this game's score, breaking it up like that doesn't make sense. The actual music fits quite well into whats there for the game, and sounds quite good. The sound effects are the default MZX sound effects left on, which given the amount of bullets flying in the main board of the game leaves one with quite a large headache. It would be best to have just turned them off.

Total: 109/400

Overall, an impressive score for a joke game. Some time and thought was put into this, just not quite enough of it.

49932 - Thanatos Insignia 2 - Theme Light - Individuality

I very much enjoyed this game. A light arcade shooter with oddly fitting classical music, punchy sound effects, pretty good graphics, and great gameplay. If rank weighting still existed, this would be my personal pick for #1.

Scores and Explanation:

Theme: 8/20

The game ties into the theme very lightly but very effectively still. You play a girl trying to figure out her identity, and therefore her individuality. In the course of the game, you level up and are given a series of choices of where to take your character in terms of powers and the like, which also makes the character somewhat unique to your style of play, giving the gameplay in and of itself its own individuality.

Gameplay: 118/120

This game has some WONDERFUL gameplay. Very fun, very twitchy, very fast paced. I loved it, and I love how the different attacks inserted a bit of variety into it, even if I ended up using the bullet spammy ranged tap attack the most. Where this title lost a few points was near the end where the difficulty ramped up to such a level that I tended to simply run from most enemies. This may have been intended, but it started getting a little less fun at that point. Of course, that was only really the last 3 minutes or so of game, so it doesn't lose many points for that.

Graphics: 70/90

The graphics were quite simple, in terms of the enemies being single color sprites and the backgrounds being repeating patterns, but quite pleasing to the eye and very effective. I very much enjoyed in particular the pallete choices and the detail and animation on the enemy sprites. The only reason this game loses any points in this category is the graphics failed to truly "wow" me, and were certainly not top of the line. Quite nice though.

Technique: 55/80

A hard category to score for this game. The game is short and apparently unfinished, and contains at least one showstopper bug and a few mild but annoying bugs, including one I came up against where the levelup and boss text screens conflicted with one another. It loses points for the bugs and its unfinished nature, but gains quite a number for the innovative shooting engine, where the bullets "sort of" track the enemy, the very nice sword engine, and the quite impressive fray glyph. All of these, as well as the technique for building the game itself, a giant world too big to put on one board that was put on one board anyway with the help of MZMs, are quite impressive!

Story: 23/50

The story was... Thin on the ground here. Mostly a few blurbs in the intro and ending about how the main character doesn't know who they are and in the end about how individuality doesn't truly exist. The boss text was generally apropos of nothing and quite confusing. Points given for having a story, but taken away for it not making much sense and being very iffy.

Sound: 40/40

I loved the sound in this game. Point blank, the music fit AMAZINGLY well for its genre and the sound effects were wonderful and had just the right amount of punch to really give the game a great feel. I am amazed at how well done the sound was.

Total: 300/400

I loved this game, I just absolutely loved it. A few flaws kept it from being a perfect score but I absolutely adored this game!

69245 - Final Kamikaze - Theme Light - Alternate History

This game was... a mess. Very much default MZX, very buggy and glitchy (you can't move right more than once while firing! wtf is that), very ugly, nigh unplayable, and full of overplayed final fantasy music and no sound effects.

Theme: 5/20

This game gets a bare pass on theme for making the 'alternate history' bit clear at the very very end. If you didn't beat the game, it would not have made any sense as to how this game was on the theme at all.

Gameplay: 10/120

The gameplay is stuttery, BKZX-ish, and just generally not fun at all. I did not have fun playing this game, just did not have any enjoyment.

Graphics: 2/90

Maybe 2 char edits made, if that. Very bog standard default MZX graphics, and not used well at all besides.

Technique: 2/80

No real technique was used here. This is a very simple, early 90s style MZX action game, using the player and robots checking for shot.

Story: 8/50

The story was... Beyond lame and made no sense.

Sound: 0/40

If I could give this negative points I would. Final fantasy music does not fit an action game, and I've heard it way way way too much. And there were no sound effects. So yeah, no thanks.

Total: 27/400

Dear lord, was this a BKZX game? A joke game? What?

74588 - Spirit Quest - Theme Light - Individuality

Oh dear, if the last game was a mess, this game is an unfortunate disaster. A good game with okay graphics and alright gameplay, murdered by bug after bug after bug after bug. More on these in the Technique section.

Theme: 15/20

Spirit Quest was a game that was entirely about a war between 'spirits' who wanted to take people's individuality and the right to defend that individuality. I think this game would have done well if Theme Heavy had been chosen as a scoresheet, personally. Odd scoresheet choice here.

Gameplay: 70/120

A good gameplay concept but unfortunately ruined by many bugs and odd game design choices such as the fact you actually have to spend quite a large portion of the beginning of the game running away from monsters in order to get your speed up enough to have any chance whatsoever at defeating the bosses, and none of the other stats seem to matter at all.

Graphics: 58/90

The graphics are quite nice for what they are but fairly simple and rather repetitive. Pallete choice was not great, sometimes it was hard to tell enemies from background, etc. Certain things such as the house just look... Off, somehow. The spirits look like tornados.

Technique: 30/80

I'm sorry, but this game was so buggy that even with MULTIPLE fixes posted on the boards, I had to test and use the debug menu in order to get past BOARD3. The game has no indication as to why you can't equip a weapon if you try to equip it under the required strength stat, multiple times the game would freeze during text for seemingly no reason, and if your speed is above that of the monster, it never gets a turn. If your speed is sufficiently below that of the monster, YOU never get a turn. This may be considered a game mechanic but I consider it a fairly hefty bug.

Story: 30/50

Despite quite a few spelling/grammar stumbles, I rather liked the story that was here. It was relatively fleshed out and you can tell there was some time and thought put into it. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Sound: 20/40

This game scores right in the middle for sound because the sound effects were fine, and the music used was really good but tended to be on relatively short loops that render it tedious after too long of playing the same level, something that will be done due to grinding. A hard problem to avoid.

Total: 223/400

Oh, I am so sad to be giving this game such a low score, and I really hope the remade version is going to be much better, because it had so very much potential. Unfortunately due to bugs that potential fell flat on its face. Sorry.

74770 - Ununhexium - Theme Light - Individuality

An interesting little game with pretty neat graphics and a lot of game mechanics I've never seen in Megazeux before. Quite a nice entry, if unfortunately rather short and simple.

Theme: 5/20

Highlighting words in blue to make it really obvious you're trying to get a higher theme score by humor value alone doesn't work with me. :P However, this was clearly made during the competition so it does not get a DQ-worthy score, thats all I can really give it.

Gameplay: 63/120

Quite a fun little game, I thought it required a surprising amount of strategy to defeat, finding the green bricks before you find the red so that you can collect a lot at once and then speed off to the green before you die, resetting your radiation score. The skeletons were not very much of a hindrance, but the game seemed more about fighting the environment than anything else. It would make more sense if you could not shoot through walls and therefore the game lost a few points for that. Other than that, I liked it!

Graphics: 60/90

I really liked the styling on the environment and the backgrounds, I enjoyed the limited viewport. In general I thought this game had a really interesting if minimalistic style to it.

Technique: 57/80

A lot of the engines used here are rather interesting and well done. The game runs smooth and has at least a few fairly new ideas for a megazeux game, such as the fact its somewhat turn-based.

Story: 25/50

A game that would have been best with no plot at all, given a very very shaky one. Ehhh...

Sound: 25/40

Some nice blippy sound effects and a really soothing and fitting (very cave-feeling) music track that unfortunately does get a little repetitive through the course of the game give this a middle-high score.

Total: 235/400

I'd call this game the competition's underdog. Yes, in the end the game was fairly simple and, once you got the strategy down, easy to beat. However, it had a great style going for it and was really fun to play, with some great graphics given the game's focus on single characters.

80483 - DUI 20XX - Theme Heavy - Alternate History

Oh man, a good racing game in Megazeux? This is awesome!

Theme: 65/100

An alternate history where Hitler is in space in the 21st century and prohibition is in effect in 1918. Quite thoroughly implied throughout the dialogue and story scenes, though perhaps not as much in the gameplay (Other than perhaps the fact that these cars move MUCH faster than anything that should be around in 1918). Quite a fun game!

Gameplay: 85/90

Whopper of points here for being the most faithful, most fun, and overall best racing game I've ever seen in Megazeux. The physics were great, the general feel of it was just the right mix of in control and yet out of control. Very arcadey, very fun. Lost a few points because the track designs can be confusing at times, but once you get the hang of it its fun all the way down.

Graphics: 57/70

Quite a lot of very charming character edits which get across what they're supposed to be very effectively in a very small size. Backgrounds can get slightly monotonous but thats somewhat unavoidable in a racing game and dealt with as well as it could have been really. Overall a wonderful job on the graphics.

Technique: 58/60

A small bug prevents you from restarting the level properly unless fixed (using a fix marked in the DoZ fixes thread which unfortunately I can't count in its favor here). Also, some amusing though not point-losing use of mass 'change' statements to fix a level design issue on track 3. Other than that, the engine and the programming is superb here, the physics feels as real as its probably ever going to be in Megazeux, the effects are wonderful, in general some really ace level programming on this game, in my opinion.

Story: 35/50

The story to this game is... Short, simple, but really funny at times and well executed. Basically, you are a citizen of a moon colony run by Space Hitler in 20XX. The Moon Colony has no alcohol. You time travel back to 1918 and hit up some mobsters for alcohol, and it gets weirder from there. I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

Sound: 25/30

Oh man, brilliant use of music from OutRun to give a racing game that wonderful fast paced feel. No real sound effects but I don't think they were particularly needed for this sort of game (I tend to find the engine/brake noise some racing games use annoying). Just a wonderful, very apropos soundtrack.

Total: 325/400

This game forced me to reevaluate who I thought was going to be the winner of this competition. An amazingly fun romp through a genre MZX has touched but rarely in the past.

82246 - Whale Guts/FFFFFFF/Argrablehuble - Theme Light - Alternate History

Uhh... What? A slider puzzle and an apology that the game didn't get finished, apparently...

Theme: 2/20

Nothing to do with alternate history other than a rather silly mention of the game being lost in one.

Gameplay: 5/120

I hate slider puzzles, and these weren't particularly fun slider puzzles either, especially considering the very first one lacks any real pattern to help you remember how it went together in the first place.

Graphics: 2/90

Aaaand almost all your graphics are stolen from outside sources. Except for a single unfinished board that does nothing but looks... vaguely interesting. Yeah, no, that reeks of lack of creativity.

Technique: 5/80

Err, I suppose uhh... nice use of copy block for the slider puzzle? Except I could have probably thrown that together in 5 minutes...

Story: 0/50

Papa Rufus,

Sound: 10/40

Some okay music for the slider puzzle I guess.

Total: 24/400

I'd like a few minutes of my life back please.

83889 - weltschmerz - Theme Heavy - Individuality

Oh man, this game had so much potential if it hadn't ended about 10 minutes in. I mean, the story was a little too dense for me, but it was interesting and the themes it was invoking were great, and then right when we were going to learn just how our would be terrorist protagonist wound up here... It ends.

Theme: 45/100

What was there was an exploration of people who are desperate to retain their individuality under an oppressive government, a very good concept that seemed like it was heading for something awesome. However, since it was incomplete we didn't really get to see the player showing much individuality, other than being nameable by you.

Gameplay: 5/90

There was very little in the way of gameplay there. However, what was there was interesting in its almost metal-gear-solid esque stealth gameplay combined with classic MZX adventure game style.

Graphics: 35/70

This game's saving grace. The graphics were quite good, especially the really fast scrolling background as you hopped from car to car on the train. Some of it was fairly simple however.

Technique: 15/60

The scrolling engine for the train-roof scene is kind of neat, as is the box-pulling scene. Everything else is kind of meh though.

Story: 20/50

A game with the potential for a wonderful story that lost nearly 30 points from me for ending it right when it started to get vaguely interesting. Sorry, thats just a giant tease right there.

Sound: 12/30

The music was pretty good and fit well with the game, but nothing stellar.

Total: 117/400

85538 - KEN - Theme Heavy - Individuality

Uh.. huh. An odd little game about a boy who wants to go on a journey of self discovery to prove his individuality, who then... fails to exit his front door. This is... odd, to say the least.

Theme: 10/100

I suppose the premise of the game was the individuality of this boy but it was so short the theme wasn't realized at all really, except for in a very token sense.

Gameplay: 1/90

Touching things. They respond exceedingly slowly. Thats about it.

Graphics: 0/70

Worse than default MZX graphics, its poorly used default ASCII with horrible color choices. Yay.

Technique: 0/60

Nothing interesting here roboticswise and really anything done roboticswise that isn't "my first robot" was broken anyway.

Story: 2/50

Well, points for trying I suppose, but the story pretty much ends at "My siblings are more awesome than me. I must make myself more awesome somehow."

Sound: 5/30

A single annoying mod.

Total: 18/400

Dear lord that was horrifying.

Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets

2012-07-22T06:01:32Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "See also: Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux"

See also: [[Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux]]

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Wervyn

2012-07-22T06:00:46Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "<pre> /= INTRODUCTION ================================================================ | Well what do you know, it's DoZ time again. Seems like taking some time off | | actually..."

<pre>
/= INTRODUCTION ================================================================
| Well what do you know, it's DoZ time again. Seems like taking some time off |
| actually encouraged some interest in the competition again, and that's |
| surely a good thing. I was afraid, after the last one, that we might be done |
| for good, but we got eleven entries, four of which are actually pretty good. |
| I don't have a great deal to say this year, so let's dive right in. And this |
| time, we'll pair my snark and cold cynicism against my wife's adorable |
| naivete! |
===============================================================================/

/= 20027 = Wild Fire ===================== ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT = [248/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 92/120] -
| So if there's one thing Maxim is good at... Yeah, same old, same old. This |
| is a pretty nice shooter though, very polished, fair amount of difficulty |
| curve but not overwhelming. I initially had trouble hitting the quota on the |
| first stage, but after a little advice from Maxim on approach I was able to |
| overcome it without too much difficulty. There are also lots of nice |
| features to keep things interesting and varied. The whole fighter/mech |
| switching mechanic actually lends itself to some good tactical gameplay, |
| which I discovered through play. I find the decision to disallow saving a |
| little questionable for a DoZ (always a quick way to make the judges hate |
| playing your game), but the game is short enough that it's not that huge of |
| a deal, and in this case the issue is simply game difficulty, not crippling |
| bugs, that makes restarting frequent. So, my biggest criticism is that the |
| game is shorter than I'd like it to be. Maybe it balances out with the |
| difficulty, since working up the skill to succeed at it takes enough time. |
| And to its credit, I wanted to spend the time to get there. Solid game all |
| around. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 37/ 90] -
| The art is serviceable but not a lot more. This is usual for Maxim's games, |
| and he definitely knows where his strengths lie, so props for not getting |
| bogged down in his weaker areas and just doing what needs to be done. But, |
| to the point, the large, solid char backgrounds are pretty bland, and the |
| default palette makes everything look like a technicolor mess. On the plus |
| side, the division of the background and foreground elements into dark and |
| light colors makes it fairly easy to tell what's going on, so at least |
| Maxim's graphical theory is solid. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 72/ 80] -
| As I noted with gameplay, this game is very polished, and the engine is |
| quite respectable. The only thing I noticed that might be a bug was a |
| power-up traveling backwards against the flow of the game, and who am I to |
| say that it wasn't supposed to be doing that? I also feel like I might have |
| gotten snagged by an invisible bullet once when I was fighting the last |
| boss, but it's a fast paced game, could have just missed it. One technique I |
| really liked was the "piano roll" approach to enemy wave planning, encoded |
| into the level MZMs. It's a clever way to plan out each level with a minimum |
| of fuss. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 18/ 50] -
| Mostly, this is just the obligatory vehicle text to provide some sort of |
| context before getting us to the engine that comprises the actual game. It |
| does what it needs to do and then gets out of the way, and ultimately that |
| means there's no real emotional or narrative connection to the game; in the |
| end you're just a blob of pixels shooting at other pixels, because shooter |
| engine. The draw for completion really comes from a drive for mastery, not |
| to find out what happens next. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 21/ 40] -
| Likewise, this music is largely just a generic action game backdrop to me. |
| It works, but it's mostly just there because something needs to be. It |
| doesn't help that the beginning of the first level song is really obnoxious, |
| even though it evens out later in. During the brunt of the action, you're |
| not really paying attention to the music. You only notice it when you have |
| to restart, and that's the part of the song that sounds particularly bad. I |
| would have picked something with a better hook. In the same way, the PC |
| speaker blips for the sound effects do the job they need to do, but not in |
| any particularly noteworthy way. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 8/ 20] -
| Workable and largely delivered by the story. "It's WWII, but with |
| transforming mecha!", so I'll buy the connection to alternate history based |
| on that. But that's really the only connection. Good enough, and what you |
| tend to expect from a theme-light game that's trying to succeed on its |
| technical merits more than anything else. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [248/400] -
| Maxim really needs to team up with some people who can do art and story |
| work. His prowess in the technical categories is really impressive, so if he |
| had someone equally strong in the artistic categories, he could be a pretty |
| unstoppable team. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "Haven't I done this review before?" |
| |
| Puella says: "The first song was annoying, but I like the dragon sprite! |
| The background was kind of boring, but I really liked the helicopter and |
| it's giant pink laz0rz of awesome." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 24966 = Hipster Quest ===================== INDIVIDUALITY/HEAVY = [157/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 78/100] -
| So it looks's like Tait is running a double or nothing gambit on high theme |
| score! And to his credit, I actually buy it. The game makes sport of |
| hipster-chic while being pretty hipster itself, and there's certainly |
| nothing else in the DoZ quite like it. So, well done sir, well done. Doesn't |
| earn much for the rest of the score, but it was at least an entertaining |
| take on the topic. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 18/ 90] -
| Largely consists of moving a robot sprite around at far too great a speed |
| to hit collision boxes that are far too small. Even beyond the fact that |
| there's no gameplay apart from that, the game itself is more frustrating |
| than it should be due to the speed 2 decision and the tiny sprites. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 21/ 70] -
| Somewhat cute robot sprites, but otherwise it's just big, empty fields of |
| color with some blocks in them. The title screen, despite it's incredibly |
| innovative use of scroll char (hah! sarcasm!) is a visual disaster, and |
| ultimately resolves into some half-char lettering. Hooray. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 12/ 60] -
| Looks to me like a very rudimentary sprite engine, and one that can't even |
| do collision right. I went through and discovered that all movement and |
| interaction is handled by overlapping the default player, which is why you |
| have to line up perfectly to actually bump into anything. Come on |
| Taitorian, I wrote a tutorial on this, a decent MZX sprite movement engine |
| with collision handler is like 20 lines of code. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 28/ 50] -
| Well if nothing else, this game did make me laugh. That's an emotional |
| connection right there! I was compelled to finish so I could get to the end |
| of the joke, and that in itself isn't bad. Not great, but not bad. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 0/ 30] -
| Ow... |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [157/400] -
| So I guess, props for a great joke entry, probably my favorite of the |
| competition as far as that goes. Apart from that, what an excruciating |
| experience. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "Posers, I was making fun of hipsters before it was cool." |
| |
| Puella says: "Owww....oh geez, make it stop my ears are bleeding! I like |
| the hipster talk. 'Yeah, my husband is an admin on this site where people |
| create primitive-style games, like the NES but more simplistic and colorful, |
| and it's all in this complex code, so they're all really smart. It's called |
| MegaZeux, but you've probably never heard of it." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 30154 = President Skeleton ============ ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT = [157/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 20/120] -
| After the amusing enough intro, the game we're actually treated to is |
| pretty terrible. There are a number of really bad decisions that take this |
| from just a generic default MZX shooter to a really awful one. Number one: |
| gooptouched. Great for a one-off joke, terrible idea for an actual game. I |
| think I would have forgiven this if the label had been zapped afterwards, |
| but the joke wears out its welcome. Number two: similar vein, text boxes in |
| response to :shot. Have you just never heard of the * command? Number three: |
| the whole random level generator in general was just a bad idea, it's pretty |
| much all negatives. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 51/ 90] -
| So I'm torn, because the half-char artwork for the cutscenes is actually |
| pretty awesome, but the graphics for the actual gameplay segments are |
| eye-stabbingly terrible. Swathes of dark cyan, a chaotic mess of random |
| characters thanks to the "level generator", and control robots that are |
| never hidden. The boss board, just a big empty black room with debug robots |
| in the top left, is particularly symptomatic of this sort of design |
| laziness, and I kind of have to wonder why, with all the work that was put |
| into the other art. But it's okay, because those four large pieces are still |
| worthy of a decent pity score. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 19/ 80] -
| So you want feedback on the random level generator, eh? The biggest problem |
| is that it's too random. All you're doing is randomly plopping a selection |
| of obstacle items all over the board, which does not make for particularly |
| compelling gameplay, and is pretty easy to do. Typically, good random |
| dungeon design looks pre-fab on a small scale and random on a large scale, |
| whereas you've done the reverse, pre-fabricating your board and then filling |
| it with random garbage. A better way to approach this is to create a |
| palette, so to speak, of rooms or groups of objects that have internal |
| cohesion. You also want a good way to algorithmically chain these elements |
| together. A scoresheet isn't really the best place to go into details, so |
| basically, your approach is backwards, try something else. Oh yeah, and as |
| for the rest of the game, it's all just run of the mill newbie level coding, |
| not really worthy of much in the way of technique points. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 29/ 50] -
| Humor is an excellent vehicle for player engagement, and that's getting |
| this game some decent points here. It's not the funniest thing I've ever |
| seen, and it's certainly not a terribly compelling plot, but it made me want |
| to play through to the end. When the game itself is as forgettable as this |
| one was, that's at least some sort of accomplishment, right? |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 28/ 40] -
| There are some decently good tracks in here, and the title screen in |
| particular is plotted well to come in on the hook. Poppy chip-tunes really |
| do suit the aesthetic, such as it is, of this game, at least so far as the |
| story is presented. So, not stellar, but pretty good. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 10/ 20] -
| Another slightly tenuous story-based connection to the theme. This time |
| it's "what if American politics, but with skeleton and robot?" I'm not sure |
| this is really hitting the "history" part of the theme very hard, but on the |
| plus side, it was slightly novel, as opposed to all the WWII-based entries. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [157/400] -
| This looks like a classic case of running out of steam in the middle of the |
| project to me. The discrepency in polish between the opening cutscenes and |
| the actual game is just too great for me to think of this as anything other |
| than giving up half-way through and submitting anyway. Those are always the |
| saddest entries. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "A skeleton will return, in 'Naked Fury'." |
| |
| Puella says: "I like the detail of bones as the stars on the flag. The art |
| for the story screens are great, and the dialogue is very funny :) Bone puns |
| are glorious." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 49932 = Thanatos Insignia 2 =============== INDIVIDUALITY/LIGHT = [271/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [111/120] -
| I don't know about anyone else, but overall this was my favorite gameplay |
| experience of the DoZ. Considering some of the stuff I heard Lancer saying |
| about it, it's a shockingly well balanced game, with a real difficulty curve |
| at the end. It's lengthy without being overlong (I think, at least, that an |
| hour is not too long to spend on a particularly good DoZ game, this is no |
| Reconquista+Escalation), and has a particularly addictive level-up feedback |
| loop that made it easy to get sucked into playing it for quite awhile. The |
| action is fun and fast-paced, if a bit mindless at first, and the various |
| powerups keep you working for the next level to see what the next cool thing |
| you'll get is. Flay II is particularly devastating on the later hordes and |
| recoups its cost almost immediately. And to top it off, the last portion of |
| the game is actually moderately challenging, even if you scour each area |
| until it's out of spawns beforehand. Overall this is my pick for the DoZ, |
| and I'm looking forward to the post-competition remake. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 62/ 90] -
| This is pretty good graphical work, with good color choices, crisp enemies, |
| and lovely level backdrops. The two main drawbacks to it are a lack of |
| cohesion, or in other words the "what am I looking at effect"; and lack of a |
| customfloor background for the levels. The latter is perhaps a style choice, |
| but one that I notice particularly when I'm looking at a lot of empty black |
| space. The former is a common issue with Lancer's enemy graphics, in that |
| there are just a lot of random elements thrown together. We have blob |
| things, bat things, evil tree things (which seem to appear in a lot of |
| Lancer games, a running theme?), and a host of different environments which |
| separately look just fine, but together make very little sense. Maybe this |
| is a story gripe, I dunno, but it does stand out, visually. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 58/ 80] -
| An otherwise nearly flawless game gets dinged by a petty game-breaking bug |
| at the final boss. First, I love this engine, taking the frantic pace of the |
| first Thanatos Insignia a couple years back and streamlining it into this |
| monster. This is really impressive work, managing a glut of enemies, |
| projectiles, and particle effects without a hiccup. Then, there's the very |
| cool smooth-scrolling MZM loaded world, seamlessly and transparently spliced |
| together, with subtle palette shifts. It's background to the action, but |
| it's a really nice effect. Finally the HUD, while not overly complex, is |
| very smooth and intuitive to boot. So really, I just have to knock off some |
| points somewhere for the messed up linking for the final boss. On the plus |
| side, external scripting means it can be fixed without nuking the save, so |
| that's cool. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 11/ 50] -
| In a continuation on the theme from the last game, this plot is mostly just |
| random angst packaged around bizarre internet memes, only this time Lancer |
| and Lachesis half-assed it even more! And yet somehow, there's a sort of |
| continuity to that, isn't there? Still, there's no emotional draw to play |
| this game, it's all in the addictive gameplay, seeing just how powerful you |
| can become before the end. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 25/ 40] -
| Not bad by any means, and hell, classical music is pretty pleasent to |
| listen to as a backdrop to the digital plink of computer explosions. But |
| like the graphics, it doesn't really fit with anything else, it's just |
| there. The sound effects for projectiles and powerups are pretty good, but |
| ultimately just become a cacaphonous overlay to the music in the background. |
| It's difficult to really isolate individual things that are happening with |
| so much flying around and making noise, at least until the satisfying sound |
| of the next level. What the sound design really could have used was a |
| clearly distinguishable noise on losing a health bar, since it's not always |
| easy to tell when you've gotten hit without keeping an eye on the top HUD. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 4/ 20] -
| So, yeah. Obviously this was an afterthought. And to be fair, I appreciate |
| getting an awesome game out of a DoZ even if it didn't really follow the |
| rules. There's some weak quote tie-in at the end of the game invoking |
| "individuality", and to a certain extent I'll buy character customization as |
| relavent to the theme, but for that to work you really have to sell it, |
| since that's any RPG. I actually think this should be disqualified just to |
| prove a point, but I know that's unlikely to happen, and I'm not going to |
| zero the score just to try to force it to. Some other judge will save your |
| bacon. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [271/400] -
| Again, this one is my personal favorite, even if it's kind of cheating. |
| Lancer's action game style just appeals to me, and Lachesis' help with the |
| coding means they can turn out really impressive results in a short time. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "Jimbo Wales has challenged you to a dance fight!" |
| |
| Puella says: "Really cool intro graphic! I liked the sprites, especially |
| the one that looked like a tree or something with many arms. It was cool!" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 69245 = Final Kamikaze ================ ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT = [120/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 31/120] -
| So like, I hold down spacebar and move up and down until I win? Not a lot |
| going on here, certainly. This is the kind of thing more suited to a BKZX |
| than a DoZ, and I'm not sure I understand what it's doing here. I know BBH |
| has done better in the past. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 22/ 90] -
| Flat, blocky, and tiny. Oh, and drab, it's mostly a lot of gray. I kind of |
| wondered if the moon was supposed to be, like, a spaceship or something for |
| a second. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 14/ 80] -
| BBH actually did make a sort of player engine here, but it's pretty |
| rudimentary and doesn't really work all that well as it is. A tip: |
| overriding the player to do different things is so two decades ago. Really, |
| why not just use a robot to BE the player instead of using a robot to move |
| the player? |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 18/ 50] -
| While I think the tie-in to WWII was kind of... actually no, it wasn't all |
| that clever. But it was something. Regardless, it still boils down to "hey, |
| do X....hooray, you did X!" What's my motivation again? |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 21/ 40] -
| The song actually seems pretty fitting, but of course there's really only |
| one apart from a little Final Fantasy victory music. Gunshot noises seem a |
| little over-loud to me. Maybe it's just late. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 14/ 20] -
| This is actually solid, albeit boring, theme usage. It fits the topic in |
| the most obvious way possible, and I can't really slight it for that. In |
| particular, playing it straight as an alternate ending to WWII actually |
| works better for me than Maxim's game did. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [120/400] -
| Meh, there are always a few of these in any signficantly attended DoZ. |
| Moving right along... |
| |
| Wervyn says: "Oh no, it's a red one! We're all doomed." |
| |
| Puella says: "I like the monochrome! I'd reword, 'you are the only one who |
| can reach on time the bomber...' but it made me giggle :) The Final Fantasy |
| music is a nice touch." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 74588 = Spirit Quest ====================== INDIVIDUALITY/LIGHT = [235/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 73/120] -
| So this game was weirdly compelling, even though it eventually turned into |
| a chore to play. It's probably that addictive "chasing the next level" |
| mechanic at work, but by the second level it had turned into a grind (that I |
| probably could have skipped), and by the last I was just trying to finish |
| the thing. As far as the battle engine goes, leveling each skill through use |
| is an interesting idea, but ultimately contributes to the tedium that makes |
| the game feel grindy. For the amount of time that I spent trying to play |
| through this properly, I was left feeling like I'd just wasted my time at |
| the end of it. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 71/ 90] -
| These are probably the prettiest graphics in the DoZ, and it's impressive |
| to me that Thud managed to put some very nice artwork together with a fairly |
| complex engine, all by himself. I really like the level artwork a lot, |
| particularly the forest. Some of the later stuff in the volcano felt a |
| little too dark, but it worked. Taking away points are some graphical |
| glitches on the menu and battle screens, where it seemed like garbage would |
| accidentally get copied around on the screen sometimes. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 27/ 80] -
| And then there's that engine, hoo boy. It's a nice piece of work, but it's |
| full of bugs and that really drags the score down. Good stuff to note: I |
| liked the transition from the overworld to the battles, the battles |
| themselves mostly worked well, and the equip screen had a decent interface |
| (though a mouse-based system probably would have worked better). As for |
| bugs, the game breaking one right before the castle is the real killer, but |
| there are plenty of others. Speed as it applies to turn order is a huge one, |
| as this really messes with the gameplay. This itself contributes to |
| scenarios where you can get stuck in a fight because you have the wrong |
| spirit equiped and can't do damage, but are too fast for the enemy to ever |
| get a turn (and you can't run away, either). Towards the end, when Thud was |
| clearly rushing to finish, things get really slipshod, and the high-power |
| water spirit gets tagged with a fire attribute instead. That threw me for a |
| loop in the fight. But overall, it's just a mess, on top of what would |
| otherwise be a pretty solid set of engines. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 32/ 50] -
| Rather simple, but often the best stories are. There's enough engagement |
| and interest in the whole war with the spirits and protecting humanity's |
| individuality to drive the narrative. Things unfortunately fall apart |
| towards the end, though, with a rushed tag on "and so the day was |
| saved...for now!" It was going somewhere up until then, but we all know what |
| a DoZ time crunch can do to a game. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 16/ 40] -
| I honestly found the music a little grating. It wasn't really bad so much |
| as dull, and part of the problem was the intercutting between overworld, |
| equip screen, and battles, usually in fairly quick succession. This means |
| you get to hear only the very beginning of each piece, over and over again, |
| whether it's droning, over-mellow guitar riffs, silence, or...suspenseful |
| piano music? Really? |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 16/ 20] -
| This is pretty good theme use, actually. Mostly carried by the story, but |
| that runs throughout, and is what I expect from a good theme-light game. I |
| might grade this a little harsher on the heavy sheet. It does seem to me, |
| too, that Thud might have been going for an interpretation of the theme on |
| leveling skills _individually_, so that's something. Maybe I'm reading too |
| much into it. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [235/400] -
| There's a lot of potential for a great game here with some polish, balance, |
| and most importantly bug fixes. That's really what killed this one. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "What am I looking at here, floating condoms?" |
| |
| Puella says: "I like the intro graphic :D Music repetitive, but I like the |
| hook. Story concept was interesting! Interesting graphics in general." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 74770 = Ununhexium ======================== INDIVIDUALITY/LIGHT = [180/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 51/120] -
| You know what this reminds me of? That turn-based robots game where you |
| have a little guy being chased by evil robots, and you have to maneuver |
| around so that they crash into each other and explode before they reach you. |
| Except here you can just shoot the robots, er, skeletons, so much for |
| strategy there. Instead, it's a relatively simple game about health |
| conservation and careful exploration, while picking up random macguffins. |
| Oh, and you can't see anything while you do it. Gameplay-wise, I accept the |
| rationale for this, even though it's not that much fun (although the game is |
| short enough that it doesn't become too much of a tedious slog). |
| Graphically, well... |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 35/ 90] -
| Seems like an awful waste of screen real estate to just draw a tiny piece |
| of it at a time. I don't know what else you might have put in the rest of |
| that big, empty black space, but as is you really have to squint to play |
| this thing. Doesn't help that the palette is drab and limited to a few |
| colors, and the character work is mostly generic enemies and items, and then |
| a lot of solid blocks. Nice work on the title screen, though, some simple |
| but effective graphical tricks make for a reasonably cool first impression. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 48/ 80] -
| Oh hey, remember how I was talking about random level generation before? |
| This is a good example of what I meant about a palette of room elements. Now |
| there's nothing overly complicated going on here, the level gen is pretty |
| much a paste and go, and the gameplay engine is pretty straightforward. But |
| it all works just fine, and bug-free is helpful in the technique department. |
| Also, is it weird to anyone else that nooodl and Guy both turned in entries |
| involving skeletons and random level generators? A little more attention in |
| the enemy AI department might have been enough to push this out of the |
| "average" level. The game is way too easy as it is, and smarter skeletons |
| would have both improved that and provided a way to show off. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 15/ 50] -
| There's some opening screed about dungeon crawling to save your crew blah |
| blah, but it's really more of an explanation of the game rules than anything |
| else. It reads pretty much like "just hurry up and play the damn thing |
| already" to me. So, better than the complete nonsense that is Thanatos |
| Insignia 2, but not really even as good as Final Kamikaze to me. I don't |
| react well to being beaten over the head with the topic, it just feels lazy |
| to me. Of course, we'll get to THAT in a second... |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 30/ 40] -
| I found myself really enjoying the tracks i this game, perhaps I'm just in |
| a chiptune mood this DoZ. But I found all of them fitting, even if I'm not |
| sure exactly why. Nice sound design with the high score entry and table, |
| that was a good decision both in terms of music choice, and in sequencing. I |
| like that I had ample time to enjoy the pieces, instead of having |
| transitions cut them off as in other games. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 1/ 20] -
| So, heh. You went to a lot of effort (read: the bare minimum) to shoehorn |
| the theme into the game, and you got the wrong theme. Ouch. I award you one |
| pity point for the attempt, but Isolation was four DoZs ago. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [180/400] -
| A somewhat interesting game idea, but ultimately rather boring. This one |
| should be disqualified too, but I'm not holding out for the other judges to |
| realize that, since theme disqualification usually only gets applied to joke |
| entries, not seriously attempted ones. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "Oops, I think I just shot President Skeleton." |
| |
| Puella says: "Cool animation at the beginning. Premise is cool, that you |
| get weaker as you go back. The ring of light thing is REALLY cool, how do |
| you do that? The music is fun too. Great to eat cereal and read Weird Al's |
| twitter by." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 80483 = DUI 20XX ====================== ALTERNATE HISTORY/HEAVY = [292/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 65/100] -
| I'm not sure I understand the decision to cross-sheet this game. Alternate |
| History is kind of a difficult theme to do on the heavy sheet if you don't |
| really sell the connection. I mean, it worked well enough story wise, I buy |
| the idea of travelling through time and changing history, but it's still a |
| real stretch, and comes across as a joke most of the time (probably because |
| it was meant to). That's just average theme use, not superlative theme use. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 71/ 90] -
| This is probably the most polished overhead driving game I've seen in MZX, |
| let alone a DoZ, and I'm really not sure why people haven't done more with |
| them up to this point. One innovation that definitely helps a lot are the |
| velocity and direction pointers. Risu and Otto correctly realized that the |
| car graphics alone weren't enough to convey this information, even if you |
| could accurately do it in MZX's low res. The granularity of the markers |
| isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the alternative. Combine fun |
| physics interactions with decently challenging courses and time limits, and |
| you've got a pretty good game. Some nitpicks: I really would have preferred |
| spacebar as a handbrake, instead of down. Clearly I've been playing too much |
| GTA. And collisions are, frankly, kind of hilarious, although I'm not sure |
| if I'd like fatal crashing or dead-stopping better. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 54/ 70] -
| Excellent work on these, like them about the same level as Spirit Quest, |
| they're vibrant, varied, and evocative of the environments. There's better |
| artwork out there, of course, but this is high-level work, and what I'd |
| expect from someone as accomplished as Snigwich (great to have him back and |
| MZXing again, by the way). I loved the little touch of terrain damage from |
| having your car skid off the track or crash into things, really added to the |
| emersion a lot. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 51/ 60] -
| As I said already, this is one of the best engines in the DoZ, about on the |
| level of Maxim's. The physical interactions of the car with different |
| driving terrain, collidable objects, and angular momentum, all made for a |
| really cool experience. And it all worked very well. Though the driving |
| pretty much IS the game, that's good enough for sizeable points there. Of |
| course, there's that map restart bug, which makes the challenge level of the |
| races particularly punishing. At least you can save in this one. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 33/ 50] -
| Fun, light-hearted stuff, generally above average fair. There were no |
| really strong story games this time (well, there was one that might have |
| been, but it was unfinished), but drawing me into the world of the game, |
| even if it's a silly world, is what you need to make that emotional |
| connection I value so much in this category. I did dock a few points for the |
| DELIVERY of the story, since unskippable dialogues with text you can't |
| manually advance through is frustrating, and some of the fourth-wall jokes |
| wore themselves out in the process. My opinion is you shouldn't deliver |
| story text this way to begin with, but if you do, pay attention to your |
| dialogue breaks; it's always jarring to stop in the middle of a sentence and |
| have to wait for the dialogue to proceed. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 18/ 30] -
| Good musical selection, and I leave it at that. What this game was really |
| hurting for was sound effects, they were extremely conspicuous in their |
| absence. Stuff like driving noises and crashes go without saying, but when |
| there's no noise for stuff like going through a checkpoint, lack of sound is |
| impacting gameplay, and that's a problem. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [292/400] -
| Looks like we have a DoZ winner. I think this actually would have done even |
| better on the light sheet, but a game that hits all of the categories at a |
| fairly strong level will do better than a game that hits a couple of them |
| really strong but falls flat in the others. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "The booze must flow!" |
| |
| Puella says: "SPACE HITLER! But the exposition text is too cut up, hard to |
| follow. Fun premise, cool sprites, and I really like the 4th wall jokes!" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 82246 = Argrablehuble ================= ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT = [135/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 41/120] -
| So as far as this goes, I'm considering the game to be the slider puzzle, |
| as the rest of the stuff isn't in nearly complete enough a state to tell |
| what it was supposed to be. Using one of the mechanical slider puzzles from |
| MZX Manor was humorous, but has gameplay problems as some of the tiles are |
| identical, but not recognized by the engine as such. Thus, you can solve the |
| puzzle, without actually solving the puzzle. And of course, putting things |
| together practically requires looking at the hint, since unless you're |
| really familiar with ZZT slider puzzle mechanics it might as well go |
| together any which way. Hey, you know what would have been cool? If once you |
| finished assembling the slider puzzle correctly, you got to play through it. |
| Except that would have gotten this game disqualified even harder. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 32/ 90] -
| I'm incorporating judgements on some of the scrapped level design here too, |
| and it looked like it might have been interesting (if very...red). I can't |
| really give you a lot for that, though. I certainly can't award much for |
| running a bunch of stock photos through an image converter. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 29/ 80] -
| Slider puzzle! That's about it though. It works well enough but that's |
| literally all that's here, engine-wise. Except maybe a WASD shooting engine |
| on one of the project scrap boards, because those are REALLY hard to make. |
| Okay granted, for whatever reason there's actually a sprite maanagement |
| engine here for player movement and shooting, but the lack of a game that |
| uses them pretty much makes the argument for why spending time on something |
| complicated was a bad idea. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5/ 50] -
| This is about as generous as I can be. There's nothing tying this together |
| at all, and of course that's what you might expect for a project dump. But |
| even then, you might have included a story dump along with it with a little |
| more depth than "Papa Rufus". |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 17/ 40] -
| I'll grant that the music played over the puzzle was nice and suiting, but |
| what else do you expect for a single mod? |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 11/ 20] -
| Ahahaha, I get it! Because, see, the HISTORY is all mixed up, or |
| ALTERNATED, if you will. What a card you are Old-Skool. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [135/400] -
| So, did you oversleep, or fall asleep, or what? Oh DoZ motivation, you are |
| so fickle. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "We have to say Swiper no swiping! Swiper no swiping!" |
| |
| Puella says: "I'm really bad at slider puzzles :P" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 83889 = weltzschmerz ====================== INDIVIDUALITY/HEAVY = [201/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 55/100] -
| So this game started with a lot of promise, and I was expecting something |
| that would be, if perhaps a little cliche, then at least suitably epic. But |
| then it broke off after the first little segment, before things really had a |
| chance to get going. Sucks. As for what's there, I can definitely see a |
| "fight the power" theme developing in the story, which is a good use, and it |
| definitely could have gone further. But I can only give about half points |
| for a half-finished game. Oh for what might have been. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 34/ 90] -
| There's a promise of some mildly entertaining stealth gameplay with |
| environmental puzzle solving. But since there's only the one scenario in the |
| bathroom car, I don't have a lot to go on. I might be slightly too lenient |
| here because of the potential I saw, but I still can't give that many points |
| for unfinished. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 38/ 70] -
| So 2000 years in the future, everyone has turned into furries? Okay, I'll |
| go with it. The graphics are nice enough, if a little muted, but nothing |
| really amazing. Art design is mostly small-scale, here, which makes things |
| feel cluttered. Also, there are some glitches in drawing the player when |
| traversing the roof of the train. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 25/ 60] -
| There's some decent stuff on display here, but all of it is fairly basic |
| stuff. I like the simple choice system implemented in the conversation |
| engine, and the puzzle worked well, even if it played out a bit like a |
| quicktime even more than anything else. Maybe if there'd been more game, |
| we'd get to see more programming. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 29/ 50] -
| As I already said, I really liked the direction this was going, but we |
| never do get to find out what happens next, and so the story is incomplete. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 20/ 30] -
| Pretty good musical choices, fighting with the fact that there's not really |
| enough game to go on. What's there is atmospherically on target, and the |
| sound effects peppered throughout are a nice touch. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [201/400] -
| I think this game is the one I wish had been finished the most. Of course |
| it's well known that I'm predisposed to story-heavy games, particularly the |
| dark ones. |
| |
| Wervyn says: "Cloud, we have to blow up the Mako reactor!" |
| |
| Puella says: "The music in the intro was too repetitive before it added |
| more elements @.@ Naming the character is a nice touch. We named our |
| character Poophead. 'CAN YOU READ ME, POOPHEAD!?!' :D Over all, reminds me |
| of FF7 in a nice homage kinda way." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 85538 = Ken: A Matter of Individuality ==== INDIVIDUALITY/HEAVY = [118/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 49/100] -
| So I think I see what this game was going for theme-wise, in terms of a |
| journey of self-discovery and finding your own individual identity, but it's |
| even more unfinished than the last one and I liked it a lot less. So I'll |
| just give it a slightly lower average score here. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 16/ 90] -
| Mostly consists of running around touching things and then waiting for a |
| bunch of interminable message line text to finish going by before you can |
| move again. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 12/ 70] -
| Painful to look at. It's not that I mind ZZT-retro so much |
| as...well...colors, holy geez. It's like a My Little Pony exploded. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 7/ 60] -
| Well I'm glad to see you've mastered the :touch label, but can you do |
| anything else? Not link boards, apparently. I guess there was some sort of |
| inventory engine too but it's not like it ever got used so it might as well |
| not have been there. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 22/ 50] -
| Another case where I can kind of see where things might be going, but we |
| never actually get there. Doesn't help that the delivery takes agonizingly |
| long to get through, thanks to the lack of any more complex message engine. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 12/ 30] -
| Halucin8.mod? Really? There are a couple others old saws in there too, but |
| in this case, the music is all just "there" in the not good way. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [118/400] -
| So congratulations on producing the worst thing in the competition, at |
| least by my score sheet. That's some sort of accomplishment, right? |
| |
| Wervyn says: "Obviously Ken is running away from his family's flamboyantly |
| tacky decor." |
| |
| Puella says: "Fits the theme well :D Cute house design, and Werv was |
| reading the voices in a funny way, so I enjoyed the dialogue too." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= FINAL SCORES ================================================================
1. 80483 - DUI 20XX --------------------- ALTERNATE HISTORY/HEAVY - [292/400] -
2. 49932 - Thanatos Insignia 2 -------------- INDIVIDUALITY/LIGHT - [271/400] -
3. 20027 - Wild Fire -------------------- ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT - [248/400] -
4. 74588 - Spirit Quest --------------------- INDIVIDUALITY/LIGHT - [235/400] -
5. 83889 - weltzschmerz --------------------- INDIVIDUALITY/HEAVY - [201/400] -
6. 74770 - Ununhexium ----------------------- INDIVIDUALITY/LIGHT - [180/400] -
7. 24966 - Hipster Quest -------------------- INDIVIDUALITY/HEAVY - [157/400] -
8. 30154 - President Skeleton ----------- ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT - [157/400] -
9. 69245 - Final Kamikaze --------------- ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT - [120/400] -
10. 85538 - Ken: A Matter of Individuality --- INDIVIDUALITY/HEAVY - [118/400] -
DQ. 82246 - Argrablehuble ---------------- ALTERNATE HISTORY/LIGHT - [135/400] -
===============================================================================/
</pre>
[[Category:Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-22T05:58:53Z

Kuroneko: /* Scores */ Making the listing a table. Will revert it if we don't like it.

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-22T05:53:03Z

Kuroneko: /* Scores */

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-22T05:51:42Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-22T05:51:01Z

Kuroneko: /* Scores */

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-22T05:50:42Z

Kuroneko:

CaptainFailmore

2012-07-22T05:50:19Z

Kuroneko: Redirected page to Taitorian

#REDIRECT [[Taitorian]]

Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-22T05:49:14Z

Kuroneko:

Cycle

2012-07-20T11:02:20Z

Kuroneko:

A [[MegaZeux]] '''cycle''' is essentially one frame of MZX execution, in which all [[robots]] on the board may execute some code, all objects on the board that move can move one space, and some amount of time passes according to the current [[mzx_speed|MZX speed]]. MZX programmers most often think about cycles as they relate to robot execution, particularly in the areas of [[busyloop|busyloops]] and [[commands]]. In the past, most people didn't worry about this, because the only way it really showed up in games was a hard limit of how much a robot could do in a certain amount of time. Since the advent of the "commands" counter, which allows the number of commands a robot CAN execute per cycle to be set in the billions, MZXers have paid much more attention to ensuring that robots only execute as many commands per cycle as they need to, so that all robots get a chance to execute their programs within a reasonable amount of time.

There is also a command in MZX called "cycle", which sets the number of cycles between execution for the given robot. For a long time, [[MZXers]] considered this command largely useless, since it is almost never desirable to have a robot that doesn't execute every cycle (cycle 1), and that is the default behavior. (The same command exists in [[ZZT]], but the default there is #cycle 3, where an object executes code every three cycles.) However, [[Wervyn]] pointed out that a side-effect of the command is to end the current cycle, and to do so without invoking a command that could span multiple cycles. [http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=15350 The pros and cons of WAIT 1 vs CYCLE 1 are discussed at length here], but for casual use, '''WAIT 1''' is preferable.

[[Category:MegaZeux]][[Category:MegaZeux Commands]]

SWAP WORLD "file"

2012-07-20T10:57:57Z

Kuroneko:

'''Swap world''' is a MegaZeux command that swaps the current MZX world with the one stated. Its syntax is ''SWAP WORLD "filename"''.

In the earlier days of MegaZeux, having large MZX worlds could cause instability, so it was often necessary to partition large games into several worlds even before hitting MZX's board limit. Upon swapping worlds, all "state" information in the current world will be thrown out, essentially resetting that world to its original state. However, all of the values for global counters are retained. This is often exploited to quickly and easily "reset" levels, as swapping a world to itself is valid. (The best-known example of this is [[MZX Combat Trainer]].)

The existence of this command is why no '''load_world''' function [[counter]] exists.

[[Category:MegaZeux]] [[Category:MegaZeux Commands]]

MESSAGE ROW (command)

2012-07-20T10:57:19Z

Kuroneko:

'''MESSAGE ROW #''', '''SET MESG COLUMN #''', and '''CENTER MESG''' are commands which let the programmer change the on-screen position of the [[Message Row]], which can be used to make dialogue or messages appear to be coming from somewhere besides the bottom row of the screen, or to position a status bar.

==Usage==
. "putting the message row at the top of the screen and displaying two lines of text"
message row is 0
set mesg column to 3
* "~fHELLO,\nWORLD!"
wait for 50
. "now, we return the message row to its default settings and clear it"
clear mesg
message row is 24
center mesg

==Supplementary Commands==
===* "string"===
[[* "string"|See main article.]]

[[Category:MegaZeux]][[Category:MegaZeux Commands]]

Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets

2012-07-17T22:50:18Z

Kuroneko:

See also: [[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux]]

There were five scoresheets submitted to this Day of Zeux; only only the [[asgromo]], [[pyro1588]], and [[wildweasel]] sheets were used to calculate the final scores. The remaining two sheets were thrown out due to quality concerns.

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-17T22:28:17Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

{{Competition
|title = Winter 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = Winter2010dozalt1280.png
|host = [[Kurushimi]]
|judges = [[asgromo]], [[wildweasel]], [[Pyro1588]], [[astral]], Kuddy
|dates = January 2-3, 2010
|topics = Isolation (abstract)

Alien Invaders (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2009 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2010 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' was hosted by [[Kuddy]] and started on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, 5PM GMT (ending the same time the next day). The topics were "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders". The judges were [[astral]], [[wildweasel]], [[pyro1588]], [[asgromo]], and Kuddy himself (following the precident established last time). Buildup for this DoZ was fairly low-key, but consistent, and was bolstered by last minute signups as usual. Continuing the previous trend, the majority of the submissions were considered to be above average quality, and some of the top entries were quite impressive. Another continuing trend, most submissions were solo efforts, with one of the two team entries placing second and the other being disqualified. Finally, this DoZ saw a large number of games focused on technically impressive engine development, which astral specifically remarked that he found irksome. For example, [[Lancer-X]] submitted a game that ran in a very impressive visual novel interface; [[GreaseMonkey]] built a [[raycaster]] for his game that was actually considered fairly successful despite its low resolution; [[Lachesis]] wrote a Danmaku-like [[pixel-precise]] shooter; and [[logicow]] made a last minute return to submit a very pretty half-char [[sidescroller]].

The previously established guidelines on judging quality and timeliness were also put to the test in this DoZ, when Kuddy submitted his scores at the end of the judging week without comments, and astral's comments failed to meet the 300 word-per-game average. After strong complaints from [[Wervyn]], both scores were retracted. Despite the final scores being the result of only three combined judges, Wervyn insists that this is exactly what he had in mind when he proposed the system.

==Scores==
The rankings and total scores of each game in this DoZ are as follows:

*1st Place - Entry 30641 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Celestial Altar]]'' - by ク・リトル・リトル ([[Lancer-X]]) (Score: 1063/1200)
*2nd Place - Entry 60441 - '''Isolation/Lite''' - ''[[Forsaken Daylight]]'' - Team Betamax ([[CJA]], [[GreaseMonkey]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 937/1200)
*3rd Place - Entry 70273 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Antares]]'' - Fight For Ya' Life ([[Maxim]]) (Score: 795/1200)
*4th Place - Entry 34477 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Duck Rescue]]'' - [[logicow]] (Score: 788/1200)
*5th Place - Entry 47527 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Abandoned]]'' - Oh god, dragons ([[Kom]]) (Score: 775/1200)
*6th Place - Entry 66482 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[THOSE ALIEN INVADER!]]'' - MEDIUM RARE WARE ([[Lachesis]]) (Score: 766/1200)
*7th Place - Entry 36306 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Voluntary Solitude]]'' - Vortex Productions ([[RyanThunder]]) (Score: 722/1200)
*8th Place - Entry 49781 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[TurnCoat]]'' - The Moanatoans ([[ThdPro]]) (Score: 643/1200)
*9th Place - Entry 18030 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Prison Escape]]'' - Knights of Danika ([[Goshi]]) (Score: 587/1200)
*10th Place - Entry 13210 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR]]'' - The Bee's Knees ([[Captain Failmore]]) (Score: 563/1200)
*11th Place - Entry 79530 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[For Liberty]]'' - For Liberty ([[Spike]]) (Score: 514/1200)
*12th Place - Entry 11617 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Isolation Puzzle Platformer]]'' - Last Place Or Bust ([[mzxrules]]) (Score: 184/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 62239 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - The Onion Paradigm ([[Malwyn]], [[Risu2112]], [[Wervyn]]) (Score: 541/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 72165 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - Wacky Ironic Name Mocking Wacky Ironic Names ([[Seventh Shade]]) (Score: 373/1200)

==Judging Sheets==
''Main page: [[:Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]''

*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo|asgromo]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588|pyro1588]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel|wildweasel]]

==External Links==
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Winter2009/ Official Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
*[http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14739 Official Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:astral

2012-07-17T22:19:01Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets First off, I'd like to congratulate everybody who made it from concept to finished product in the alotted time. I un..."

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

First off, I'd like to congratulate everybody who made it from concept to

finished product in the alotted time. I understand how tough it can be working

under intense deadlines, I'm an overworked IT Consultant with too many job

responsibilities. With that said, I can't help but feel that this entire

competition was awash with apathy. Nobody particularly dedicated to their teams,

or publishing a complete game, and people even going so far as to be elitist

about their team selections, unwilling to work with each other or even enter

if they weren't guaranteed a spot on a (typically) winning team. That isn't

what these types of contests are generally about, and it's sad to see such a

low point. Hopefully the next DoZ will be somewhat more fruitful, when people

have a bit more luxury time to compete with.

I noted to myself as I played these games, that there was a lot of

emphasis on technical prowess. The DoZ has always been a place to showcase

technique, this isn't a bad thing and it definitely shouldn't change. However,

I'd be willing to say the contest would benefit more from complete games than

moderately interesting tech demos. There were things implemented this DoZ that

just couldn't be fit into the time frame, in fact I'd say time management was a

major factor in the overall dull quality of each and every game.

With these things in mind as you read my scores, note that I also

took the entire week to play the games several times on their own, with

time in between each separate game ranging from one to five hours. I did this

so that I would be able to judge each individual game on their own merits

instead of constantly comparing each game to the last. This gives every

team and author a fair shot at being the best of the DoZ, from the ground

up. I judged how I believe is fair, and you'll find that I didn't give specific

notes on each category because I don't feel like that's a fair representation

of the judging procedure I used. Instead, I wrote a short paragraph for each game

detailing how I felt about it, and listed scores afterward, with a total out

of the 400 points at the bottom.

I was not very nice.

-David "astral" Cravens

-decravens@gmail.com

11617 is awful. There is no game to it, just a pixel perfect platform engine with really annoying jumping. The only thing that could really get me to spend more than 30 minutes with it would be a salary to waste my time like that. There's literally no attachment to the them whatsoever, hardly any guidance in the gameplay. The graphics are terrible, nondescript and nonexistant. Technique-wise, this has been done in a previous DoZ. What did the author think? Copying a winning game feature for feature is the way to win the contest? No story, no sound. There's really no way this can avoid being DQ'd, it's barely even a game.

Theme - 0/100

Gameplay - 0/90

Graphics - 0/70

Technique - 0/60

Story - 0/50

Sound - 15/30 (no sound is better than shitty sound.)

15/400

13210 is adorable. The author certainly went for "blaxploitation" with this entry, and the result is a charming throwback, a retro piece almost. The gameplay is nearly non-existant, wander around a tiny maze, get to the exit, win the game. The graphics on the title screen are great but the in game stuff is hard to make out, the walls are pretty ugly and the pseudo 3d engine sucks. The music is pretty funny and it fits, but all the sound effects are shitty. The plot of the game is probably the best feature, it's a comedy, a parody, and definitely campy but not so much that you can't enjoy the idea. I'd like to see the author take this character somewhere else. As far as attachment to the theme goes, the antogonists are non-existant (in the game anyway) aliens. The player is completely alone throughout the 10 minutes of game that's there, and at the end you get a quick sendoff for the gameover screen.

Theme - 65/100

Gameplay - 12/90

Graphics - 33/70

Technique - 16/60

Story - 0/50

Sound - 17/30

143/400

18030 is a pretty run of the mill inventory game. The display of the inventory is relatively nifty, always there on the screen. The plot's nearly non existant and certainly doesn't make much sense at all. You pretty much sit around reading newspaper clippings (that you have no motivation to read sans "touch everything" since you're judging the game) and then get shot up by machine guns or come up with a clever way around them. There are tons of empty lockers and what I found to be a completely useless item. I tried a couple times and ended up with the same ending, walk outside and get shot fucked up, so I assume the game ends there and it's done. There really isn't anything here that hasn't already been done, and with a lot more pizazz. To top it all off, any character edits are completely modest and most screens are gigantic seas of black. There's very little sound, but what's there fits and certainly doesn't detract from the experience.

Theme - 17/100

Gameplay - 30/90

Graphics - 24/70

Technique - 13/60

Story - 21/50

Sound - 21/30

126/400

Celestial Altar, 30641, is pretty well rounded for a 24 hour entry. The first things you notice about the game are the sound and visuals, these two together are the second biggest draw of the game. The title screen is amazing, the screen transitions are great and fluid, and the artwork isn't terrible, though often it borders on being a gigantic blurry mess. The core gameplay mechanic involves the theme, not exactly creative but not awful either. Being a choose your own adventure visual novel-esque work, the story is the main draw. A little hackneyed at times, it never drains on you too much sans the eye fatigue you get from the double-wide SMZX font. The battle mode tends to err on the side of bland enough to enjoy thoughtlessly, which isn't necessarily a detraction since the game isn't completely combat focused. The page numbers are a nice touch, undoubtably used for the author to keep track of the game's branches, but making them available allows you to make mental notes of your favorite parts, or choices you'd do differently next time. Overally, this game is one of the most solid entries in the DoZ if a little boring at times.

Theme - 20/20

Gameplay - 68/120

Graphics - 57/90

Technique - 48/80

Story - 38/50

Sound - 38/40

269/400

Duck Rescue comes across as a little silly and simple, but 34477 is a solid contender considering the rest of the turnout of the DoZ. Themewise it fits in exactly like it's supposed to, assuming the theme is aliens. Isolation works pretty well too. I never got a point where the theme was pointed out, so I don't know exactly which to grade it on. Since it's most obviously aliens, I'll just go with the specific sheet. The gameplay is incredibly simple, jump, shoot, run. There's very little indication of what to do besides the fact that the screen scrolls left, stops when there's enemies, the green bar shrinks when you get hit, the fire bar shrinks when you shoot. The implications of this is that the interface to the game feels unfinished, even though there's a lot of polish everywhere else. There's a few different types of enemies, and timing your shots is somewhat important, but beyond that there's not much to playing the game. The sound is downright annoying. It irked me to no end. The technique is definitely stunning, it's clear that everything in the game was converted for use in megazeux and there's a lot of detail in the art. It's a shame the game couldn't have been a bit longer, really. The story's really slotted in, but without using any words it still manages to tell a tale. That's worth a few points in its own right, having the story entirely implied but still coming away with an understsanding of what just happened is fairly difficult. Again. The music. Oh god. The music. Make it stop.

Theme - 16/20

Gameplay - 66/120

Graphics - 77/90

Technique - 59/80

Story - 22/50

Sound - 0/40

240/400

Where to begin. 36306 is easily the best entry in the DoZ. The plot is right out of an old science fiction anthology, I feel like it's familiar but the execution is definitely different enough for me to enjoy it. The gameplay is pretty much run and gun with find the flotsam string alongs, the break in sessions are entirely triggered by the notes. Power up locations appear to be static, and finding the notes in different order can lead to confusion as to where the break-in is happening, but that's probably intended more than anything. The music is fantastic, it fits perfectly. There's not much else to be said except that every selection works exactly like it's supposed to, and proper credit was given at the end. The theme is clung to pretty strongly, it's a core mechanic of the game, and it's a core feature of the story. The story woven for you is interesting, and the plot twist at the end is M. Night Shamalamadingdong in a nutshell. Playing this game after some of the other garbage heaps made me feel a lot better about the competition this time as a whole. Again, the game's application of the theme deserves a lot of merit here, because there are several levels of isolation the main character is suffering through, and you can only grasp the whole situation after it's over. Visually, there's not a lot going on, but it isn't stark raving hideous. Since the gameplay was so simply, a larger player character and enemies would've been nice. If this author had written the game and picked the sound, and Duck Rescue's author coded it and painted the art, it would probably be a shoe in for first place.

Theme - 100/100

Gameplay - 33/90

Graphics - 22/70

Technique - 12/60

Story - 50/50

Sound - 28/30

245/400

47527 tries to be a 2.5d inventory puzzle game. What it ends up being is slow, frustrating, and fraught with logical silliness. The theme is there, isolation, though the game doesn't really go anywhere with it. The gameplay is a pain in the ass. Having both Use and Apply is unintuitive. In fact, that entire menu is. Given the small number of items and large number of screen real estate available, there were other options here. The sound is alright, not spectacular but not offputting. There really wasn't much of a story, understandably because the author self-admittedly didn't finish the game. Technique-wise there are some interesting bits, there aren't many games like this so in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, so to speak. The game isn't ugly, but it isn't detailed and pretty either. The graphics are functional. The animations are another story. The author seemed to c-walking in mind. The player moves too slow, but the input responds too quickly if you speed up MZX.

Theme - 30/100

Gameplay - 23/90

Graphics - 33/70

Technique - 28/60

Story - 3/50

Sound - 15/30

132/400

I'm going to be frank about 49781. I hated this game. There was nothing pleasant about it, except for maybe the graphics. The sounds were all recycled and annoying and the music was repetitive and irksome, the textboxes were frustratingly slow and you could interrupt them and move to other screens. The text needed to be proofread, the story didn't make any sense, the first weapon is painfully difficult to use and the others are just boring. The maps are huge and empty, the enemies are boring and repetitive. I'd say at least it's more fun than shooting built-ins, but it really just wasn't. The only thing it did well was cling to the theme with an iron grip.

Theme - 20/20

Gameplay - 11/120

Graphics - 46/90

Technique - 31/ 80

Story - 13/50

Sound - 10/40

131/400

60441 is an interesting game split into a couple very different gameplay segments. The first is a restricted viewpoint run and gun with upgrades to your weaponry and plenty of cannon fodder to destroy. The second part is a first person shooter with an antiquated control scheme. The gameplay and graphics in both sections have a lot of polish, and the sound is pretty well rounded as well. The theme is pretty much tacked on, there are a lot of other themes this game would've fit, isolation probably would've worked better but alien invaders is what they requested to be judged on. Graphically, there's not a lot to look at, but what's there is pretty, at least in the overhead portions. The generic action gameplay gets a little dull and the dialog is sparse, but it strings the game along I suppose. Going into first person mode, I understand that technically a raycaster is impressive, but there's a lot to be said for just making it fun to play and pretty to look at. The blurry 80x25 resolution is not kind to your eyes when you're trying to move around and shoot, thankfully the gun is wonderfully lenient on targeting and shooting doesn't take much effort. Finding the coins in the first section is probably the most frustrating portion of the game, seeing as you're wandering around an unnavigable clusterfuck of a sewer with random zombies appearing, and little indication of what you're actually supposed to be doing until you stumble on it. The cinemas are pretty hilarious, and the animation in them is pretty well done. Overall, a solidly packaged (if a little boring) product, it would stand reasonably well on its own outside of the DoZ.

Theme - 11/20

Gameplay - 64/120

Graphics - 36/90

Technique - 80/80

Story - 12/50

Sound - 38/40

241/400

62239 is unfinished, and it's a crying shame. There's a seed for a fantastic game right here, and unfortunately the 24 hour contest just didn't provide enough time for the author to finish. The graphics are attractive, the random generator is pretty awesome. The effects are interesting too. There's so much here that could've turned into a great game, given enough time. The theme was isolation, and technically you ARE isolated, but I can't really do much to reward ideas, just what actually ends up playable.

Theme - 1/100

Gameplay - 20/90

Graphics - 56/70

Technique - 48/60

Story - 0/50

Sound - 15/30

140/400

I couldn't really get very far here. The screen is so small, the first thing I faced clouded the entire box with fire and I couldn't do much besides die. I think these are supposed to be alien invaders. The gameplay, which consists of dying, is pretty boring but consistent. The grahpics harken back to old arcade games, and while pleasing to the eye, aren't much to look at. Everything is however very smooth, and there's a lot of technical prowess at work here. Like many other games in the DoZ, this is a person that could've benefited from a team. The only sound I heard was repetitive chip-ish music that grated my nerves.

Theme - 3/20

Gameplay - 22/120

Graphics - 32/90

Technique - 68/ 80

Story - 0/50

Sound - 15/40

140/400

Since the topic was alien invader and the game had nothing more than some beat-em-up action, I'm going to assume 70273 meant specific topic and theme-light sheet. And as far as that, sure, there were aliens and yup, they invaded. The end. Why? Oh, the game says nobody knows why except maybe they want the ship. So your job is to blow up the ship. Or something. All I did was kick the shit out of the Putty Patrol for like 20 minutes. I shot a few of them too. I'm pretty sure the author has made this game before. The backgrounds were sort of drab, but functional. The sound effects were alright, but the music was grating. It just feels like the author's heart wasn't in the contest, and the result is a mediocre distraction. I'd be mad if I put a quarter in the machine to play this, although I will say the combat mechanics are pretty solid and with a little more to do on the screen, or slightly more varied enemies, it could've been a lot more fun.

Theme - 20/20

Gameplay - 72/120

Graphics - 31/90

Technique - 26/ 80

Story - 11/50

Sound - 21/40

181/400

72165 could've been interesting, but it wasn't. The puzzle quest inspired gameplay is interesting and fun, but there's nothing to do with it. You win the board and you're done. I didn't really catch either of the themes actually in the game itself, just in a notes.txt file outside of the game, and really that just wasn't good enough.The graphics consist mainly of symbols, so there's not much to look at, and the sound is kind of lame but it's functional. There wasn't any story to speak of in the game itself.

Theme - 0/20

Gameplay - 34/120

Graphics - 21/90

Technique - 48/80

Story - 0/50

Sound - 26/40

129/400

79530. A game about killing yourself because you're lonely. Fantastic. It seems like there was more the author wanted to do, but there's so much spit and polish on what's there I can only imagine he ran out of time. If this was all that was intended, then I'd advise developing a morbid sense of humor to enjoy it, but it certainly delves deep into the isolation theme. It explores the horrible dread a rat-man feels at the realization of his own impending death while stuck in a room full of tubes and another dead rat. There's a nifty computer console to dick around with, and there's a case full of random medicines. So you mess with the dead rat and then you poison yourself. I glanced in the editor to see if there was more to do, since the game over screen hints there might be, but alas, couldn't figure anything out. The sound is well done, the graphics are sparse but attractive, the computer terminal is unique. This game gets tons of points for style, as I said, the spit and polish is evident. The author clearly cared about how dialog and the environment was presented, as well as making pretty consistent use of "enter" as the accept key. Again, I really wish there was more to do, but the tidbit that's there is reasonably interesting.

Theme - 68/100

Gameplay - 13/90

Graphics - 57/70

Technique - 22/60

Story - 22/50

Sound - 26/30

208/400

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy

2012-07-17T22:13:33Z

Kuroneko:

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]
<pre>Sorry guys, my comments will have to wait until
later this week, because too much RL crap and dis-
tractions got in the way. Until then, here are my
number scores.

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 11617 - Isolation Puzzle Puzzle Platform ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 0/100
Gameplay: 10/90
Graphics: 11/70
Technique: 14/60
Story: 0/50
Sound: 5/30
Overall: 40/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 13210 - ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 12/20
Gameplay: 15/120
Graphics: 55/90
Technique: 30/80
Story: 25/50
Sound: 26/40
Overall: 156/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 18030 - PRISON ESCAPE ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 70/100
Gameplay: 30/90
Graphics: 45/70
Technique: 35/60
Story: 22/50
Sound: 28/30
Overall: 230/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 30641 - Celestial Altar ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 19/20
Gameplay: 106/120
Graphics: 85/90
Technique: 80/80
Story: 47/50
Sound: 35/40
Overall: 372/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 34477 - Duck Rescue ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 3/20
Gameplay: 69/120
Graphics: 84/90
Technique: 53/80
Story: 25/50
Sound: 28/40
Overall: 262/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 36306 - Voluntary Solitude ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 80/100
Gameplay: 35/90
Graphics: 30/70
Technique: 40/60
Story: 37/50
Sound: 26/30
Overall: 248/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 47527 - Abandoned ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 75/100
Gameplay: 52/90
Graphics: 60/70
Technique: 48/60
Story: 20/50
Sound: 25/30
Overall: 280/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 49781 - TurnCoat ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 17/20
Gameplay: 58/120
Graphics: 49/90
Technique: 48/80
Story: 32/50
Sound: 28/40
Overall: 232/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 60441 - FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 10/20
Gameplay: 107/120
Graphics: 80/90
Technique: 73/80
Story: 20/50
Sound: 28/40
Overall: 318/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 62239 - art ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 1/20
Gameplay: 53/120
Graphics: 69/90
Technique: 60/80
Story: 0/50
Sound: 5/40
Overall: 188/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 66482 - THOSE ALIEN INVADER! ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 15/20
Gameplay: 101/120
Graphics: 70/90
Technique: 70/80
Story: 25/50
Sound: 30/40
Overall: 311/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 70273 - Antares ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 15/20
Gameplay: 105/120
Graphics: 74/90
Technique: 65/80
Story: 30/50
Sound: 30/40
Overall: 319/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 72165 - Title ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 0/20
Gameplay: 40/120
Graphics: 40/90
Technique: 42/80
Story: 2/50
Sound: 25/40
Overall: 149/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 79530 - For Liberty ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 69/100
Gameplay: 15/90
Graphics: 52/70
Technique: 42/60
Story: 15/50
Sound: 27/30
Overall: 221/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ SCORE TOTALS ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

#14 - 40 - 11617 (Isolation Puzzle Puzzle Plat...)
#13 - 149 - 72165 (Title)
#12 - 156 - 13210 (ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR)
#11 - 188 - 62239 (art)
#10 - 220 - 79530 (For Liberty)
#9 - 230 - 18030 (PRISON ESCAPE)
#8 - 232 - 49781 (TurnCoat)
#7 - 248 - 36306 (Voluntary Solitude)
#6 - 262 - 34477 (Duck Rescue)
#5 - 280 - 47527 (Abandoned)
#4 - 311 - 66482 (THOSE ALIEN INVADER!)
#3 - 318 - 60441 (FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT)
#2 - 319 - 70273 (Antares)
#1 - 372 - 30641 (Celestial Altar)
</pre>

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy

2012-07-17T22:13:11Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets <pre> Sorry guys, my comments will have to wait until later this week, because too much RL crap and dis- tractions go..."

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

<pre>
Sorry guys, my comments will have to wait until
later this week, because too much RL crap and dis-
tractions got in the way. Until then, here are my
number scores.

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 11617 - Isolation Puzzle Puzzle Platform ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 0/100
Gameplay: 10/90
Graphics: 11/70
Technique: 14/60
Story: 0/50
Sound: 5/30
Overall: 40/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 13210 - ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 12/20
Gameplay: 15/120
Graphics: 55/90
Technique: 30/80
Story: 25/50
Sound: 26/40
Overall: 156/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 18030 - PRISON ESCAPE ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 70/100
Gameplay: 30/90
Graphics: 45/70
Technique: 35/60
Story: 22/50
Sound: 28/30
Overall: 230/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 30641 - Celestial Altar ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 19/20
Gameplay: 106/120
Graphics: 85/90
Technique: 80/80
Story: 47/50
Sound: 35/40
Overall: 372/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 34477 - Duck Rescue ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 3/20
Gameplay: 69/120
Graphics: 84/90
Technique: 53/80
Story: 25/50
Sound: 28/40
Overall: 262/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 36306 - Voluntary Solitude ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 80/100
Gameplay: 35/90
Graphics: 30/70
Technique: 40/60
Story: 37/50
Sound: 26/30
Overall: 248/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 47527 - Abandoned ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 75/100
Gameplay: 52/90
Graphics: 60/70
Technique: 48/60
Story: 20/50
Sound: 25/30
Overall: 280/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 49781 - TurnCoat ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 17/20
Gameplay: 58/120
Graphics: 49/90
Technique: 48/80
Story: 32/50
Sound: 28/40
Overall: 232/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 60441 - FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 10/20
Gameplay: 107/120
Graphics: 80/90
Technique: 73/80
Story: 20/50
Sound: 28/40
Overall: 318/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 62239 - art ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 1/20
Gameplay: 53/120
Graphics: 69/90
Technique: 60/80
Story: 0/50
Sound: 5/40
Overall: 188/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 66482 - THOSE ALIEN INVADER! ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 15/20
Gameplay: 101/120
Graphics: 70/90
Technique: 70/80
Story: 25/50
Sound: 30/40
Overall: 311/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 70273 - Antares ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 15/20
Gameplay: 105/120
Graphics: 74/90
Technique: 65/80
Story: 30/50
Sound: 30/40
Overall: 319/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 72165 - Title ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Alien Invaders Sheet: Theme-Light ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 0/20
Gameplay: 40/120
Graphics: 40/90
Technique: 42/80
Story: 2/50
Sound: 25/40
Overall: 149/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ 79530 - For Liberty ░▒▓
▓▒░ Theme: Isolation Sheet: Theme-Heavy ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

Theme: 69/100
Gameplay: 15/90
Graphics: 52/70
Technique: 42/60
Story: 15/50
Sound: 27/30
Overall: 221/400

███████████████████████████████████████████████████
▓▒░ SCORE TOTALS ░▒▓
███████████████████████████████████████████████████

#14 - 40 - 11617 (Isolation Puzzle Puzzle Plat...)
#13 - 149 - 72165 (Title)
#12 - 156 - 13210 (ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR)
#11 - 188 - 62239 (art)
#10 - 220 - 79530 (For Liberty)
#9 - 230 - 18030 (PRISON ESCAPE)
#8 - 232 - 49781 (TurnCoat)
#7 - 248 - 36306 (Voluntary Solitude)
#6 - 262 - 34477 (Duck Rescue)
#5 - 280 - 47527 (Abandoned)
#4 - 311 - 66482 (THOSE ALIEN INVADER!)
#3 - 318 - 60441 (FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT)
#2 - 319 - 70273 (Antares)
#1 - 372 - 30641 (Celestial Altar)
</pre>

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-17T20:13:56Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

{{Competition
|title = Winter 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = Winter2010dozalt1280.png
|host = [[Kurushimi]]
|judges = [[asgromo]], [[wildweasel]], [[Pyro1588]], [[astral]], Kuddy
|dates = January 2-3, 2010
|topics = Isolation (abstract)

Alien Invaders (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2009 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2010 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' was hosted by [[Kuddy]] and started on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, 5PM GMT (ending the same time the next day). The topics were "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders". The judges were [[astral]], [[wildweasel]], [[pyro1588]], [[asgromo]], and Kuddy himself (following the precident established last time). Buildup for this DoZ was fairly low-key, but consistent, and was bolstered by last minute signups as usual. Continuing the previous trend, the majority of the submissions were considered to be above average quality, and some of the top entries were quite impressive. Another continuing trend, most submissions were solo efforts, with one of the two team entries placing second and the other being disqualified. Finally, this DoZ saw a large number of games focused on technically impressive engine development, which astral specifically remarked that he found irksome. For example, [[Lancer-X]] submitted a game that ran in a very impressive visual novel interface; [[GreaseMonkey]] built a [[raycaster]] for his game that was actually considered fairly successful despite its low resolution; [[Lachesis]] wrote a Danmaku-like [[pixel-precise]] shooter; and [[logicow]] made a last minute return to submit a very pretty half-char [[sidescroller]].

The previously established guidelines on judging quality and timeliness were also put to the test in this DoZ, when Kuddy submitted his scores at the end of the judging week without comments, and astral's comments failed to meet the 300 word-per-game average. After strong complaints from [[Wervyn]], both scores were retracted. Despite the final scores being the result of only three combined judges, Wervyn insists that this is exactly what he had in mind when he proposed the system.

==Scores==
The rankings and total scores of each game in this DoZ are as follows:

*1st Place - Entry 30641 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Celestial Altar]]'' - by ク・リトル・リトル ([[Lancer-X]]) (Score: 1063/1200)
*2nd Place - Entry 60441 - '''Isolation/Lite''' - ''[[Forsaken Daylight]]'' - Team Betamax ([[CJA]], [[GreaseMonkey]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 937/1200)
*3rd Place - Entry 70273 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Antares]]'' - Fight For Ya' Life ([[Maxim]]) (Score: 795/1200)
*4th Place - Entry 34477 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Duck Rescue]]'' - [[logicow]] (Score: 788/1200)
*5th Place - Entry 47527 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Abandoned]]'' - Oh god, dragons ([[Kom]]) (Score: 775/1200)
*6th Place - Entry 66482 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[THOSE ALIEN INVADER!]]'' - MEDIUM RARE WARE ([[Lachesis]]) (Score: 766/1200)
*7th Place - Entry 36306 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Voluntary Solitude]]'' - Vortex Productions ([[RyanThunder]]) (Score: 722/1200)
*8th Place - Entry 49781 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[TurnCoat]]'' - The Moanatoans ([[ThdPro]]) (Score: 643/1200)
*9th Place - Entry 18030 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Prison Escape]]'' - Knights of Danika ([[Goshi]]) (Score: 587/1200)
*10th Place - Entry 13210 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR]]'' - The Bee's Knees ([[Captain Failmore]]) (Score: 563/1200)
*11th Place - Entry 79530 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[For Liberty]]'' - For Liberty ([[Spike]]) (Score: 514/1200)
*12th Place - Entry 11617 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Isolation Puzzle Platformer]]'' - Last Place Or Bust ([[mzxrules]]) (Score: 184/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 62239 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - The Onion Paradigm ([[Malwyn]], [[Risu2112]], [[Wervyn]]) (Score: 541/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 72165 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - Wacky Ironic Name Mocking Wacky Ironic Names ([[Seventh Shade]]) (Score: 373/1200)

==Judging Sheets==
''Main page: [[:Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]''

*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo|asgromo]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588|pyro1588]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel|wildweasel]]

The following sheets were ultimately not used due to objections from Wervyn:
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy|Kuddy]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:astral|astral]]

==External Links==
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Winter2009/ Official Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
*[http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14739 Official Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-17T20:12:37Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

{{Competition
|title = Winter 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = Winter2010dozalt1280.png
|host = [[Kurushimi]]
|judges = [[asgromo]], [[wildweasel]], [[Pyro1588]], [[astral]], Kuddy
|dates = January 2-3, 2010
|topics = Isolation (abstract)

Alien Invaders (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2009 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2010 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' was hosted by [[Kuddy]] and started on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, 5PM GMT (ending the same time the next day). The topics were "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders". The judges were [[astral]], [[wildweasel]], [[pyro1588]], [[asgromo]], and Kuddy himself (following the precident established last time). Buildup for this DoZ was fairly low-key, but consistent, and was bolstered by last minute signups as usual. Continuing the previous trend, the majority of the submissions were considered to be above average quality, and some of the top entries were quite impressive. Another continuing trend, most submissions were solo efforts, with one of the two team entries placing second and the other being disqualified. Finally, this DoZ saw a large number of games focused on technically impressive engine development, which astral specifically remarked that he found irksome. For example, [[Lancer-X]] submitted a game that ran in a very impressive visual novel interface; [[GreaseMonkey]] built a [[raycaster]] for his game that was actually considered fairly successful despite its low resolution; [[Lachesis]] wrote a Danmaku-like [[pixel-precise]] shooter; and [[logicow]] made a last minute return to submit a very pretty half-char [[sidescroller]].

The previously established guidelines on judging quality and timeliness were also put to the test in this DoZ, when Kuddy submitted his scores at the end of the judging week without comments, and astral's comments failed to meet the 300 word-per-game average. After strong complaints from [[Wervyn]], both scores were retracted. Despite the final scores being the result of only three combined judges, Wervyn insists that this is exactly what he had in mind when he proposed the system.

==Scores==
The rankings and total scores of each game in this DoZ are as follows:

*1st Place - Entry 30641 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Celestial Altar]]'' - by ク・リトル・リトル ([[Lancer-X]]) (Score: 1063/1200)
*2nd Place - Entry 60441 - '''Isolation/Lite''' - ''[[Forsaken Daylight]]'' - Team Betamax ([[CJA]], [[GreaseMonkey]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 937/1200)
*3rd Place - Entry 70273 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Antares]]'' - Fight For Ya' Life ([[Maxim]]) (Score: 795/1200)
*4th Place - Entry 34477 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Duck Rescue]]'' - [[logicow]] (Score: 788/1200)
*5th Place - Entry 47527 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Abandoned]]'' - Oh god, dragons ([[Kom]]) (Score: 775/1200)
*6th Place - Entry 66482 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[THOSE ALIEN INVADER!]]'' - MEDIUM RARE WARE ([[Lachesis]]) (Score: 766/1200)
*7th Place - Entry 36306 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Voluntary Solitude]]'' - Vortex Productions ([[RyanThunder]]) (Score: 722/1200)
*8th Place - Entry 49781 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[TurnCoat]]'' - The Moanatoans ([[ThdPro]]) (Score: 643/1200)
*9th Place - Entry 18030 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Prison Escape]]'' - Knights of Danika ([[Goshi]]) (Score: 587/1200)
*10th Place - Entry 13210 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR]]'' - The Bee's Knees ([[Captain Failmore]]) (Score: 563/1200)
*11th Place - Entry 79530 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[For Liberty]]'' - For Liberty ([[Spike]]) (Score: 514/1200)
*12th Place - Entry 11617 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Isolation Puzzle Platformer]]'' - Last Place Or Bust ([[mzxrules]]) (Score: 184/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 62239 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - The Onion Paradigm ([[Malwyn]], [[Risu2112]], [[Wervyn]]) (Score: 541/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 72165 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - Wacky Ironic Name Mocking Wacky Ironic Names ([[Seventh Shade]]) (Score: 373/1200)

==Judging Sheets==
''Main page: [[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]''

*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo|asgromo]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588|pyro1588]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel|wildweasel]]

The following sheets were ultimately not used due to objections from Wervyn:
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy|Kuddy]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:astral|astral]]

==External Links==
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Winter2009/ Official Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
*[http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14739 Official Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-17T20:12:17Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

{{Competition
|title = Winter 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = Winter2010dozalt1280.png
|host = [[Kurushimi]]
|judges = [[asgromo]], [[wildweasel]], [[Pyro1588]], [[astral]], Kuddy
|dates = January 2-3, 2010
|topics = Isolation (abstract)

Alien Invaders (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2009 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2010 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' was hosted by [[Kuddy]] and started on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, 5PM GMT (ending the same time the next day). The topics were "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders". The judges were [[astral]], [[wildweasel]], [[pyro1588]], [[asgromo]], and Kuddy himself (following the precident established last time). Buildup for this DoZ was fairly low-key, but consistent, and was bolstered by last minute signups as usual. Continuing the previous trend, the majority of the submissions were considered to be above average quality, and some of the top entries were quite impressive. Another continuing trend, most submissions were solo efforts, with one of the two team entries placing second and the other being disqualified. Finally, this DoZ saw a large number of games focused on technically impressive engine development, which astral specifically remarked that he found irksome. For example, [[Lancer-X]] submitted a game that ran in a very impressive visual novel interface; [[GreaseMonkey]] built a [[raycaster]] for his game that was actually considered fairly successful despite its low resolution; [[Lachesis]] wrote a Danmaku-like [[pixel-precise]] shooter; and [[logicow]] made a last minute return to submit a very pretty half-char [[sidescroller]].

The previously established guidelines on judging quality and timeliness were also put to the test in this DoZ, when Kuddy submitted his scores at the end of the judging week without comments, and astral's comments failed to meet the 300 word-per-game average. After strong complaints from [[Wervyn]], both scores were retracted. Despite the final scores being the result of only three combined judges, Wervyn insists that this is exactly what he had in mind when he proposed the system.

==Scores==
The rankings and total scores of each game in this DoZ are as follows:

*1st Place - Entry 30641 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Celestial Altar]]'' - by ク・リトル・リトル ([[Lancer-X]]) (Score: 1063/1200)
*2nd Place - Entry 60441 - '''Isolation/Lite''' - ''[[Forsaken Daylight]]'' - Team Betamax ([[CJA]], [[GreaseMonkey]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 937/1200)
*3rd Place - Entry 70273 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Antares]]'' - Fight For Ya' Life ([[Maxim]]) (Score: 795/1200)
*4th Place - Entry 34477 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Duck Rescue]]'' - [[logicow]] (Score: 788/1200)
*5th Place - Entry 47527 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Abandoned]]'' - Oh god, dragons ([[Kom]]) (Score: 775/1200)
*6th Place - Entry 66482 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[THOSE ALIEN INVADER!]]'' - MEDIUM RARE WARE ([[Lachesis]]) (Score: 766/1200)
*7th Place - Entry 36306 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Voluntary Solitude]]'' - Vortex Productions ([[RyanThunder]]) (Score: 722/1200)
*8th Place - Entry 49781 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[TurnCoat]]'' - The Moanatoans ([[ThdPro]]) (Score: 643/1200)
*9th Place - Entry 18030 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Prison Escape]]'' - Knights of Danika ([[Goshi]]) (Score: 587/1200)
*10th Place - Entry 13210 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR]]'' - The Bee's Knees ([[Captain Failmore]]) (Score: 563/1200)
*11th Place - Entry 79530 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[For Liberty]]'' - For Liberty ([[Spike]]) (Score: 514/1200)
*12th Place - Entry 11617 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Isolation Puzzle Platformer]]'' - Last Place Or Bust ([[mzxrules]]) (Score: 184/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 62239 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - The Onion Paradigm ([[Malwyn]], [[Risu2112]], [[Wervyn]]) (Score: 541/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 72165 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - Wacky Ironic Name Mocking Wacky Ironic Names ([[Seventh Shade]]) (Score: 373/1200)

==Judging Sheets==
''Main page: [[Winter_2010_Dualstream_Day_of_Zeux_Scoresheets]]''

*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo|asgromo]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588|pyro1588]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel|wildweasel]]

The following sheets were ultimately not used due to objections from Wervyn:
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy|Kuddy]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:astral|astral]]

==External Links==
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Winter2009/ Official Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
*[http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14739 Official Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-17T20:11:52Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

{{Competition
|title = Winter 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = Winter2010dozalt1280.png
|host = [[Kurushimi]]
|judges = [[asgromo]], [[wildweasel]], [[Pyro1588]], [[astral]], Kuddy
|dates = January 2-3, 2010
|topics = Isolation (abstract)

Alien Invaders (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2009 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2010 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' was hosted by [[Kuddy]] and started on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, 5PM GMT (ending the same time the next day). The topics were "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders". The judges were [[astral]], [[wildweasel]], [[pyro1588]], [[asgromo]], and Kuddy himself (following the precident established last time). Buildup for this DoZ was fairly low-key, but consistent, and was bolstered by last minute signups as usual. Continuing the previous trend, the majority of the submissions were considered to be above average quality, and some of the top entries were quite impressive. Another continuing trend, most submissions were solo efforts, with one of the two team entries placing second and the other being disqualified. Finally, this DoZ saw a large number of games focused on technically impressive engine development, which astral specifically remarked that he found irksome. For example, [[Lancer-X]] submitted a game that ran in a very impressive visual novel interface; [[GreaseMonkey]] built a [[raycaster]] for his game that was actually considered fairly successful despite its low resolution; [[Lachesis]] wrote a Danmaku-like [[pixel-precise]] shooter; and [[logicow]] made a last minute return to submit a very pretty half-char [[sidescroller]].

The previously established guidelines on judging quality and timeliness were also put to the test in this DoZ, when Kuddy submitted his scores at the end of the judging week without comments, and astral's comments failed to meet the 300 word-per-game average. After strong complaints from [[Wervyn]], both scores were retracted. Despite the final scores being the result of only three combined judges, Wervyn insists that this is exactly what he had in mind when he proposed the system.

==Scores==
The rankings and total scores of each game in this DoZ are as follows:

*1st Place - Entry 30641 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Celestial Altar]]'' - by ク・リトル・リトル ([[Lancer-X]]) (Score: 1063/1200)
*2nd Place - Entry 60441 - '''Isolation/Lite''' - ''[[Forsaken Daylight]]'' - Team Betamax ([[CJA]], [[GreaseMonkey]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 937/1200)
*3rd Place - Entry 70273 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Antares]]'' - Fight For Ya' Life ([[Maxim]]) (Score: 795/1200)
*4th Place - Entry 34477 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Duck Rescue]]'' - [[logicow]] (Score: 788/1200)
*5th Place - Entry 47527 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Abandoned]]'' - Oh god, dragons ([[Kom]]) (Score: 775/1200)
*6th Place - Entry 66482 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[THOSE ALIEN INVADER!]]'' - MEDIUM RARE WARE ([[Lachesis]]) (Score: 766/1200)
*7th Place - Entry 36306 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Voluntary Solitude]]'' - Vortex Productions ([[RyanThunder]]) (Score: 722/1200)
*8th Place - Entry 49781 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[TurnCoat]]'' - The Moanatoans ([[ThdPro]]) (Score: 643/1200)
*9th Place - Entry 18030 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Prison Escape]]'' - Knights of Danika ([[Goshi]]) (Score: 587/1200)
*10th Place - Entry 13210 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR]]'' - The Bee's Knees ([[Captain Failmore]]) (Score: 563/1200)
*11th Place - Entry 79530 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[For Liberty]]'' - For Liberty ([[Spike]]) (Score: 514/1200)
*12th Place - Entry 11617 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Isolation Puzzle Platformer]]'' - Last Place Or Bust ([[mzxrules]]) (Score: 184/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 62239 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - The Onion Paradigm ([[Malwyn]], [[Risu2112]], [[Wervyn]]) (Score: 541/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 72165 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - Wacky Ironic Name Mocking Wacky Ironic Names ([[Seventh Shade]]) (Score: 373/1200)

==Judging Sheets==
''Main page: [[Category:Winter_2010_Dualstream_Day_of_Zeux_Scoresheets]]''
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo|asgromo]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588|pyro1588]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel|wildweasel]]

The following sheets were ultimately not used due to objections from Wervyn:
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy|Kuddy]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:astral|astral]]

==External Links==
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Winter2009/ Official Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
*[http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14739 Official Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets

2012-07-17T20:11:10Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "See also: Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux"

See also: [[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux]]

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel

2012-07-17T20:10:25Z

Kuroneko:

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

Weasel’s Judging Results
Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux hosted by Kuddy, 01-03-2010

Preface
Had a pretty decent-looking haul here. The submissions account for a bit over half of the entrants to my knowledge. I’m not much for statistics here – I’m just here to create them. Would have been an competitor this time around, but nobody was really offering to help Kuddy judge, and I didn’t want to make him judge everything by himself, so that reviewing muscle of mine gets put to use once again. Let’s get started…

<nowiki>#</nowiki>11617: isolation puzzle puzzle platform
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

THEME (1/100)
The most "theme" this game attempts is putting the word "isolation" in its title. The one available level doesn't really do anything with the theme either, outside of there being two strange eggplant-like creatures trapped in a room in the corner.

GAMEPLAY (14/90)
It's a pixel-perfect sidescrolling game, which is somewhat more forgiving in platforming than most char-based sidescrollers, but the problem is that the game's help file makes no mention of you being able to jump in mid-air if you walk off a platform, and the very first platform jump requires the use of said physics oddity. Falling into the bottomless pit at the bottom of the screen resets you at the beginning, sans one health point. The only level in the game seems to be more geared towards a technology demonstration than an actual game.

GRAPHICS (22/70)
To its credit, this game does have a pretty well optimized pixel perfect engine, being able to run quite smoothly without any major frame rate hiccups. Unfortunately, the artwork is not exceptionally clear (I still have no idea what those red eggplant-shaped things are supposed to be, aside from red eggplant things that hurt you), and as pixel perfect engines go, there is a slight bit of color bleeding around terminals. The enemies and giant fans animate (a bit), but the player does not, outside of flipping when traveling left or right. The level design is just grey solids.

TECHNIQUE (29/60)
As stated above, the engine is decidedly well optimzed and smooth, and even has support for Mario-like momentum and fans that propel you high into the air. These are not used that much, though, and while the game appears to have support for displaying the player's diminishing health when being attacked by enemies or falling off platforms, the player can never actually die from any of it, as I assume the health system was never properly finished.

STORY (5/50)
This game has no story. Therefore, it shall receive five pity points for not being an adaptation of "Until The End Of Time" by gofer-chan.

SOUND (5/30)
Like the story, sound is also non-existent, therefore five additional pity points for not playing a PC Speaker rendition of any song by Taylor Swift.

OVERALL (76/400)
What would have benefited this game is actual levels, gameplay, something we can do. Tech demos won't win you awards. Logicow already proved that last year.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>13210: ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR
Theme: Alien Invaders (Concrete)
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one starts off apparently posing as a ZX Spectrum, MSX, or Commodore 64 type game, complete with loading screens and what I assume are floppy disk noises. The title sequence appears to have the most work put into it. I didn’t see this team mention which scoresheet they wanted, so I’ve taken the liberty of assigning Theme-Light to them myself.

THEME: (1/20)
While the game’s title screen mentions aliens, there don’t seem to be any in the game whatsoever (the included text file even states that it could easily be Isolation instead because there aren’t any aliens). So we’re left with…air vents? On closer inspection, this game has neither aliens nor elevators in it, and while the air vents might contribute to an Isolation theme, I’m pretty sure the author(s) wanted to go for Alien Invaders instead. One point out of pity here – right idea, wrong theme.

GAMEPLAY: (13/120)
What this game appears to actually have in it is a single pseudo-3D maze, with a few hotkeys you can press that don’t appear to affect anything. You can check your Status (which is always “Peachy!”), look in your Inventory (“Nothing!”), or use a Gadget (which is a rather tiny and barely helpful map function). While I was wandering through the maze and dreading what confusing architecture was at hand, the game suddenly tells me that the aliens just decided to leave, thus the game ends. Not really much of a game, is it? I’ve given this one a low score, but more out of the fact that this game effectively tricked me into thinking that it would be a game and then pulled out at the last second.

GRAPHICS: (54/90)
I’ll give this one credit for graphics. These are some pretty slick graphics, even if the char editing kind of bleeds across the colored blocks at times (like the FUTUREMAN picture in the title screen, and the walls in the air vent). The majority of the work put into this game seems to have been graphics alone, with the title screen being far more elaborate than the rest of the game, though the pesudo-3D engine should be noted for its attempt at a light diminishing effect (really just clever char editing, not so much actual coding). When the game ends, we’re presented with an ASCII version of Somethingawful’s famous “awesome” emoticon which is actually a neat old-school touch but doesn’t earn it any real points.

TECHNIQUE: (30/80)
For programming efforts, this entry gets just shy of a middle-range score. On the one hand, a pseudo-3D maze engine designed from scratch is relatively novel, particularly one that attempts a (faked) light diminishing effect. But on the other hand, a lot more effort seems to have been put into drawing the NES-throwback title screen graphics, which could easily have been done using Charcon or a similar program and probably didn’t take much time at all outside of drawing the pictures. The 3D engine appears to be powered mainly by the 40-some char sets lying around in the game directory, as opposed to the old-style method of Copy Block commands and clever use of the overlay. This brute-force method seems a little cheap to me, but hell, it’s resourceful, I’ll give them that much.

STORY: (13/50)
After the crazy 80’s-style story text at the beginning of the game that describes the awesome new SPACE ELEVATORS and the ALIENS that take them over, I expected this game to keep up with the bombastic style and throw in a few MC Hammer references. But as soon as the Story So Far ends and we’re sent into the game itself, the story just kind of stops. Then the game just ends with the cheesiest plot hand-wave ever, making me quite disappointed. I wanted to see how far it could go. LASER PANTS, maybe? More games should have those.

SOUND (35/40)
Sound is also a stronger point of the game, with music selections being exclusively chiptunes, even though only three songs are actually used out of the six included. Sound effects are also chippy, contributing to the 80’s feel. Bravo for keeping to your style, if not the competition theme.

OVERALL (236/400)
Which is a shame, because this game will most likely end up getting disqualified due to its utter lack of theme.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>18030: PRISON ESCAPE
Theme: Isolation (Abstract)
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

Welcome to Prison, arguably the most common start to any Megazeux game ever. Of course, your goal is to escape, in addition to figuring out just why you were thrown in here in the first place.

THEME: (79/100)
This game plays with the idea of isolation as loneliness. It seems like the prison’s only real inhabitants are the rats, the sentry guns, and yourself, and there is barely any evidence that there’s any living humans left. You only find some skeletons and bloody corpses, and the occasional outdated newspaper. When you get outside of the building, you find one person standing there, but of course he’s a guard and decides to shoot you. If you manage to dispatch him (i.e. by having the correct inventory item when this scene is triggered), you come to the realization that you are now the only human for miles, in what the board title refers to as “ultimate isolation”. It’s pretty heavy stuff, especially for a medium typically known for cheesy community in-jokes and old-school action games.

GAMEPLAY: (47/90)
This being essentially a traditional-style Megazeux adventure game, your only real concern is touching the correct objects to trigger reactions from the game script. In this case, you’ll be picking up various inventory items that will be used automatically when needed. I’m sure at least one person might have trouble figuring out the (few) puzzles on occasion, but they’re really quite simple, if you’re the kind of person that searches through everything indiscriminately. It’s actually more interactive than I expected it to be, with even the “ending” cutscene requiring some input from the player. Somehow it seems like the author is drawing inspiration from Hideo Kojima (i.e. more than just sound effects). While the game provides numerous opportunities to die, the author is merciful enough to make things not kill you on the first try, interestingly; you can be injured once “for free”, with the second injury killing you, and your health is reset every time you change boards, giving you some margin for error without forcing you to abuse saved games.

GRAPHICS: (36/70)
This game uses only a few edited characters over the default MZX character set, though it does at least make its environs look appropriately dank and unsettling, with a few good uses of water puddles, corpses, the occasional wandering rat. The player character (and all other humans) is just an edited MZX smiley, however, making the ending scene seem a little too light-hearted, and almost difficult to comprehend without the accompanying sound effects. The special effect used in the end-game actually contributed a lot to it, though.

TECHNIQUE: (25/60)
Somehow, this game doesn’t strike me so much as a programming masterpiece as a way to prove how much can be done with only some simple commands (and without built-ins). I think the game could really have done with at least some advanced effects for graphics, though.

STORY: (34/50)
The game makes no attempts at exposition at the beginning; you are merely a man in a prison and of course you have to escape. But as you’re escaping, you uncover some newspaper articles presumably detailing who you are and why you’re here, as well as a potential motive. Then, upon breaking out of the prison, I’m confronted by what I assume is the only other living human in the area: the guard that wants to kill me because I escaped. For those people that didn’t obsessively search the lockers, the story would end here. But if you found the syringe, that scene continues with you getting back up and attacking the guard, then (I assume) concluding that you are now completely, utterly alone. This was actually executed quite well, but some of the newspaper articles seemed a bit amateurishly written, which wasn’t entirely fatal to the mood of the game, but did kind of jar me out of the experience for a few seconds. Also, I kind of wish there was a more conclusive ending than just the black screen. I waited for 30 seconds before I realized there wasn’t any more.

SOUND (22/30)
Pretty good use of ambient sound effects, voice effects pulled from Metal Gear Solid, and appropriately timed uses of them during the final scene. Pretty well done. Lack of music might prove to be a turn-off to some, but in my opinion it all works nicely. But then, I’ve always enjoyed games that place such an emphasis on sound over music for atmosphere, so…

OVERALL (243/400)
It really needed some graphical polish, I think, in addition to perhaps adding some more interactivity.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>30641: Celestial Altar
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one starts off with a pretty slick title sequence with appropriately spacey music. It’s apparently intended to mirror the classic Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, with a visual-novel type approach, bookended with console-style RPG battles as the story deems appropriate. The game is entirely mouse-controlled, and I find that it works pretty well.

THEME: (18/20)
Well, it’s initially stated that this game is about alien invaders, and at first that doesn’t seem obvious, but at a certain point in the plot, you realize why it’s been themed as such. It’s not quite as ham-fisted as “NO JOHN, YOU ARE THE DEMONS”, which is good, because the chosen genre really lives and dies by the quality of its writing, though I can’t help but think that perhaps this team picked the wrong scoresheet, as I think it would have done better as a Theme-heavy entry.

GAMEPLAY: (74/120)
While I certainly had fun playing this game, I should probably mention again that I think this game was really filed under the wrong score sheet. The game’s strength really isn’t in its gameplay. While it’s not bad – it’s basically an RPG, but without all that clumsy wandering around on world maps and random battles – I can’t help but think that this sort of setup really kind of simplifies things a bit too much. It’s almost as if Killer 7 were an RPG – there are branching paths, but they’re all spelled out for you with little opportunity for players to do something unique. Granted, it’s a great throwback to the Fighting Fantasy series (Lancer did say he was inspired by those on IRC).

GRAPHICS: (75/90)
The people behind this game (it’s GOT to be more than one! There’s no way one person was capable of all this! But apparently it was only Lancer so I’m completely dumbfounded at how this is possible) obviously put a lot of love into the way it looks, even though the writing is the real star of the show. Backgrounds are very pretty, with things being pretty well defined despite being made entirely of half-chars. The backgrounds will transition between one another when going between “pages”, which is a neat effect and makes page changes a bit less jarring. When battle scenes appear, the animations use cross-fading transitions and lots of palette changes (despite this being done in SMZX mode, I’m assuming there’s more than a few palette modifications going on in the background here, with how smooth the cross-fades are). It’s really quite beautiful, but judging from the score I put above, there’s actually one flaw to it – the double-wide font used for all in game text. I do run MZX in a window, though, meaning I can easily just resize the window to be slightly more narrow, which helps a lot with making the text more readable. But all this double-wide text is a bit difficult to read at a normal aspect ratio, and since reading is so crucial to the operation of this game, that prevents this from getting its coveted perfect score.

TECHNIQUE: (74/80)
Proof that you don’t need vector-based, free-rotating graphics or silky-smooth pixel-perfect platforming to really impress. The game engine really goes above and beyond what most would consider to be needed in a visual novel, with the screen transitions and battle effects. Though the game is controlled with the mouse, the author insisted on making the mouse pointer pixel-perfect as opposed to Megazeux’s basic 80x25 mouse system, making it almost seem like this isn’t even a Megazeux game anymore. And all without a single instance of the word “raytracing.” Unfortunately, however, because of a debilitating glitch, I found myself unable to continue playing the game after a certain point in the second village, as one route just showed me a monolith that I couldn’t do anything with, and the other route gave me no options to choose from, effectively stopping the game. However, after some conversing with the author over IRC, I was at least able to fix the issue I was having and finish playing. It should be noted that there are also some mild glitches with the text system (Lancer says he did not put numbers in the game’s font, so some text screens will omit the prices of items on sale) and occasional typos.

STORY: (44/50)
Celestial Altar handles the Alien Invaders thing a bit differently than expected: while it seems like a basic fantasy story at first, you eventually learn that your existence on this unnamed planet is because of a project on Earth to migrate all of Humanity into space, with your character apparently being either a member of the crew involved in said project, or a descendant of one of them. You eventually track down the whereabouts of the space ship, which due to some massive metaphysical glitches involving the way it circumvents faster-than-light travel, is completely messed up, twisted and bent like an Escher painting. You manage to put it right again by battling the dimensions themselves, and after an almost Kojima-esque period of exposition, you fight the final battle. Even for as short of a game as it is, this is positively epic stuff.

SOUND (34/40)
Excellent selections for music, with occasional sound effects for menus being manipulated or battle effects. Great stuff all around, but the caveat here being that since the music is in a streamed format instead of tracked, some more care should have been put into making sure that the tracks looped properly, as it is somewhat jarring when a song fails to loop and suddenly drops off into silence, only to start fading back in from the beginning.

OVERALL (310/400)
Only four entries into the list and already I’ve stumbled upon a real beauty of a game. Wonder how the others compare?

<nowiki>#</nowiki>34477: Duck Rescue
Theme: Alien Invaders, I assume
Scoresheet: Theme-Light assumed

I’m assuming Logicow had a part in this one, an Amiga-style sidescroller featuring a waterfowl protagonist…and it’s not really too friendly to those of us with older machines (it’s NOT old! **cough**).

THEME: (7/20)
After a pretty long and drawn out argument on IRC involving Logicow and other people that I respect, the unanimous opinion is that this game is supposed to be Alien Invaders themed. And I was supposed to immediately realize this based on the fact that the guy that carries off your girlfriend is big and green, and that there are UFO’s later on. I begrudgingly give this 7 theme points out of 20, meaning that it’s not really that tight in the theme but it’s not low enough to disqualify it.

GAMEPLAY: (34/120)
What could have been a fun little platform shooter is kind of deadened here by some questionable design ideas. For starters, why does the game run so slow? Checking out the robot code tells me that it’s running at MZX_Speed 2, meaning it should be working fine, but I’ll get into that in the Technique area. The questionable designs I mention are the occasionally odd jump physics (it feels like I can’t jump as high if I’m jumping against a steep slope) and the fact that the game level stops scrolling on occasion to allow some enemies to spawn. Fighting them is just too easy with the game running as slow as it is; at least once I’d be able to pass the screen-locked section by simply shooting at the edge of the screen until the screen decided to scroll over. This game also suffers the classic sidescroller pitfall of not making it clear whether an object is something you can stand on, or if it’s merely part of the background. I was initially confused at an early section until I realized that you could stand on a rock, which I had foolishly assumed was a mountain in the background. Then I fell through a tree branch.

GRAPHICS: (78/90)
I didn’t expect this game to get very low of a graphical score, and it really does quite well here. This game looks decidedly un-Zeux-like due to its usage of half-chars with liberal use of outlines and cartoon-style shading. Because the on-screen characters are so large, this loss in screen resolution turns out to not be much of a problem at all.

TECHNIQUE: (46/80)
It’s a sidescroller. But rather than be the usual brand of overdone single-character MZX sidescroller, this game is half-char driven, giving it not only a pleasant retro feel but also making the game physics far more accurate than the chunky old MZX scrollers (without needing to be pixel-perfect). What kills the Technique score here, though, is the fact that it runs so terribly on my system. Despite being set at Speed 2 (which should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 FPS), FRAPS tells me that the game is hovering somewhere in the 20 FPS range (but it lies), and upon sharing a video recording of my computer running the game, I have it on good authority that it should really be running about twice as fast. This slowness not only causes the ensuing game to be boring as hell, it also makes it too easy on part of the action not being quite frantic enough. For reference, my system is a Pentium D 3.0 GHz running Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. There is no reason why a side-scroller like this should be running so slowly!

STORY: (10/50)
The game’s story is presented in much the same way as the old NES action games: you and your Girly-Colored Duck partner are standing in front of your house, when a not-so-jolly green giant appears off the right side of the screen and snatches said girly duck and then runs off. It’s up to Yellow Duck to run towards the right side of the screen and shoot fireballs at all the aliens until he can rescue his love. It’s really nothing special, but it’s at least presented quickly enough to not get in the way.

SOUND (28/40)
While Duck Rescue only includes the one module file for music, that file is fast-paced and light-hearted enough to set the mood. Sound effects, however, are generated using MZX’s old PC Speaker SFX system, which does lend something of an old-school flavor to it, despite there only really being two sound effects.

OVERALL (213/400)
Come on, man, a little work on the programming could have made this so much more enjoyable! (Also please state which bloody topic your game is supposed to be filed under, so I don’t have to ask you on IRC!)

<nowiki>#</nowiki>36306: Voluntary Solitude
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

A narrative-driven action game with a flair for drama.

THEME: (75/100)
This game also deals with isolation as loneliness, but also the effects it can have on a man. Here, we deal with a man who has barricaded himself in his home to defend himself from “the Creatures”, preparing himself for an oncoming assault. As the player looks through the various supplies, he finds pieces of a note that, when completed, push the player’s character over the edge – that is, more so than he was already, as the game then establishes that he’s been in a rubber cell in a mental asylum the whole time, in a decidedly different type of isolation. Much like Prison Escape above, it deals with some pretty dark stuff, presenting a perfectly “valid” point of view from a person who doesn’t see the world the way the rest of the world sees him.

GAMEPLAY: (38/90)
For as good as the game did at exploring the theme, I’m actually somewhat thankful that Ryan chose the theme-heavy score sheet, as the game mechanics of this piece are a bit disjointed, and at times a bit too plain. The core game is a traditional MZX overhead shooter, with the basic Space+Arrows control scheme that prevents the player from moving while shooting, and the projectile bullets that are occasionally difficult to hit enemies with. The less fun part of the game mechanics involves the blind searching through all the random supplies scattered around the house. Granted, the game dialogue does tell you to start looking over the supplies, but making this the core goal of the game (just randomly touching everything that isn’t a wall) makes the solution a little confusing and tedious. This game really doesn’t do anything innovative with the way it plays.

GRAPHICS: (44/70)
If Megazeux hadn’t progressed beyond the features available in 2.51, this game would still be possible, as the game doesn’t do much graphically, but still somehow gets the idea across. The palette doesn’t seem to be changed much from the default, and the characters are pretty simple bipeds and circular enemies with bizarre, crooked mouths. That’s probably the closest a simple MZX character can get to a proper eldritch abomination, and I do give points for at least doing that, but as far as its placement in the competition, it somehow doesn’t stack up with its simple graphical techniques.

TECHNIQUE: (30/60)
Pretty much a middle of the road score here. I didn’t encounter any major glitches or issues with the way the game worked, but it also doesn’t seem to do anything really amazing code-wise. The player’s sprite doesn’t even animate when moving. This game could at least have benefited from some extra effects, perhaps a better weapon system, or even a Resident Evil-style “glint” for hidden items among all the random supplies and stuff. Anything to prevent the player from having to touch every single object in the house.

STORY: (35/50)
I quite like the way the main character is presented here. The player is lead to think that the events around him are completely real, but once the note is assembled, the pieces start falling together. It’s written well enough to get by, with no major typos or grammatical errors, but there are ways it could have been improved, especially with the way the dialogue is written. Perhaps the internal monologue could have been written in more of a conversational tone, as with the ending scene between the player and the doctor. Also, using the word “isolation” in the in-game dialogue somehow sounds so much cheesier, almost like a movie that tries to sneak its own title into the script (“Man, I’m so tired of all these Star Wars…”). But hey, at least most of the DoZ entrants thus far haven’t tried to put the name of the theme in their game title…(Weasel fondly recalls “Ford Exploration”…)

SOUND (25/30)
The game’s sound selection is pretty good, with only one exception: the Doom pistol sound. This sound, along with the “OW!” from Cans and the insert-credit sound from R-Type (better known as Heal.sam), is among one of the most used Megazeux sound effects ever. It’s almost Megazeux’s own Wilhelm Scream. But I won’t continue ranting about it, as while you’re firing your Doom pistol at the Creatures, you’re listening to some pretty good monster sounds and some downright intense orchestral music that may have been originally composed for a Hollywood film (though looking over the included OGG files, they might be Creative Commons – score one for the public domain!).

OVERALL (247/400)
This game is good proof that playing the right scoresheet will get you good points.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>47527: Abandoned
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

What’s this? Another inventory game? Well, this one’s not so quickly written off – it at least has potential, despite being decidedly short and unfinished. Regrettably, this competition doesn’t award points for potential, only for actual content. That doesn’t stop this one from at least earning a good chunk of points, though.

THEME: (44/100)
You’re in prison. You’re lonely. Isolation. Ah ha. Without a really coherent plot, the extent of Isolation being involved in this game is pretty much limited to the fact that it takes place in what I assume is prison. And there’s a guy cut in half in the cell next to yours, perhaps to emphasize that you’re alone. The author admits that the game isn’t really finished, which is a real shame – I’d love to have seen what more could be done with it.

GAMEPLAY: (38/90)
Abandoned runs with an adventure game formula, which sounds like typical MZX fare, except that the interface is slightly different. The game is effectively a side-scrolling game, with your character only capable of moving left and right, and facing into the background to interact with some objects. Inventory items can either be used by themselves, on other items, or on things in the world, which is more than most MZX inventory games have done. Of course, the game taking place in a prison, we’re about to see the next reuse of the Prison Cliché, meaning that the tools you need to escape the cell are actually already in your inventory or are easily accessible (i.e. the book of matches). At first, the puzzles are pretty simple stuff if you’re a MacGuyver fan, but as it goes on, the solutions get into stuff that should have been left to whatever Myst clones are still hitting store shelves, like the combination to the generator room puzzle. There is one major thing to take issue with, though, and that’s that the game isn’t finished. You have access to all of four rooms (not counting the elevator), with the fourth room not having much of anything to do except fiddle with switches. Once these switches are in the proper position, which you’re apparently supposed to learn by reading a randomly placed bloodstain on a wall, the elevator discreetly opens another floor in which the game ends. Dealing with the elevator wasn’t really that easy to get the hang of, despite the instructions being printed on screen. At least make the elevator shake and make noise or something when you use it. Hell, make the generator room actually tell you HEY, THE ELEVATOR HAS ANOTHER FLOOR OR SOMETHING. RAGHLAGHLHLGHHGE.

GRAPHICS: (61/70)
These graphics bring to mind some of the finer MZX games from two decades ago – Booshkies, A Hidden Anomaly, and The Beginning. Ironically enough, two of those games are unfinished, and the third was another Day of Zeux entry, but they all looked great then and still look pretty good nowadays. This game reminds me of them in the good, nostalgic kind of way. The very large player sprite, the detailed background artwork, the gritty yet minimalistic character editing. This stuff looks better than a lot of SMZX-mode games I’ve played, showing that you don’t need four colors per character and a giant palette to make something look good.

TECHNIQUE: (36/60)
The programming in Abandoned is well assembled with few glitches, but perhaps some of the engine’s elements could have been rearranged and altered a bit to be more user-friendly. The inventory system in particular presents some frustrations, where I’d need to cycle through the entire thing a couple of times to figure out where a specific item was. It almost feels like the inventory is changing its order around every time I open it. Also, the player character moves quite slowly.

STORY: (22/50)
There’s actually not a lot of story to be seen here, presumably because the author was busier with the gameplay elements than with the events that occur in the story. Had the story been written, though, I can kind of see the direction the author was going with it. They say dead men tell no tales. I say, have a look at the guy in Cell 2 – whatever killed him obviously had some story behind it! But the fact that said story is nowhere to be seen in the game is disappointing.

SOUND (21/30)
KKairos on IRC pointed out to me that some of the music in this game was pretty familiar. Turns out he was right: about two thirds of the music (i.e. two songs out of the three included) were also used in a DoZ entry from last year. Hmm. Well, they certainly do fit the game, and I’m not going to dock any points for music reuse, because it’s not like the music was made specifically for the previous game (ModArchive, heh). Sound effects are well done as well, realistic, high quality, and hey, footsteps!

OVERALL (222/400)
Gameplay’s decent and all, but I think time constraints really got in the way of this one. My advice: manage your time properly!

<nowiki>#</nowiki>49781: TurnCoat
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

The story of an alien resident on Earth. Feels a bit like the basic concept of Invader Zim, except without the Jhonen Vasquez humor.

THEME: (11/20)
Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect at least one entry to go with the “YOU ARE THE ALIENS” route, I hadn’t exactly hoped for an entry to make it as cut-and-dry as this. You are the aliens. Except the aliens want to enslave humanity (and your dog, I guess) so you decide to side with the humans. So what was initially an interesting-sounding flip-flop turns into just another “Fight Da Alienz!” type thing.

GAMEPLAY: (39/120)
Another MZX-type shooter, with a unique weapon to make things at least somewhat interesting. The Squiggle Gun (hee hee) attacks over a 5x3 area in front of the player, but much like any other MZX shooter, you can’t move while shooting, so if your target just happens to randomly sidestep your beam of sorta-death, you’ll have to stop shooting, move to the side, then start shooting again, hoping that this time your beam will actually hit them. This is not helped by the fact that the aliens are just “go RANDNB” with occasional explosive attacks. Yeah, the combat in this wasn’t much fun to me. The only real upshot, I suppose, is the fact that you don’t have to worry about ammo.

GRAPHICS: (38/90)
The title logo didn’t bode well, being rather difficult to read. Getting into the game, I suppose it at least looks half decent for environmental artwork, but it’s a little dark. Character edits are a little confusing. I hadn’t realized that the player’s dog was a dog until I interacted with it, and the same goes for the toilet. The blocks that make up the levels are not bad, but the interactive things, characters and such really needed work. You can only do so much with 8x14 pixels. This is a game that could have benefited from larger character sprites, or even traditional-style overlay heads. I don’t think the overlay is really used for anything other than the status display and message boxes, and even those could be altered.

TECHNIQUE: (33/80)
TurnCoat makes heavy use of a custom text box, with a slow-ish animation that occurs every time it opens. And it opens every time someone speaks, and during cutscenes, every time someone else is speaking. This animation takes about two seconds to complete on Speed 4, making the flow of text very slow indeed. Also, I don’t understand why parts of the text are formatted in such a way that there are only three lines on the box at a time, when it’s capable of holding five. I also notice a few things like the toilet-portal being a bit delayed from when you look at the toilet (I assumed it would do nothing but give me the protagonist’s description of it, and suddenly I’m portaled away to the secret lair as I’m walking around the house), and a few instances in which the text box is open and there is no text inside it, as if the text box engine believes there is more text to display but there actually is not. I also managed to get the game to simply cease working after the first combat scene in front of the house, after which I decided to just keep playing through the editor. The Squiggle Gun, while it still uses default MZX shooting controls, feels a bit more like Hobo Dan’s famed Hobo Blaster in its randomness and complete lack of an ammunition system. It’s a little hard to kill things with it – it’s like a sword engine almost, except harder to control.

STORY: (18/50)
Although your character appears human, he’s actually an Alien Invader, sent to investigate and monitor the activities of Earth’s population and serve as a spy in the inevitable full-on assault. And yet, when said invasion actually mounts, you decide that you love your dog too much to let the aliens enslave all of humanity and kill them. Now I’ve heard of Stockholm Syndrome, but this is ridiculous! Also, the dialogue seems kind of stiff and badly paced, though the author does seem to have put some thought into at least making it sound like a conversation. The story ends as our hero pushes the Self Destruct button on the bridge of the alien ship, waits for it to count down (under the pretense that he should probably stop the aliens from disabling it), then has one last thought: “I hope someone feeds my dog.” Is the dog really that important? I can only think of one game in which the main character would rather save one person/creature over an entire planet full of them, and that game was Prey, and I really didn’t like the way Prey handled that either. I don’t know of anybody that actually thinks like this. It’s very harmful to the willing suspension of disbelief.

SOUND (26/40)
Music selections are at least atmospheric enough to keep me from wanting to unplug my speakers, but given the game’s focus on action, I would have liked something a bit faster paced, less depressing. The squiggle gun sounds kind of cool, but it only makes sound if you’re holding both Space and the arrow key at the same time, and while the gun continues to fire with only Space held down, it stops making noise. Outside of that, that seems to be the only real sound effect in the game (aside from the hundredth use of Heal.sam). Okay, modarchive is a great resource, but I think I ought to start pimping out places like Freesound.org, as they’d probably help games like this achieve a better Sound score.

OVERALL (165/400)
This one’s not terrible, but it’s also not great. It’s apparent to me that this team was just spread too thin.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>60441: FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-light

This one’s a two-sided action game featuring both overhead and first-person sequences. And, uh, lots of blatant appealing to the judges.

THEME: (11/20)
The authors of Forsaken Daylight initially forgot to state their theme, with no explicit mention of either Isolation or Alien Invaders in the game or included Readme.txt file. (They also forgot to mention the controls in said readme, but that’s something for another category.) GreaseMonkey said on IRC that the game was intended for Isolation and the Theme-Light scoresheet, therefore I am considering the game under these circumstances. The game toys with the idea of Isolation in a slightly different way from “isolation as loneliness” – while there are two playable characters

GAMEPLAY: (91/120)
I must admit this is probably one of the more fun action games to be submitted this time around. The first “side” of the game is an overhead action game that has you controlling DJ, where you’re equipped with a shotgun and some bombs. The shotgun uses a hitscan system instead of projectiles, making it very easy to hit most targets. It also seems to be using proper math to determine the shotgun’s firing cone, with a degree of randomness. This firing cone roughly corresponds to half of your flashlight beam (which incidentally is only really used on the first overhead scene). Shooting zombies is loads of fun with the shotgun, especially with unlimited ammo. Bombs are apparently also hitscans, detonating everything within your visible radius without harming you.

The other half of the game is the first-person scenes where you control Anthony who has a pistol. These scenes are powered by a raycaster, and feel remarkably like the original Wolfenstein. As with the overhead sections, you have unlimited ammo, and the objective is generally just to find the stairs, except in the first scene where you have to track down five coins so you can use a phone booth to contact someone who can open all the locked doors for you. Now, these sections are almost as fun as the overhead segments, but of course I’ve got something to complain about – the raycaster used in these scenes is only drawing blocks at 80x25 resolution, making it very difficult to see over distances greater than two cubes away. I suppose this simplified approach to raycasting makes it run smoother and easier to code, but it gets in the way of gaming when you have to treat your pistol as a melee weapon. Thankfully though, there’s no limit to how fast you can hammer the Fire key (which is inexplicably Control, instead of Space like the overhead segments). If only I could see things more clearly, the raycasted 3D segments would have been as fun if not moreso than the overhead scenes.

GRAPHICS: (69/90)
It’s clear to me that this game was created in halves by two people and then mashed together, as the overhead and raycasted segments have vastly different art styles to them. Overhead scenes are mainly MZX smileys and lots of blood effects, but are used to great effect here and somehow manage to be dark and gloomy enough to offset the fact that we’re really only seeing the same old smiley with sunglasses. First-person scenes are raycasted, with a screen resolution low enough that I found it difficult to discern anything outside of my pistol and any wall closer than two cubes away. But somehow, it still looks mostly alright. Not “over 70 points” alright, but mostly alright. I think this game would have earned some more points if the raycaster had used halfchars, and perhaps a bit more uniformity in art styles.

TECHNIQUE: (61/80)
I think the major draw of the game is its raycaster, of course, but I was honestly more impressed with the shotgun and flashlight effects in the overhead scenes than I was with the raycaster. Again, the 3D engine could really have used a higher resolution, even at the risk of frame rate loss. And perhaps something other than the default MZX keys and locks…I suppose this still gets a pretty good score though, chiefly because it’s a solid engine that I didn’t encounter any major bugs with.

STORY: (14/50)
I assume the game’s story is more along the lines of “hey there’s zombies, let’s nuke this factory” with some author self-insertions for no good reason. It’s never adequately explained why there are zombies, nor why the authors are bombing the building, and the game ends with Logicow running in, saying something cliffhanger-like, and then the building explodes with everyone inside of it. Even an Arnold movie has more story than this. =P

SOUND (32/40)
Major, major points go toward the sound category here. Through sound effects, it’s actually plausible how DJ can keep firing his shotgun without a reload pause (because you actually hear him popping fresh shells into the gun after every single shot). The firing sounds for both weapons are pretty good, in addition to the blood splat noises made when zombies are blown into meaty chunks. I suppose the music at least kept things feeling nice and moody (or in the case of the 3D scenes, quick and panicky), but as with the graphics, the two styles don’t mesh together as well as I hoped they would.

OVERALL (278/400)
Thank God this team got around to telling me what theme they were using, because it’d be a shame to let this stuff get disqualified.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>62239: ???
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

An untitled fantasy action game with an interesting mouse gesture-based spellcasting system.

THEME: (5/20)
The text file admits that the game wasn’t really finished enough to really get into either theme, and while it initially states that it’s themed on Isolation, Wervyn stated on the forums that the game really fits better as an Alien Invaders game. Much as it pains me to admit, this game really doesn’t go very well with either theme, but I’ll agree that Alien Invaders probably earns it more Theme points than Isolation, because the rooms in this game are rather wide open and I didn’t sense very much isolation elsewhere. Therefore, I’m going to take pity on this one and give it just enough theme points to avoid a disqualification.

GAMEPLAY: (38/120)
Your intrepid mage (I am assuming he’s a mage) is in a randomly generated dungeon fighting leeches and nasty things with spells. Controlling yourself is pretty easy, with the WASD keys used for movement and the mouse used to cast spells in any direction. The gesture-based spellcasting is actually pretty well done, allowing you to cast spells by click-dragging in one of four directions to cast an elemental spell. There are only a couple things I would have changed here: enemies take too many spells to kill, resulting in a lot of mouse flinging to cast the spells repeatedly; and the spells are organized a little strangely, with Fire being the North spell, Air being East, etc. Now, not to be an academic snob or anything, but if we’re following classical Medieval alchemy, Air would be North, Fire would be East, Earth would be South, and Water would be West. But then, Alchemy also calls for “Aether” to be at the center of that, plus a few other things like Mercury and Salt, so maybe I’m just going a bit beyond my bounds here.

Basically, though, this game generates a random dungeon, has you fight through it, and makes you attempt to reach the next floor. Thing is, though, no matter how many times I tried, I could not get the down stairs to work, basically meaning that the game is only really capable of making one floor in which you are doomed to die. It’s pretty hard to avoid damage, and well, I don’t think there’s even a health system implemented here. The game simply lets you take all the spells and attacks you wish and then prints “You are dead” on the message row, yet still allows you to wander around and blast leeches with Earth. So the final Gameplay score will be just shy of a third, for at least showing that a mouse gesture system is plausible in a Megazeux game. Oh, how I wish this could have been fleshed out some more. Wervyn and company should really expand upon this game.

GRAPHICS: (78/90)
Here’s another one of those games that really shows how much mileage you can get out of two colors per character. The game appears to make liberal use of sprites, so the player and monsters are all 2x1 and animated pretty nicely. It’s abundantly clear that characters are supposed to be, and even appropriately creepy in some places. (I’m sure I’d really hate to run into that shadowy dinosaur-like thing on the title screen.)

TECHNIQUE: (47/80)
As the game is unfinished, there are really only three major components on display here: the movement engine (WASD, eight-directional movement, works as expected), the random dungeon system (which could stand to have been a bit more in the background), and the mouse gesture system, which actually works pretty well aside from the elemental directions (but that’s not something I feel I should be taking points away for). What’s actually here seems to work correctly, outside of the stairs which are either broken or unimplemented. Either way, I can’t really continue playing because of them, so yeah.

STORY: (5/50)
No story on display here, so five pity points because at least it’s not utter nonsensical trash that gets in the way of the rest of the game.

SOUND (5/40)
No sound on display here either, so once again five pity points for not being a hundred copies of “Scorching Savannah” from Katamari Damacy played over top of each other.

OVERALL (178/400)
This one’s kept alive through sheer programming technique and good graphics. Now if only the actual game had been implemented.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>66482: “THOSE ALIEN INVADER!”
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Seems like we get one of these every year or so – a danmaku shooter in MZX!

THEME: (10/20)
I don’t know about most people, but when I think of alien invaders, I think of stuff like…well, Space Invaders! Shoot ‘em ups! A single fighter against the evil empire! Naturally this game appeals to that retro instinct with something that feels very Atari-ish. Maybe even Intellivision-ish. It does the 80’s in a more pleasing fashion than Aliens In An Elevator. As for the theme score? Eh…middle of the road, because it really just goes in the expected direction, not so much in the “unexplored concepts” direction.

GAMEPLAY: (98/120)
I’ve never been very good at danmaku games. All those bullets flying everywhere, making it difficult to tell not only where I’m at, but where my hitbox is, where the bullets’ hitboxes are, and whether or not my laser is even hitting the boss. But I assure you this is chiefly a problem with me, not with the game, as this is actually a pretty spirited attempt at bringing an abstract shooter a la Kenta Cho into Megazeux. You are a tiny yellow ship with a constant beam laser and five bombs. These bombs don’t damage the boss; they are chiefly for erasing bullets. This is pretty much the same formula as Normal Mode in Kenta Cho’s rRootage, preserved pretty well here. Even though I dislike most danmaku games (because I suck at them), I still had fun playing this one.

GRAPHICS: (44/90)
I understand it being a little difficult to make anything pixel-perfect in Megazeux, particularly if you’re doing so with a pixel-doubled screen, but there’s an awful lot of color bleeding going on. It’s rare for me to say this, but I think this would have looked better if all the sprites were white over the blue background, because the color bleeding was starting to get a little distracting.

TECHNIQUE: (55/80)
The engine here is by no means a new thing to Megazeux (as danmaku has been done at least once before, and so has pixel-perfection), but this one came through with no show-stopping bugs, with only some issues with the character colors going on, which as stated above was getting a bit distracting.

STORY: (9/50)
The story is a simple (deliberate?) Engrishy little blurb. If you lose the battle, you get a different blurb and the option to try again. That’s about all there is to it here. I didn’t manage to beat the thing, so I don’t know if there’s an equivalent blurb for winning. It doesn’t get in the way, so a few extra points for that, but it’s certainly not Roger Zelazny.

SOUND (30/40)
No sound effects, but well chosen music propels this at least to a 30 point score.

OVERALL (246/400)
What would ordinarily be a cheesy little curiosity is actually pretty well executed here. A few changes to the way the game does graphics (mainly color) would have sent this a little higher.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>70273: Antares
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

THEME: (10/20)
It’s a game about how a space ship was taken over by some aliens, and how you’re the sole survivor that needs to destroy the vessel to prevent it from being used by the enemy. Pretty standard fare as far as alien invasions go, and I suppose it’s a good enough setup for a beat-em-up.

GAMEPLAY: (101/120)
This game is pretty much pure Maxim here: classic arcade action, this time presented as a Double Dragon style beat-em-up game, with punching, kicking, and the occasional LAZOR GUN to enable you to attack at distance for a little while. Similar to Double Dragon and other such brawling games, the enemies show up in large waves of as many as ten, some occasionally armed with guns themselves. Punching and kicking really aren’t that different from each other in terms of damage, but the main difference is really that you’re attacking low and high, as opposed to weaker and stronger attacks. This will end up being crucial if you’re swarmed by enemies and unable to align yourself perfectly with them – you may need to kick enemies that are positioned lower than you, or punch enemies that are up higher. Of course, the enemy waves tend to swarm you pretty quickly, meaning you’re going to lose a lot of health over them unless you’re very clever at managing the hordes. (Side note: this game marks the triumphant return of KICKING GUARDS IN THE NADS, something I’ve not seen in Megazeux since Agent Jeff Kenny from several DoZ’s ago!) Also, great notice should be made to the fact that this game has selectable difficulty settings.

GRAPHICS: (68/90)
Maxim’s distinctive neon-colors style works quite well here, as the selection of bright colors (especially purples and greens) emphasizes the alien…ness…of the game. I’m running out of words to describe it. But the lasers actually feel pretty powerful on account of them being all flashy neon colored and stuff, and the animations are done pretty well.

TECHNIQUE: (63/80)
I didn’t encounter any major glitches, and the engine seems pretty tight. I like how MZX’s speed is set at twice normal just to make the projectiles fly smoothly without speeding up all the other characters. Basically, points all around for running a tight ship.

STORY: (23/50)
The story is presented on the title screen, if you care enough to sit and wait for it. It describes you as the last survivor aboard a ship full of aliens, and your main objective is to self-destruct said ship to prevent the aliens from learning anything. It does go on for quite a bit about the current situation, and the introduction text is pretty well written. That’s really all a game like this needs…but it’s not exactly an epic.

SOUND (21/40)
Sound effects are decidedly abstract, similar in feel to the old 70’s Hong Kong martial arts films. Music seems a bit too Smooth Jazzy to go with a beat-em-up, though. I think this would have gone well with some fast-paced electronic music.

OVERALL (286/400)
I think where this one could have used some polish was to have a bit more in-game motivation to keep going, story-wise. Even so much as a Gyruss-style “4 CORRIDORS TO GO!” prompt.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>72165: ???
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-light

This is evidently supposed to be a Puzzle Quest type game.

THEME: (2/20)
I have no idea what this is supposed to do with alien invasion. Presumably there was a story in the works at some point, but nothing seems to have come of it.

GAMEPLAY: (44/120)
As a Puzzle Quest clone, the game revolves around you and your opponent taking turns putting down tiles. If the tiles end up matching three, four, or five in a row, then they have special effects. Evidently swords and guns are there to deal damage to the enemy, while skulls remove your own health, hearts restore it, the weird blue faces remove your “sanity” (not sure what this affects), and there are various grey tiles that increase what I assume is this game’s equivalent of mana stocks if they match. If you get enough mana (which you probably might if you’re lucky), you can use a special skill, of which there is apparently only one. If you ask me, this is one of those games that really is too ambitious to be pulled off in only one day, because the core game mechanics are not even finished and the game is almost not playable as a result. The instructions are also decidedly unclear. Basically, this game confused me, even though I was able to defeat the (one) opponent.

GRAPHICS: (29/90)
The aesthetics of this game are absolutely simple, with a predominantly green color scheme. The tiles you’re putting down are basic 1x2 symbols, the meaning of which is not really that clear unless you really study the help file (which cannot be invoked after it has been dismissed), and the two “portraits” in the corners are just squiggle lines. The default font has not been changed at all. Basically, it seems like the author has only altered the graphics to be functional, and I suppose that it does work to an extent, but they’re really quite plain and overly simplistic. I would think that the character set probably has space for these tiles to be even larger, perhaps 2x3 for example, which would really help the clarity of what these things are supposed to represent (like Strength, which really looks more like an eagle or an orb on a pedestal). Maybe some animations could be used here, too, to kind of slow things down when the AI is playing. There’s also no title screen.

TECHNIQUE: (24/80)
The game’s engine apparently is only in place enough to make the bar graphs work, tiles that are capable of being placed, and an extremely simple AI that just randomly plops tiles down on the grid when it’s their turn. It’s…well, a little underwhelming. There’s nothing particularly stand-out in this code. The game doesn’t even bother with mouse support. But I’ll give it this: it works. To an extent.

STORY: (5/50)
There is no story here at all. Five pity points for not being a recreation of Full-Life Consequences with guest stars Alvin and the Chipmunks, with a special guest commentary by the Angry Video Game Nerd.

SOUND (7/40)
Neat little sound effects for every tile that gets put on the board, but you can barely hear them over the unnecessarily action-packed and greatly irritating music. Thankfully, said music for some reason does not loop.

OVERALL (111/400)
I think this one’s also a victim of poor time management – specifically, knowing that your own skills are probably not enough to implement a fairly complicated game in less than twenty four hours.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>79530: ???
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

This game is apparently intended as a survival-themed adventure game, but I’m not really sure if it’s completed, because while I can interact with a few things, I can’t get out of the one room, and looking in the editor, that’s about all there is.

THEME: (44/100)
Isolation as imprisonment, this time with stasis vats or something, and the one room that you can’t get out of. I kind of liked there this one was going, but it takes a pretty severe hit due to not being finished, and thus, not having much to expand upon what was being done here.

GAMEPLAY: (28/90)
Again, there’s really not much here – once your character somehow escapes from his vat, there’s all of four things to do – you can look at the other rat in the vat next to yours, try to use the computer that controls the vats, try opening the door (which you can never do, I think) and fiddle with medicines, only two of which won’t kill you upon ingesting them. The thing about killing the player with them is, even with the warnings given, there’s no indication that the analgesic will kill you (Chrome even remarks that it makes him feel better before the game goes into the death scene). Then again, maybe I’m looking at this entirely the wrong way – maybe death is truly the only way out. The end game text does seem to indicate that there’s another way, though…I’d be damned if I could find it, though, despite restarting the game about three times (and by the way, the intro cannot be skipped, so if you forget to save before screwing around with the potassium chloride, you get to watch that stuff all over again). There’s also apparently a blood loss system in place, which I assume means you’re going to die if your character bleeds too much. Except somehow, I ended up with “-9%” blood loss (from an initial stat of 48%), so I’m guessing that never actually happened.

GRAPHICS: (48/70)
This author is obviously talented, giving the game a dark and gritty feel without resorting to brown everywhere (there are still some primary colors here), but the thing is, there just aren’t enough graphics here. There’s the title screen, one picture in the introduction, one playable board and a couple of zoom-in screens on the terminal and medicine cabinet. That’s basically all – the graphics look good, but there’s not enough of them! Must admit, though, the flickering old monitor effect on the terminal is pretty good (and doesn’t hurt the eyes that much).

TECHNIQUE: (20/60)
On display here: a bleeding system (that doesn’t actually kill you), some menus that don’t have any obvious bugs in them, and probably the most advanced thing being the DOS terminal. The terminal is a little glitchy; in order to get any commands to work, you have to hold down the Enter key after typing them, or else the terminal just creates a new line and beeps at you. It’s very difficult to type things on here, which I’m assuming is a limitation of the engine, though it could easily be argued that it’s Chrome being an inept typist. Either way, though, I had to drastically slow down my own typing to get the keys to respond. Thank goodness the backspace key works, at least. I also noticed that while you can “take” the medicine from the cabinet, this doesn’t seem to affect anything other than displaying a message that you’ve taken it, as there is no obvious inventory function.

STORY: (33/50)
The game’s introduction comes from a log entry of some personnel aboard what I assume is a starship or something, describing some rat people, one of which was captured alive and put under stasis for further research. The feeling of desperation really adds to this game’s presentation, but the realization that not only is there nothing important you can do in the game, but also that the bleeding doesn’t actually seem to kill you, rather ruins things. Another victim of unfinished work. I will say, though, that I would have loved to see this continue.

SOUND (24/30)
A neat little electronic song plays as the intro types on screen, then the rest of the game is ambience and sound effects. These are actually pretty good. There’s even sound effects for Chrome typing on the terminal keyboard. The title screen song really doesn’t establish the mood properly, though…it’s a little too upbeat.

OVERALL (197/400)
Just shy of a 50% score. Which if we’re going by the American education grading scale, is still an F, but an A for effort, I say.

SCORE SUMMARY

# #30641: 310 points
# #70273: 286 points
# #60441: 278 points
# #36306: 247 points
# #66482: 246 points
# #18030: 243 points
# #13210: 236 points
# #47527: 222 points
# #34477: 213 points
# #79530: 197 points
# #62239: 178 points
# #49781: 165 points
# #72165: 111 points
# #11617: 76 points

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel

2012-07-17T20:09:44Z

Kuroneko:

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

Weasel’s Judging Results
Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux hosted by Kuddy, 01-03-2010

Preface
Had a pretty decent-looking haul here. The submissions account for a bit over half of the entrants to my knowledge. I’m not much for statistics here – I’m just here to create them. Would have been an competitor this time around, but nobody was really offering to help Kuddy judge, and I didn’t want to make him judge everything by himself, so that reviewing muscle of mine gets put to use once again. Let’s get started…

<nowiki>#</nowiki>11617: isolation puzzle puzzle platform
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

THEME (1/100)
The most "theme" this game attempts is putting the word "isolation" in its title. The one available level doesn't really do anything with the theme either, outside of there being two strange eggplant-like creatures trapped in a room in the corner.

GAMEPLAY (14/90)
It's a pixel-perfect sidescrolling game, which is somewhat more forgiving in platforming than most char-based sidescrollers, but the problem is that the game's help file makes no mention of you being able to jump in mid-air if you walk off a platform, and the very first platform jump requires the use of said physics oddity. Falling into the bottomless pit at the bottom of the screen resets you at the beginning, sans one health point. The only level in the game seems to be more geared towards a technology demonstration than an actual game.

GRAPHICS (22/70)
To its credit, this game does have a pretty well optimized pixel perfect engine, being able to run quite smoothly without any major frame rate hiccups. Unfortunately, the artwork is not exceptionally clear (I still have no idea what those red eggplant-shaped things are supposed to be, aside from red eggplant things that hurt you), and as pixel perfect engines go, there is a slight bit of color bleeding around terminals. The enemies and giant fans animate (a bit), but the player does not, outside of flipping when traveling left or right. The level design is just grey solids.

TECHNIQUE (29/60)
As stated above, the engine is decidedly well optimzed and smooth, and even has support for Mario-like momentum and fans that propel you high into the air. These are not used that much, though, and while the game appears to have support for displaying the player's diminishing health when being attacked by enemies or falling off platforms, the player can never actually die from any of it, as I assume the health system was never properly finished.

STORY (5/50)
This game has no story. Therefore, it shall receive five pity points for not being an adaptation of "Until The End Of Time" by gofer-chan.

SOUND (5/30)
Like the story, sound is also non-existent, therefore five additional pity points for not playing a PC Speaker rendition of any song by Taylor Swift.

OVERALL (76/400)
What would have benefited this game is actual levels, gameplay, something we can do. Tech demos won't win you awards. Logicow already proved that last year.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>13210: ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR
Theme: Alien Invaders (Concrete)
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one starts off apparently posing as a ZX Spectrum, MSX, or Commodore 64 type game, complete with loading screens and what I assume are floppy disk noises. The title sequence appears to have the most work put into it. I didn’t see this team mention which scoresheet they wanted, so I’ve taken the liberty of assigning Theme-Light to them myself.

THEME: (1/20)
While the game’s title screen mentions aliens, there don’t seem to be any in the game whatsoever (the included text file even states that it could easily be Isolation instead because there aren’t any aliens). So we’re left with…air vents? On closer inspection, this game has neither aliens nor elevators in it, and while the air vents might contribute to an Isolation theme, I’m pretty sure the author(s) wanted to go for Alien Invaders instead. One point out of pity here – right idea, wrong theme.

GAMEPLAY: (13/120)
What this game appears to actually have in it is a single pseudo-3D maze, with a few hotkeys you can press that don’t appear to affect anything. You can check your Status (which is always “Peachy!”), look in your Inventory (“Nothing!”), or use a Gadget (which is a rather tiny and barely helpful map function). While I was wandering through the maze and dreading what confusing architecture was at hand, the game suddenly tells me that the aliens just decided to leave, thus the game ends. Not really much of a game, is it? I’ve given this one a low score, but more out of the fact that this game effectively tricked me into thinking that it would be a game and then pulled out at the last second.

GRAPHICS: (54/90)
I’ll give this one credit for graphics. These are some pretty slick graphics, even if the char editing kind of bleeds across the colored blocks at times (like the FUTUREMAN picture in the title screen, and the walls in the air vent). The majority of the work put into this game seems to have been graphics alone, with the title screen being far more elaborate than the rest of the game, though the pesudo-3D engine should be noted for its attempt at a light diminishing effect (really just clever char editing, not so much actual coding). When the game ends, we’re presented with an ASCII version of Somethingawful’s famous “awesome” emoticon which is actually a neat old-school touch but doesn’t earn it any real points.

TECHNIQUE: (30/80)
For programming efforts, this entry gets just shy of a middle-range score. On the one hand, a pseudo-3D maze engine designed from scratch is relatively novel, particularly one that attempts a (faked) light diminishing effect. But on the other hand, a lot more effort seems to have been put into drawing the NES-throwback title screen graphics, which could easily have been done using Charcon or a similar program and probably didn’t take much time at all outside of drawing the pictures. The 3D engine appears to be powered mainly by the 40-some char sets lying around in the game directory, as opposed to the old-style method of Copy Block commands and clever use of the overlay. This brute-force method seems a little cheap to me, but hell, it’s resourceful, I’ll give them that much.

STORY: (13/50)
After the crazy 80’s-style story text at the beginning of the game that describes the awesome new SPACE ELEVATORS and the ALIENS that take them over, I expected this game to keep up with the bombastic style and throw in a few MC Hammer references. But as soon as the Story So Far ends and we’re sent into the game itself, the story just kind of stops. Then the game just ends with the cheesiest plot hand-wave ever, making me quite disappointed. I wanted to see how far it could go. LASER PANTS, maybe? More games should have those.

SOUND (35/40)
Sound is also a stronger point of the game, with music selections being exclusively chiptunes, even though only three songs are actually used out of the six included. Sound effects are also chippy, contributing to the 80’s feel. Bravo for keeping to your style, if not the competition theme.

OVERALL (236/400)
Which is a shame, because this game will most likely end up getting disqualified due to its utter lack of theme.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>18030: PRISON ESCAPE
Theme: Isolation (Abstract)
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

Welcome to Prison, arguably the most common start to any Megazeux game ever. Of course, your goal is to escape, in addition to figuring out just why you were thrown in here in the first place.

THEME: (79/100)
This game plays with the idea of isolation as loneliness. It seems like the prison’s only real inhabitants are the rats, the sentry guns, and yourself, and there is barely any evidence that there’s any living humans left. You only find some skeletons and bloody corpses, and the occasional outdated newspaper. When you get outside of the building, you find one person standing there, but of course he’s a guard and decides to shoot you. If you manage to dispatch him (i.e. by having the correct inventory item when this scene is triggered), you come to the realization that you are now the only human for miles, in what the board title refers to as “ultimate isolation”. It’s pretty heavy stuff, especially for a medium typically known for cheesy community in-jokes and old-school action games.

GAMEPLAY: (47/90)
This being essentially a traditional-style Megazeux adventure game, your only real concern is touching the correct objects to trigger reactions from the game script. In this case, you’ll be picking up various inventory items that will be used automatically when needed. I’m sure at least one person might have trouble figuring out the (few) puzzles on occasion, but they’re really quite simple, if you’re the kind of person that searches through everything indiscriminately. It’s actually more interactive than I expected it to be, with even the “ending” cutscene requiring some input from the player. Somehow it seems like the author is drawing inspiration from Hideo Kojima (i.e. more than just sound effects). While the game provides numerous opportunities to die, the author is merciful enough to make things not kill you on the first try, interestingly; you can be injured once “for free”, with the second injury killing you, and your health is reset every time you change boards, giving you some margin for error without forcing you to abuse saved games.

GRAPHICS: (36/70)
This game uses only a few edited characters over the default MZX character set, though it does at least make its environs look appropriately dank and unsettling, with a few good uses of water puddles, corpses, the occasional wandering rat. The player character (and all other humans) is just an edited MZX smiley, however, making the ending scene seem a little too light-hearted, and almost difficult to comprehend without the accompanying sound effects. The special effect used in the end-game actually contributed a lot to it, though.

TECHNIQUE: (25/60)
Somehow, this game doesn’t strike me so much as a programming masterpiece as a way to prove how much can be done with only some simple commands (and without built-ins). I think the game could really have done with at least some advanced effects for graphics, though.

STORY: (34/50)
The game makes no attempts at exposition at the beginning; you are merely a man in a prison and of course you have to escape. But as you’re escaping, you uncover some newspaper articles presumably detailing who you are and why you’re here, as well as a potential motive. Then, upon breaking out of the prison, I’m confronted by what I assume is the only other living human in the area: the guard that wants to kill me because I escaped. For those people that didn’t obsessively search the lockers, the story would end here. But if you found the syringe, that scene continues with you getting back up and attacking the guard, then (I assume) concluding that you are now completely, utterly alone. This was actually executed quite well, but some of the newspaper articles seemed a bit amateurishly written, which wasn’t entirely fatal to the mood of the game, but did kind of jar me out of the experience for a few seconds. Also, I kind of wish there was a more conclusive ending than just the black screen. I waited for 30 seconds before I realized there wasn’t any more.

SOUND (22/30)
Pretty good use of ambient sound effects, voice effects pulled from Metal Gear Solid, and appropriately timed uses of them during the final scene. Pretty well done. Lack of music might prove to be a turn-off to some, but in my opinion it all works nicely. But then, I’ve always enjoyed games that place such an emphasis on sound over music for atmosphere, so…

OVERALL (243/400)
It really needed some graphical polish, I think, in addition to perhaps adding some more interactivity.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>30641: Celestial Altar
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one starts off with a pretty slick title sequence with appropriately spacey music. It’s apparently intended to mirror the classic Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, with a visual-novel type approach, bookended with console-style RPG battles as the story deems appropriate. The game is entirely mouse-controlled, and I find that it works pretty well.

THEME: (18/20)
Well, it’s initially stated that this game is about alien invaders, and at first that doesn’t seem obvious, but at a certain point in the plot, you realize why it’s been themed as such. It’s not quite as ham-fisted as “NO JOHN, YOU ARE THE DEMONS”, which is good, because the chosen genre really lives and dies by the quality of its writing, though I can’t help but think that perhaps this team picked the wrong scoresheet, as I think it would have done better as a Theme-heavy entry.

GAMEPLAY: (74/120)
While I certainly had fun playing this game, I should probably mention again that I think this game was really filed under the wrong score sheet. The game’s strength really isn’t in its gameplay. While it’s not bad – it’s basically an RPG, but without all that clumsy wandering around on world maps and random battles – I can’t help but think that this sort of setup really kind of simplifies things a bit too much. It’s almost as if Killer 7 were an RPG – there are branching paths, but they’re all spelled out for you with little opportunity for players to do something unique. Granted, it’s a great throwback to the Fighting Fantasy series (Lancer did say he was inspired by those on IRC).

GRAPHICS: (75/90)
The people behind this game (it’s GOT to be more than one! There’s no way one person was capable of all this! But apparently it was only Lancer so I’m completely dumbfounded at how this is possible) obviously put a lot of love into the way it looks, even though the writing is the real star of the show. Backgrounds are very pretty, with things being pretty well defined despite being made entirely of half-chars. The backgrounds will transition between one another when going between “pages”, which is a neat effect and makes page changes a bit less jarring. When battle scenes appear, the animations use cross-fading transitions and lots of palette changes (despite this being done in SMZX mode, I’m assuming there’s more than a few palette modifications going on in the background here, with how smooth the cross-fades are). It’s really quite beautiful, but judging from the score I put above, there’s actually one flaw to it – the double-wide font used for all in game text. I do run MZX in a window, though, meaning I can easily just resize the window to be slightly more narrow, which helps a lot with making the text more readable. But all this double-wide text is a bit difficult to read at a normal aspect ratio, and since reading is so crucial to the operation of this game, that prevents this from getting its coveted perfect score.

TECHNIQUE: (74/80)
Proof that you don’t need vector-based, free-rotating graphics or silky-smooth pixel-perfect platforming to really impress. The game engine really goes above and beyond what most would consider to be needed in a visual novel, with the screen transitions and battle effects. Though the game is controlled with the mouse, the author insisted on making the mouse pointer pixel-perfect as opposed to Megazeux’s basic 80x25 mouse system, making it almost seem like this isn’t even a Megazeux game anymore. And all without a single instance of the word “raytracing.” Unfortunately, however, because of a debilitating glitch, I found myself unable to continue playing the game after a certain point in the second village, as one route just showed me a monolith that I couldn’t do anything with, and the other route gave me no options to choose from, effectively stopping the game. However, after some conversing with the author over IRC, I was at least able to fix the issue I was having and finish playing. It should be noted that there are also some mild glitches with the text system (Lancer says he did not put numbers in the game’s font, so some text screens will omit the prices of items on sale) and occasional typos.

STORY: (44/50)
Celestial Altar handles the Alien Invaders thing a bit differently than expected: while it seems like a basic fantasy story at first, you eventually learn that your existence on this unnamed planet is because of a project on Earth to migrate all of Humanity into space, with your character apparently being either a member of the crew involved in said project, or a descendant of one of them. You eventually track down the whereabouts of the space ship, which due to some massive metaphysical glitches involving the way it circumvents faster-than-light travel, is completely messed up, twisted and bent like an Escher painting. You manage to put it right again by battling the dimensions themselves, and after an almost Kojima-esque period of exposition, you fight the final battle. Even for as short of a game as it is, this is positively epic stuff.

SOUND (34/40)
Excellent selections for music, with occasional sound effects for menus being manipulated or battle effects. Great stuff all around, but the caveat here being that since the music is in a streamed format instead of tracked, some more care should have been put into making sure that the tracks looped properly, as it is somewhat jarring when a song fails to loop and suddenly drops off into silence, only to start fading back in from the beginning.

OVERALL (310/400)
Only four entries into the list and already I’ve stumbled upon a real beauty of a game. Wonder how the others compare?

<nowiki>#</nowiki>34477: Duck Rescue
Theme: Alien Invaders, I assume
Scoresheet: Theme-Light assumed

I’m assuming Logicow had a part in this one, an Amiga-style sidescroller featuring a waterfowl protagonist…and it’s not really too friendly to those of us with older machines (it’s NOT old! **cough**).

THEME: (7/20)
After a pretty long and drawn out argument on IRC involving Logicow and other people that I respect, the unanimous opinion is that this game is supposed to be Alien Invaders themed. And I was supposed to immediately realize this based on the fact that the guy that carries off your girlfriend is big and green, and that there are UFO’s later on. I begrudgingly give this 7 theme points out of 20, meaning that it’s not really that tight in the theme but it’s not low enough to disqualify it.

GAMEPLAY: (34/120)
What could have been a fun little platform shooter is kind of deadened here by some questionable design ideas. For starters, why does the game run so slow? Checking out the robot code tells me that it’s running at MZX_Speed 2, meaning it should be working fine, but I’ll get into that in the Technique area. The questionable designs I mention are the occasionally odd jump physics (it feels like I can’t jump as high if I’m jumping against a steep slope) and the fact that the game level stops scrolling on occasion to allow some enemies to spawn. Fighting them is just too easy with the game running as slow as it is; at least once I’d be able to pass the screen-locked section by simply shooting at the edge of the screen until the screen decided to scroll over. This game also suffers the classic sidescroller pitfall of not making it clear whether an object is something you can stand on, or if it’s merely part of the background. I was initially confused at an early section until I realized that you could stand on a rock, which I had foolishly assumed was a mountain in the background. Then I fell through a tree branch.

GRAPHICS: (78/90)
I didn’t expect this game to get very low of a graphical score, and it really does quite well here. This game looks decidedly un-Zeux-like due to its usage of half-chars with liberal use of outlines and cartoon-style shading. Because the on-screen characters are so large, this loss in screen resolution turns out to not be much of a problem at all.

TECHNIQUE: (46/80)
It’s a sidescroller. But rather than be the usual brand of overdone single-character MZX sidescroller, this game is half-char driven, giving it not only a pleasant retro feel but also making the game physics far more accurate than the chunky old MZX scrollers (without needing to be pixel-perfect). What kills the Technique score here, though, is the fact that it runs so terribly on my system. Despite being set at Speed 2 (which should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 FPS), FRAPS tells me that the game is hovering somewhere in the 20 FPS range (but it lies), and upon sharing a video recording of my computer running the game, I have it on good authority that it should really be running about twice as fast. This slowness not only causes the ensuing game to be boring as hell, it also makes it too easy on part of the action not being quite frantic enough. For reference, my system is a Pentium D 3.0 GHz running Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. There is no reason why a side-scroller like this should be running so slowly!

STORY: (10/50)
The game’s story is presented in much the same way as the old NES action games: you and your Girly-Colored Duck partner are standing in front of your house, when a not-so-jolly green giant appears off the right side of the screen and snatches said girly duck and then runs off. It’s up to Yellow Duck to run towards the right side of the screen and shoot fireballs at all the aliens until he can rescue his love. It’s really nothing special, but it’s at least presented quickly enough to not get in the way.

SOUND (28/40)
While Duck Rescue only includes the one module file for music, that file is fast-paced and light-hearted enough to set the mood. Sound effects, however, are generated using MZX’s old PC Speaker SFX system, which does lend something of an old-school flavor to it, despite there only really being two sound effects.

OVERALL (213/400)
Come on, man, a little work on the programming could have made this so much more enjoyable! (Also please state which bloody topic your game is supposed to be filed under, so I don’t have to ask you on IRC!)

<nowiki>#</nowiki>36306: Voluntary Solitude
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

A narrative-driven action game with a flair for drama.

THEME: (75/100)
This game also deals with isolation as loneliness, but also the effects it can have on a man. Here, we deal with a man who has barricaded himself in his home to defend himself from “the Creatures”, preparing himself for an oncoming assault. As the player looks through the various supplies, he finds pieces of a note that, when completed, push the player’s character over the edge – that is, more so than he was already, as the game then establishes that he’s been in a rubber cell in a mental asylum the whole time, in a decidedly different type of isolation. Much like Prison Escape above, it deals with some pretty dark stuff, presenting a perfectly “valid” point of view from a person who doesn’t see the world the way the rest of the world sees him.

GAMEPLAY: (38/90)
For as good as the game did at exploring the theme, I’m actually somewhat thankful that Ryan chose the theme-heavy score sheet, as the game mechanics of this piece are a bit disjointed, and at times a bit too plain. The core game is a traditional MZX overhead shooter, with the basic Space+Arrows control scheme that prevents the player from moving while shooting, and the projectile bullets that are occasionally difficult to hit enemies with. The less fun part of the game mechanics involves the blind searching through all the random supplies scattered around the house. Granted, the game dialogue does tell you to start looking over the supplies, but making this the core goal of the game (just randomly touching everything that isn’t a wall) makes the solution a little confusing and tedious. This game really doesn’t do anything innovative with the way it plays.

GRAPHICS: (44/70)
If Megazeux hadn’t progressed beyond the features available in 2.51, this game would still be possible, as the game doesn’t do much graphically, but still somehow gets the idea across. The palette doesn’t seem to be changed much from the default, and the characters are pretty simple bipeds and circular enemies with bizarre, crooked mouths. That’s probably the closest a simple MZX character can get to a proper eldritch abomination, and I do give points for at least doing that, but as far as its placement in the competition, it somehow doesn’t stack up with its simple graphical techniques.

TECHNIQUE: (30/60)
Pretty much a middle of the road score here. I didn’t encounter any major glitches or issues with the way the game worked, but it also doesn’t seem to do anything really amazing code-wise. The player’s sprite doesn’t even animate when moving. This game could at least have benefited from some extra effects, perhaps a better weapon system, or even a Resident Evil-style “glint” for hidden items among all the random supplies and stuff. Anything to prevent the player from having to touch every single object in the house.

STORY: (35/50)
I quite like the way the main character is presented here. The player is lead to think that the events around him are completely real, but once the note is assembled, the pieces start falling together. It’s written well enough to get by, with no major typos or grammatical errors, but there are ways it could have been improved, especially with the way the dialogue is written. Perhaps the internal monologue could have been written in more of a conversational tone, as with the ending scene between the player and the doctor. Also, using the word “isolation” in the in-game dialogue somehow sounds so much cheesier, almost like a movie that tries to sneak its own title into the script (“Man, I’m so tired of all these Star Wars…”). But hey, at least most of the DoZ entrants thus far haven’t tried to put the name of the theme in their game title…(Weasel fondly recalls “Ford Exploration”…)

SOUND (25/30)
The game’s sound selection is pretty good, with only one exception: the Doom pistol sound. This sound, along with the “OW!” from Cans and the insert-credit sound from R-Type (better known as Heal.sam), is among one of the most used Megazeux sound effects ever. It’s almost Megazeux’s own Wilhelm Scream. But I won’t continue ranting about it, as while you’re firing your Doom pistol at the Creatures, you’re listening to some pretty good monster sounds and some downright intense orchestral music that may have been originally composed for a Hollywood film (though looking over the included OGG files, they might be Creative Commons – score one for the public domain!).

OVERALL (247/400)
This game is good proof that playing the right scoresheet will get you good points.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>47527: Abandoned
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

What’s this? Another inventory game? Well, this one’s not so quickly written off – it at least has potential, despite being decidedly short and unfinished. Regrettably, this competition doesn’t award points for potential, only for actual content. That doesn’t stop this one from at least earning a good chunk of points, though.

THEME: (44/100)
You’re in prison. You’re lonely. Isolation. Ah ha. Without a really coherent plot, the extent of Isolation being involved in this game is pretty much limited to the fact that it takes place in what I assume is prison. And there’s a guy cut in half in the cell next to yours, perhaps to emphasize that you’re alone. The author admits that the game isn’t really finished, which is a real shame – I’d love to have seen what more could be done with it.

GAMEPLAY: (38/90)
Abandoned runs with an adventure game formula, which sounds like typical MZX fare, except that the interface is slightly different. The game is effectively a side-scrolling game, with your character only capable of moving left and right, and facing into the background to interact with some objects. Inventory items can either be used by themselves, on other items, or on things in the world, which is more than most MZX inventory games have done. Of course, the game taking place in a prison, we’re about to see the next reuse of the Prison Cliché, meaning that the tools you need to escape the cell are actually already in your inventory or are easily accessible (i.e. the book of matches). At first, the puzzles are pretty simple stuff if you’re a MacGuyver fan, but as it goes on, the solutions get into stuff that should have been left to whatever Myst clones are still hitting store shelves, like the combination to the generator room puzzle. There is one major thing to take issue with, though, and that’s that the game isn’t finished. You have access to all of four rooms (not counting the elevator), with the fourth room not having much of anything to do except fiddle with switches. Once these switches are in the proper position, which you’re apparently supposed to learn by reading a randomly placed bloodstain on a wall, the elevator discreetly opens another floor in which the game ends. Dealing with the elevator wasn’t really that easy to get the hang of, despite the instructions being printed on screen. At least make the elevator shake and make noise or something when you use it. Hell, make the generator room actually tell you HEY, THE ELEVATOR HAS ANOTHER FLOOR OR SOMETHING. RAGHLAGHLHLGHHGE.

GRAPHICS: (61/70)
These graphics bring to mind some of the finer MZX games from two decades ago – Booshkies, A Hidden Anomaly, and The Beginning. Ironically enough, two of those games are unfinished, and the third was another Day of Zeux entry, but they all looked great then and still look pretty good nowadays. This game reminds me of them in the good, nostalgic kind of way. The very large player sprite, the detailed background artwork, the gritty yet minimalistic character editing. This stuff looks better than a lot of SMZX-mode games I’ve played, showing that you don’t need four colors per character and a giant palette to make something look good.

TECHNIQUE: (36/60)
The programming in Abandoned is well assembled with few glitches, but perhaps some of the engine’s elements could have been rearranged and altered a bit to be more user-friendly. The inventory system in particular presents some frustrations, where I’d need to cycle through the entire thing a couple of times to figure out where a specific item was. It almost feels like the inventory is changing its order around every time I open it. Also, the player character moves quite slowly.

STORY: (22/50)
There’s actually not a lot of story to be seen here, presumably because the author was busier with the gameplay elements than with the events that occur in the story. Had the story been written, though, I can kind of see the direction the author was going with it. They say dead men tell no tales. I say, have a look at the guy in Cell 2 – whatever killed him obviously had some story behind it! But the fact that said story is nowhere to be seen in the game is disappointing.

SOUND (21/30)
KKairos on IRC pointed out to me that some of the music in this game was pretty familiar. Turns out he was right: about two thirds of the music (i.e. two songs out of the three included) were also used in a DoZ entry from last year. Hmm. Well, they certainly do fit the game, and I’m not going to dock any points for music reuse, because it’s not like the music was made specifically for the previous game (ModArchive, heh). Sound effects are well done as well, realistic, high quality, and hey, footsteps!

OVERALL (222/400)
Gameplay’s decent and all, but I think time constraints really got in the way of this one. My advice: manage your time properly!

<nowiki>#</nowiki>49781: TurnCoat
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

The story of an alien resident on Earth. Feels a bit like the basic concept of Invader Zim, except without the Jhonen Vasquez humor.

THEME: (11/20)
Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect at least one entry to go with the “YOU ARE THE ALIENS” route, I hadn’t exactly hoped for an entry to make it as cut-and-dry as this. You are the aliens. Except the aliens want to enslave humanity (and your dog, I guess) so you decide to side with the humans. So what was initially an interesting-sounding flip-flop turns into just another “Fight Da Alienz!” type thing.

GAMEPLAY: (39/120)
Another MZX-type shooter, with a unique weapon to make things at least somewhat interesting. The Squiggle Gun (hee hee) attacks over a 5x3 area in front of the player, but much like any other MZX shooter, you can’t move while shooting, so if your target just happens to randomly sidestep your beam of sorta-death, you’ll have to stop shooting, move to the side, then start shooting again, hoping that this time your beam will actually hit them. This is not helped by the fact that the aliens are just “go RANDNB” with occasional explosive attacks. Yeah, the combat in this wasn’t much fun to me. The only real upshot, I suppose, is the fact that you don’t have to worry about ammo.

GRAPHICS: (38/90)
The title logo didn’t bode well, being rather difficult to read. Getting into the game, I suppose it at least looks half decent for environmental artwork, but it’s a little dark. Character edits are a little confusing. I hadn’t realized that the player’s dog was a dog until I interacted with it, and the same goes for the toilet. The blocks that make up the levels are not bad, but the interactive things, characters and such really needed work. You can only do so much with 8x14 pixels. This is a game that could have benefited from larger character sprites, or even traditional-style overlay heads. I don’t think the overlay is really used for anything other than the status display and message boxes, and even those could be altered.

TECHNIQUE: (33/80)
TurnCoat makes heavy use of a custom text box, with a slow-ish animation that occurs every time it opens. And it opens every time someone speaks, and during cutscenes, every time someone else is speaking. This animation takes about two seconds to complete on Speed 4, making the flow of text very slow indeed. Also, I don’t understand why parts of the text are formatted in such a way that there are only three lines on the box at a time, when it’s capable of holding five. I also notice a few things like the toilet-portal being a bit delayed from when you look at the toilet (I assumed it would do nothing but give me the protagonist’s description of it, and suddenly I’m portaled away to the secret lair as I’m walking around the house), and a few instances in which the text box is open and there is no text inside it, as if the text box engine believes there is more text to display but there actually is not. I also managed to get the game to simply cease working after the first combat scene in front of the house, after which I decided to just keep playing through the editor. The Squiggle Gun, while it still uses default MZX shooting controls, feels a bit more like Hobo Dan’s famed Hobo Blaster in its randomness and complete lack of an ammunition system. It’s a little hard to kill things with it – it’s like a sword engine almost, except harder to control.

STORY: (18/50)
Although your character appears human, he’s actually an Alien Invader, sent to investigate and monitor the activities of Earth’s population and serve as a spy in the inevitable full-on assault. And yet, when said invasion actually mounts, you decide that you love your dog too much to let the aliens enslave all of humanity and kill them. Now I’ve heard of Stockholm Syndrome, but this is ridiculous! Also, the dialogue seems kind of stiff and badly paced, though the author does seem to have put some thought into at least making it sound like a conversation. The story ends as our hero pushes the Self Destruct button on the bridge of the alien ship, waits for it to count down (under the pretense that he should probably stop the aliens from disabling it), then has one last thought: “I hope someone feeds my dog.” Is the dog really that important? I can only think of one game in which the main character would rather save one person/creature over an entire planet full of them, and that game was Prey, and I really didn’t like the way Prey handled that either. I don’t know of anybody that actually thinks like this. It’s very harmful to the willing suspension of disbelief.

SOUND (26/40)
Music selections are at least atmospheric enough to keep me from wanting to unplug my speakers, but given the game’s focus on action, I would have liked something a bit faster paced, less depressing. The squiggle gun sounds kind of cool, but it only makes sound if you’re holding both Space and the arrow key at the same time, and while the gun continues to fire with only Space held down, it stops making noise. Outside of that, that seems to be the only real sound effect in the game (aside from the hundredth use of Heal.sam). Okay, modarchive is a great resource, but I think I ought to start pimping out places like Freesound.org, as they’d probably help games like this achieve a better Sound score.

OVERALL (165/400)
This one’s not terrible, but it’s also not great. It’s apparent to me that this team was just spread too thin.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>60441: FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-light

This one’s a two-sided action game featuring both overhead and first-person sequences. And, uh, lots of blatant appealing to the judges.

THEME: (11/20)
The authors of Forsaken Daylight initially forgot to state their theme, with no explicit mention of either Isolation or Alien Invaders in the game or included Readme.txt file. (They also forgot to mention the controls in said readme, but that’s something for another category.) GreaseMonkey said on IRC that the game was intended for Isolation and the Theme-Light scoresheet, therefore I am considering the game under these circumstances. The game toys with the idea of Isolation in a slightly different way from “isolation as loneliness” – while there are two playable characters

GAMEPLAY: (91/120)
I must admit this is probably one of the more fun action games to be submitted this time around. The first “side” of the game is an overhead action game that has you controlling DJ, where you’re equipped with a shotgun and some bombs. The shotgun uses a hitscan system instead of projectiles, making it very easy to hit most targets. It also seems to be using proper math to determine the shotgun’s firing cone, with a degree of randomness. This firing cone roughly corresponds to half of your flashlight beam (which incidentally is only really used on the first overhead scene). Shooting zombies is loads of fun with the shotgun, especially with unlimited ammo. Bombs are apparently also hitscans, detonating everything within your visible radius without harming you.

The other half of the game is the first-person scenes where you control Anthony who has a pistol. These scenes are powered by a raycaster, and feel remarkably like the original Wolfenstein. As with the overhead sections, you have unlimited ammo, and the objective is generally just to find the stairs, except in the first scene where you have to track down five coins so you can use a phone booth to contact someone who can open all the locked doors for you. Now, these sections are almost as fun as the overhead segments, but of course I’ve got something to complain about – the raycaster used in these scenes is only drawing blocks at 80x25 resolution, making it very difficult to see over distances greater than two cubes away. I suppose this simplified approach to raycasting makes it run smoother and easier to code, but it gets in the way of gaming when you have to treat your pistol as a melee weapon. Thankfully though, there’s no limit to how fast you can hammer the Fire key (which is inexplicably Control, instead of Space like the overhead segments). If only I could see things more clearly, the raycasted 3D segments would have been as fun if not moreso than the overhead scenes.

GRAPHICS: (69/90)
It’s clear to me that this game was created in halves by two people and then mashed together, as the overhead and raycasted segments have vastly different art styles to them. Overhead scenes are mainly MZX smileys and lots of blood effects, but are used to great effect here and somehow manage to be dark and gloomy enough to offset the fact that we’re really only seeing the same old smiley with sunglasses. First-person scenes are raycasted, with a screen resolution low enough that I found it difficult to discern anything outside of my pistol and any wall closer than two cubes away. But somehow, it still looks mostly alright. Not “over 70 points” alright, but mostly alright. I think this game would have earned some more points if the raycaster had used halfchars, and perhaps a bit more uniformity in art styles.

TECHNIQUE: (61/80)
I think the major draw of the game is its raycaster, of course, but I was honestly more impressed with the shotgun and flashlight effects in the overhead scenes than I was with the raycaster. Again, the 3D engine could really have used a higher resolution, even at the risk of frame rate loss. And perhaps something other than the default MZX keys and locks…I suppose this still gets a pretty good score though, chiefly because it’s a solid engine that I didn’t encounter any major bugs with.

STORY: (14/50)
I assume the game’s story is more along the lines of “hey there’s zombies, let’s nuke this factory” with some author self-insertions for no good reason. It’s never adequately explained why there are zombies, nor why the authors are bombing the building, and the game ends with Logicow running in, saying something cliffhanger-like, and then the building explodes with everyone inside of it. Even an Arnold movie has more story than this. =P

SOUND (32/40)
Major, major points go toward the sound category here. Through sound effects, it’s actually plausible how DJ can keep firing his shotgun without a reload pause (because you actually hear him popping fresh shells into the gun after every single shot). The firing sounds for both weapons are pretty good, in addition to the blood splat noises made when zombies are blown into meaty chunks. I suppose the music at least kept things feeling nice and moody (or in the case of the 3D scenes, quick and panicky), but as with the graphics, the two styles don’t mesh together as well as I hoped they would.

OVERALL (278/400)
Thank God this team got around to telling me what theme they were using, because it’d be a shame to let this stuff get disqualified.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>62239: ???
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

An untitled fantasy action game with an interesting mouse gesture-based spellcasting system.

THEME: (5/20)
The text file admits that the game wasn’t really finished enough to really get into either theme, and while it initially states that it’s themed on Isolation, Wervyn stated on the forums that the game really fits better as an Alien Invaders game. Much as it pains me to admit, this game really doesn’t go very well with either theme, but I’ll agree that Alien Invaders probably earns it more Theme points than Isolation, because the rooms in this game are rather wide open and I didn’t sense very much isolation elsewhere. Therefore, I’m going to take pity on this one and give it just enough theme points to avoid a disqualification.

GAMEPLAY: (38/120)
Your intrepid mage (I am assuming he’s a mage) is in a randomly generated dungeon fighting leeches and nasty things with spells. Controlling yourself is pretty easy, with the WASD keys used for movement and the mouse used to cast spells in any direction. The gesture-based spellcasting is actually pretty well done, allowing you to cast spells by click-dragging in one of four directions to cast an elemental spell. There are only a couple things I would have changed here: enemies take too many spells to kill, resulting in a lot of mouse flinging to cast the spells repeatedly; and the spells are organized a little strangely, with Fire being the North spell, Air being East, etc. Now, not to be an academic snob or anything, but if we’re following classical Medieval alchemy, Air would be North, Fire would be East, Earth would be South, and Water would be West. But then, Alchemy also calls for “Aether” to be at the center of that, plus a few other things like Mercury and Salt, so maybe I’m just going a bit beyond my bounds here.

Basically, though, this game generates a random dungeon, has you fight through it, and makes you attempt to reach the next floor. Thing is, though, no matter how many times I tried, I could not get the down stairs to work, basically meaning that the game is only really capable of making one floor in which you are doomed to die. It’s pretty hard to avoid damage, and well, I don’t think there’s even a health system implemented here. The game simply lets you take all the spells and attacks you wish and then prints “You are dead” on the message row, yet still allows you to wander around and blast leeches with Earth. So the final Gameplay score will be just shy of a third, for at least showing that a mouse gesture system is plausible in a Megazeux game. Oh, how I wish this could have been fleshed out some more. Wervyn and company should really expand upon this game.

GRAPHICS: (78/90)
Here’s another one of those games that really shows how much mileage you can get out of two colors per character. The game appears to make liberal use of sprites, so the player and monsters are all 2x1 and animated pretty nicely. It’s abundantly clear that characters are supposed to be, and even appropriately creepy in some places. (I’m sure I’d really hate to run into that shadowy dinosaur-like thing on the title screen.)

TECHNIQUE: (47/80)
As the game is unfinished, there are really only three major components on display here: the movement engine (WASD, eight-directional movement, works as expected), the random dungeon system (which could stand to have been a bit more in the background), and the mouse gesture system, which actually works pretty well aside from the elemental directions (but that’s not something I feel I should be taking points away for). What’s actually here seems to work correctly, outside of the stairs which are either broken or unimplemented. Either way, I can’t really continue playing because of them, so yeah.

STORY: (5/50)
No story on display here, so five pity points because at least it’s not utter nonsensical trash that gets in the way of the rest of the game.

SOUND (5/40)
No sound on display here either, so once again five pity points for not being a hundred copies of “Scorching Savannah” from Katamari Damacy played over top of each other.

OVERALL (178/400)
This one’s kept alive through sheer programming technique and good graphics. Now if only the actual game had been implemented.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>66482: “THOSE ALIEN INVADER!”
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Seems like we get one of these every year or so – a danmaku shooter in MZX!

THEME: (10/20)
I don’t know about most people, but when I think of alien invaders, I think of stuff like…well, Space Invaders! Shoot ‘em ups! A single fighter against the evil empire! Naturally this game appeals to that retro instinct with something that feels very Atari-ish. Maybe even Intellivision-ish. It does the 80’s in a more pleasing fashion than Aliens In An Elevator. As for the theme score? Eh…middle of the road, because it really just goes in the expected direction, not so much in the “unexplored concepts” direction.

GAMEPLAY: (98/120)
I’ve never been very good at danmaku games. All those bullets flying everywhere, making it difficult to tell not only where I’m at, but where my hitbox is, where the bullets’ hitboxes are, and whether or not my laser is even hitting the boss. But I assure you this is chiefly a problem with me, not with the game, as this is actually a pretty spirited attempt at bringing an abstract shooter a la Kenta Cho into Megazeux. You are a tiny yellow ship with a constant beam laser and five bombs. These bombs don’t damage the boss; they are chiefly for erasing bullets. This is pretty much the same formula as Normal Mode in Kenta Cho’s rRootage, preserved pretty well here. Even though I dislike most danmaku games (because I suck at them), I still had fun playing this one.

GRAPHICS: (44/90)
I understand it being a little difficult to make anything pixel-perfect in Megazeux, particularly if you’re doing so with a pixel-doubled screen, but there’s an awful lot of color bleeding going on. It’s rare for me to say this, but I think this would have looked better if all the sprites were white over the blue background, because the color bleeding was starting to get a little distracting.

TECHNIQUE: (55/80)
The engine here is by no means a new thing to Megazeux (as danmaku has been done at least once before, and so has pixel-perfection), but this one came through with no show-stopping bugs, with only some issues with the character colors going on, which as stated above was getting a bit distracting.

STORY: (9/50)
The story is a simple (deliberate?) Engrishy little blurb. If you lose the battle, you get a different blurb and the option to try again. That’s about all there is to it here. I didn’t manage to beat the thing, so I don’t know if there’s an equivalent blurb for winning. It doesn’t get in the way, so a few extra points for that, but it’s certainly not Roger Zelazny.

SOUND (30/40)
No sound effects, but well chosen music propels this at least to a 30 point score.

OVERALL (246/400)
What would ordinarily be a cheesy little curiosity is actually pretty well executed here. A few changes to the way the game does graphics (mainly color) would have sent this a little higher.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>70273: Antares
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

THEME: (10/20)
It’s a game about how a space ship was taken over by some aliens, and how you’re the sole survivor that needs to destroy the vessel to prevent it from being used by the enemy. Pretty standard fare as far as alien invasions go, and I suppose it’s a good enough setup for a beat-em-up.

GAMEPLAY: (101/120)
This game is pretty much pure Maxim here: classic arcade action, this time presented as a Double Dragon style beat-em-up game, with punching, kicking, and the occasional LAZOR GUN to enable you to attack at distance for a little while. Similar to Double Dragon and other such brawling games, the enemies show up in large waves of as many as ten, some occasionally armed with guns themselves. Punching and kicking really aren’t that different from each other in terms of damage, but the main difference is really that you’re attacking low and high, as opposed to weaker and stronger attacks. This will end up being crucial if you’re swarmed by enemies and unable to align yourself perfectly with them – you may need to kick enemies that are positioned lower than you, or punch enemies that are up higher. Of course, the enemy waves tend to swarm you pretty quickly, meaning you’re going to lose a lot of health over them unless you’re very clever at managing the hordes. (Side note: this game marks the triumphant return of KICKING GUARDS IN THE NADS, something I’ve not seen in Megazeux since Agent Jeff Kenny from several DoZ’s ago!) Also, great notice should be made to the fact that this game has selectable difficulty settings.

GRAPHICS: (68/90)
Maxim’s distinctive neon-colors style works quite well here, as the selection of bright colors (especially purples and greens) emphasizes the alien…ness…of the game. I’m running out of words to describe it. But the lasers actually feel pretty powerful on account of them being all flashy neon colored and stuff, and the animations are done pretty well.

TECHNIQUE: (63/80)
I didn’t encounter any major glitches, and the engine seems pretty tight. I like how MZX’s speed is set at twice normal just to make the projectiles fly smoothly without speeding up all the other characters. Basically, points all around for running a tight ship.

STORY: (23/50)
The story is presented on the title screen, if you care enough to sit and wait for it. It describes you as the last survivor aboard a ship full of aliens, and your main objective is to self-destruct said ship to prevent the aliens from learning anything. It does go on for quite a bit about the current situation, and the introduction text is pretty well written. That’s really all a game like this needs…but it’s not exactly an epic.

SOUND (21/40)
Sound effects are decidedly abstract, similar in feel to the old 70’s Hong Kong martial arts films. Music seems a bit too Smooth Jazzy to go with a beat-em-up, though. I think this would have gone well with some fast-paced electronic music.

OVERALL (286/400)
I think where this one could have used some polish was to have a bit more in-game motivation to keep going, story-wise. Even so much as a Gyruss-style “4 CORRIDORS TO GO!” prompt.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>72165: ???
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-light

This is evidently supposed to be a Puzzle Quest type game.

THEME: (2/20)
I have no idea what this is supposed to do with alien invasion. Presumably there was a story in the works at some point, but nothing seems to have come of it.

GAMEPLAY: (44/120)
As a Puzzle Quest clone, the game revolves around you and your opponent taking turns putting down tiles. If the tiles end up matching three, four, or five in a row, then they have special effects. Evidently swords and guns are there to deal damage to the enemy, while skulls remove your own health, hearts restore it, the weird blue faces remove your “sanity” (not sure what this affects), and there are various grey tiles that increase what I assume is this game’s equivalent of mana stocks if they match. If you get enough mana (which you probably might if you’re lucky), you can use a special skill, of which there is apparently only one. If you ask me, this is one of those games that really is too ambitious to be pulled off in only one day, because the core game mechanics are not even finished and the game is almost not playable as a result. The instructions are also decidedly unclear. Basically, this game confused me, even though I was able to defeat the (one) opponent.

GRAPHICS: (29/90)
The aesthetics of this game are absolutely simple, with a predominantly green color scheme. The tiles you’re putting down are basic 1x2 symbols, the meaning of which is not really that clear unless you really study the help file (which cannot be invoked after it has been dismissed), and the two “portraits” in the corners are just squiggle lines. The default font has not been changed at all. Basically, it seems like the author has only altered the graphics to be functional, and I suppose that it does work to an extent, but they’re really quite plain and overly simplistic. I would think that the character set probably has space for these tiles to be even larger, perhaps 2x3 for example, which would really help the clarity of what these things are supposed to represent (like Strength, which really looks more like an eagle or an orb on a pedestal). Maybe some animations could be used here, too, to kind of slow things down when the AI is playing. There’s also no title screen.

TECHNIQUE: (24/80)
The game’s engine apparently is only in place enough to make the bar graphs work, tiles that are capable of being placed, and an extremely simple AI that just randomly plops tiles down on the grid when it’s their turn. It’s…well, a little underwhelming. There’s nothing particularly stand-out in this code. The game doesn’t even bother with mouse support. But I’ll give it this: it works. To an extent.

STORY: (5/50)
There is no story here at all. Five pity points for not being a recreation of Full-Life Consequences with guest stars Alvin and the Chipmunks, with a special guest commentary by the Angry Video Game Nerd.

SOUND (7/40)
Neat little sound effects for every tile that gets put on the board, but you can barely hear them over the unnecessarily action-packed and greatly irritating music. Thankfully, said music for some reason does not loop.

OVERALL (111/400)
I think this one’s also a victim of poor time management – specifically, knowing that your own skills are probably not enough to implement a fairly complicated game in less than twenty four hours.

<nowiki>#</nowiki>79530: ???
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

This game is apparently intended as a survival-themed adventure game, but I’m not really sure if it’s completed, because while I can interact with a few things, I can’t get out of the one room, and looking in the editor, that’s about all there is.

THEME: (44/100)
Isolation as imprisonment, this time with stasis vats or something, and the one room that you can’t get out of. I kind of liked there this one was going, but it takes a pretty severe hit due to not being finished, and thus, not having much to expand upon what was being done here.

GAMEPLAY: (28/90)
Again, there’s really not much here – once your character somehow escapes from his vat, there’s all of four things to do – you can look at the other rat in the vat next to yours, try to use the computer that controls the vats, try opening the door (which you can never do, I think) and fiddle with medicines, only two of which won’t kill you upon ingesting them. The thing about killing the player with them is, even with the warnings given, there’s no indication that the analgesic will kill you (Chrome even remarks that it makes him feel better before the game goes into the death scene). Then again, maybe I’m looking at this entirely the wrong way – maybe death is truly the only way out. The end game text does seem to indicate that there’s another way, though…I’d be damned if I could find it, though, despite restarting the game about three times (and by the way, the intro cannot be skipped, so if you forget to save before screwing around with the potassium chloride, you get to watch that stuff all over again). There’s also apparently a blood loss system in place, which I assume means you’re going to die if your character bleeds too much. Except somehow, I ended up with “-9%” blood loss (from an initial stat of 48%), so I’m guessing that never actually happened.

GRAPHICS: (48/70)
This author is obviously talented, giving the game a dark and gritty feel without resorting to brown everywhere (there are still some primary colors here), but the thing is, there just aren’t enough graphics here. There’s the title screen, one picture in the introduction, one playable board and a couple of zoom-in screens on the terminal and medicine cabinet. That’s basically all – the graphics look good, but there’s not enough of them! Must admit, though, the flickering old monitor effect on the terminal is pretty good (and doesn’t hurt the eyes that much).

TECHNIQUE: (20/60)
On display here: a bleeding system (that doesn’t actually kill you), some menus that don’t have any obvious bugs in them, and probably the most advanced thing being the DOS terminal. The terminal is a little glitchy; in order to get any commands to work, you have to hold down the Enter key after typing them, or else the terminal just creates a new line and beeps at you. It’s very difficult to type things on here, which I’m assuming is a limitation of the engine, though it could easily be argued that it’s Chrome being an inept typist. Either way, though, I had to drastically slow down my own typing to get the keys to respond. Thank goodness the backspace key works, at least. I also noticed that while you can “take” the medicine from the cabinet, this doesn’t seem to affect anything other than displaying a message that you’ve taken it, as there is no obvious inventory function.

STORY: (33/50)
The game’s introduction comes from a log entry of some personnel aboard what I assume is a starship or something, describing some rat people, one of which was captured alive and put under stasis for further research. The feeling of desperation really adds to this game’s presentation, but the realization that not only is there nothing important you can do in the game, but also that the bleeding doesn’t actually seem to kill you, rather ruins things. Another victim of unfinished work. I will say, though, that I would have loved to see this continue.

SOUND (24/30)
A neat little electronic song plays as the intro types on screen, then the rest of the game is ambience and sound effects. These are actually pretty good. There’s even sound effects for Chrome typing on the terminal keyboard. The title screen song really doesn’t establish the mood properly, though…it’s a little too upbeat.

OVERALL (197/400)
Just shy of a 50% score. Which if we’re going by the American education grading scale, is still an F, but an A for effort, I say.

SCORE SUMMARY

#1. #30641: 310 points
#2. #70273: 286 points
#3. #60441: 278 points
#4. #36306: 247 points
#5. #66482: 246 points
#6. #18030: 243 points
#7. #13210: 236 points
#8. #47527: 222 points
#9. #34477: 213 points
#10. #79530: 197 points
#11. #62239: 178 points
#12. #49781: 165 points
#13. #72165: 111 points
#14. #11617: 76 points

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel

2012-07-17T20:07:13Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets Weasel’s Judging Results Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux hosted by Kuddy, 01-03-2010 Preface Had a pretty decen..."

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

Weasel’s Judging Results
Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux hosted by Kuddy, 01-03-2010

Preface
Had a pretty decent-looking haul here. The submissions account for a bit over half of the entrants to my knowledge. I’m not much for statistics here – I’m just here to create them. Would have been an competitor this time around, but nobody was really offering to help Kuddy judge, and I didn’t want to make him judge everything by himself, so that reviewing muscle of mine gets put to use once again. Let’s get started…

#11617: isolation puzzle puzzle platform
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

THEME (1/100)
The most "theme" this game attempts is putting the word "isolation" in its title. The one available level doesn't really do anything with the theme either, outside of there being two strange eggplant-like creatures trapped in a room in the corner.

GAMEPLAY (14/90)
It's a pixel-perfect sidescrolling game, which is somewhat more forgiving in platforming than most char-based sidescrollers, but the problem is that the game's help file makes no mention of you being able to jump in mid-air if you walk off a platform, and the very first platform jump requires the use of said physics oddity. Falling into the bottomless pit at the bottom of the screen resets you at the beginning, sans one health point. The only level in the game seems to be more geared towards a technology demonstration than an actual game.

GRAPHICS (22/70)
To its credit, this game does have a pretty well optimized pixel perfect engine, being able to run quite smoothly without any major frame rate hiccups. Unfortunately, the artwork is not exceptionally clear (I still have no idea what those red eggplant-shaped things are supposed to be, aside from red eggplant things that hurt you), and as pixel perfect engines go, there is a slight bit of color bleeding around terminals. The enemies and giant fans animate (a bit), but the player does not, outside of flipping when traveling left or right. The level design is just grey solids.

TECHNIQUE (29/60)
As stated above, the engine is decidedly well optimzed and smooth, and even has support for Mario-like momentum and fans that propel you high into the air. These are not used that much, though, and while the game appears to have support for displaying the player's diminishing health when being attacked by enemies or falling off platforms, the player can never actually die from any of it, as I assume the health system was never properly finished.

STORY (5/50)
This game has no story. Therefore, it shall receive five pity points for not being an adaptation of "Until The End Of Time" by gofer-chan.

SOUND (5/30)
Like the story, sound is also non-existent, therefore five additional pity points for not playing a PC Speaker rendition of any song by Taylor Swift.

OVERALL (76/400)
What would have benefited this game is actual levels, gameplay, something we can do. Tech demos won't win you awards. Logicow already proved that last year.

#13210: ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR
Theme: Alien Invaders (Concrete)
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one starts off apparently posing as a ZX Spectrum, MSX, or Commodore 64 type game, complete with loading screens and what I assume are floppy disk noises. The title sequence appears to have the most work put into it. I didn’t see this team mention which scoresheet they wanted, so I’ve taken the liberty of assigning Theme-Light to them myself.

THEME: (1/20)
While the game’s title screen mentions aliens, there don’t seem to be any in the game whatsoever (the included text file even states that it could easily be Isolation instead because there aren’t any aliens). So we’re left with…air vents? On closer inspection, this game has neither aliens nor elevators in it, and while the air vents might contribute to an Isolation theme, I’m pretty sure the author(s) wanted to go for Alien Invaders instead. One point out of pity here – right idea, wrong theme.

GAMEPLAY: (13/120)
What this game appears to actually have in it is a single pseudo-3D maze, with a few hotkeys you can press that don’t appear to affect anything. You can check your Status (which is always “Peachy!”), look in your Inventory (“Nothing!”), or use a Gadget (which is a rather tiny and barely helpful map function). While I was wandering through the maze and dreading what confusing architecture was at hand, the game suddenly tells me that the aliens just decided to leave, thus the game ends. Not really much of a game, is it? I’ve given this one a low score, but more out of the fact that this game effectively tricked me into thinking that it would be a game and then pulled out at the last second.

GRAPHICS: (54/90)
I’ll give this one credit for graphics. These are some pretty slick graphics, even if the char editing kind of bleeds across the colored blocks at times (like the FUTUREMAN picture in the title screen, and the walls in the air vent). The majority of the work put into this game seems to have been graphics alone, with the title screen being far more elaborate than the rest of the game, though the pesudo-3D engine should be noted for its attempt at a light diminishing effect (really just clever char editing, not so much actual coding). When the game ends, we’re presented with an ASCII version of Somethingawful’s famous “awesome” emoticon which is actually a neat old-school touch but doesn’t earn it any real points.

TECHNIQUE: (30/80)
For programming efforts, this entry gets just shy of a middle-range score. On the one hand, a pseudo-3D maze engine designed from scratch is relatively novel, particularly one that attempts a (faked) light diminishing effect. But on the other hand, a lot more effort seems to have been put into drawing the NES-throwback title screen graphics, which could easily have been done using Charcon or a similar program and probably didn’t take much time at all outside of drawing the pictures. The 3D engine appears to be powered mainly by the 40-some char sets lying around in the game directory, as opposed to the old-style method of Copy Block commands and clever use of the overlay. This brute-force method seems a little cheap to me, but hell, it’s resourceful, I’ll give them that much.

STORY: (13/50)
After the crazy 80’s-style story text at the beginning of the game that describes the awesome new SPACE ELEVATORS and the ALIENS that take them over, I expected this game to keep up with the bombastic style and throw in a few MC Hammer references. But as soon as the Story So Far ends and we’re sent into the game itself, the story just kind of stops. Then the game just ends with the cheesiest plot hand-wave ever, making me quite disappointed. I wanted to see how far it could go. LASER PANTS, maybe? More games should have those.

SOUND (35/40)
Sound is also a stronger point of the game, with music selections being exclusively chiptunes, even though only three songs are actually used out of the six included. Sound effects are also chippy, contributing to the 80’s feel. Bravo for keeping to your style, if not the competition theme.

OVERALL (236/400)
Which is a shame, because this game will most likely end up getting disqualified due to its utter lack of theme.

#18030: PRISON ESCAPE
Theme: Isolation (Abstract)
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

Welcome to Prison, arguably the most common start to any Megazeux game ever. Of course, your goal is to escape, in addition to figuring out just why you were thrown in here in the first place.

THEME: (79/100)
This game plays with the idea of isolation as loneliness. It seems like the prison’s only real inhabitants are the rats, the sentry guns, and yourself, and there is barely any evidence that there’s any living humans left. You only find some skeletons and bloody corpses, and the occasional outdated newspaper. When you get outside of the building, you find one person standing there, but of course he’s a guard and decides to shoot you. If you manage to dispatch him (i.e. by having the correct inventory item when this scene is triggered), you come to the realization that you are now the only human for miles, in what the board title refers to as “ultimate isolation”. It’s pretty heavy stuff, especially for a medium typically known for cheesy community in-jokes and old-school action games.

GAMEPLAY: (47/90)
This being essentially a traditional-style Megazeux adventure game, your only real concern is touching the correct objects to trigger reactions from the game script. In this case, you’ll be picking up various inventory items that will be used automatically when needed. I’m sure at least one person might have trouble figuring out the (few) puzzles on occasion, but they’re really quite simple, if you’re the kind of person that searches through everything indiscriminately. It’s actually more interactive than I expected it to be, with even the “ending” cutscene requiring some input from the player. Somehow it seems like the author is drawing inspiration from Hideo Kojima (i.e. more than just sound effects). While the game provides numerous opportunities to die, the author is merciful enough to make things not kill you on the first try, interestingly; you can be injured once “for free”, with the second injury killing you, and your health is reset every time you change boards, giving you some margin for error without forcing you to abuse saved games.

GRAPHICS: (36/70)
This game uses only a few edited characters over the default MZX character set, though it does at least make its environs look appropriately dank and unsettling, with a few good uses of water puddles, corpses, the occasional wandering rat. The player character (and all other humans) is just an edited MZX smiley, however, making the ending scene seem a little too light-hearted, and almost difficult to comprehend without the accompanying sound effects. The special effect used in the end-game actually contributed a lot to it, though.

TECHNIQUE: (25/60)
Somehow, this game doesn’t strike me so much as a programming masterpiece as a way to prove how much can be done with only some simple commands (and without built-ins). I think the game could really have done with at least some advanced effects for graphics, though.

STORY: (34/50)
The game makes no attempts at exposition at the beginning; you are merely a man in a prison and of course you have to escape. But as you’re escaping, you uncover some newspaper articles presumably detailing who you are and why you’re here, as well as a potential motive. Then, upon breaking out of the prison, I’m confronted by what I assume is the only other living human in the area: the guard that wants to kill me because I escaped. For those people that didn’t obsessively search the lockers, the story would end here. But if you found the syringe, that scene continues with you getting back up and attacking the guard, then (I assume) concluding that you are now completely, utterly alone. This was actually executed quite well, but some of the newspaper articles seemed a bit amateurishly written, which wasn’t entirely fatal to the mood of the game, but did kind of jar me out of the experience for a few seconds. Also, I kind of wish there was a more conclusive ending than just the black screen. I waited for 30 seconds before I realized there wasn’t any more.

SOUND (22/30)
Pretty good use of ambient sound effects, voice effects pulled from Metal Gear Solid, and appropriately timed uses of them during the final scene. Pretty well done. Lack of music might prove to be a turn-off to some, but in my opinion it all works nicely. But then, I’ve always enjoyed games that place such an emphasis on sound over music for atmosphere, so…

OVERALL (243/400)
It really needed some graphical polish, I think, in addition to perhaps adding some more interactivity.

#30641: Celestial Altar
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one starts off with a pretty slick title sequence with appropriately spacey music. It’s apparently intended to mirror the classic Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, with a visual-novel type approach, bookended with console-style RPG battles as the story deems appropriate. The game is entirely mouse-controlled, and I find that it works pretty well.

THEME: (18/20)
Well, it’s initially stated that this game is about alien invaders, and at first that doesn’t seem obvious, but at a certain point in the plot, you realize why it’s been themed as such. It’s not quite as ham-fisted as “NO JOHN, YOU ARE THE DEMONS”, which is good, because the chosen genre really lives and dies by the quality of its writing, though I can’t help but think that perhaps this team picked the wrong scoresheet, as I think it would have done better as a Theme-heavy entry.

GAMEPLAY: (74/120)
While I certainly had fun playing this game, I should probably mention again that I think this game was really filed under the wrong score sheet. The game’s strength really isn’t in its gameplay. While it’s not bad – it’s basically an RPG, but without all that clumsy wandering around on world maps and random battles – I can’t help but think that this sort of setup really kind of simplifies things a bit too much. It’s almost as if Killer 7 were an RPG – there are branching paths, but they’re all spelled out for you with little opportunity for players to do something unique. Granted, it’s a great throwback to the Fighting Fantasy series (Lancer did say he was inspired by those on IRC).

GRAPHICS: (75/90)
The people behind this game (it’s GOT to be more than one! There’s no way one person was capable of all this! But apparently it was only Lancer so I’m completely dumbfounded at how this is possible) obviously put a lot of love into the way it looks, even though the writing is the real star of the show. Backgrounds are very pretty, with things being pretty well defined despite being made entirely of half-chars. The backgrounds will transition between one another when going between “pages”, which is a neat effect and makes page changes a bit less jarring. When battle scenes appear, the animations use cross-fading transitions and lots of palette changes (despite this being done in SMZX mode, I’m assuming there’s more than a few palette modifications going on in the background here, with how smooth the cross-fades are). It’s really quite beautiful, but judging from the score I put above, there’s actually one flaw to it – the double-wide font used for all in game text. I do run MZX in a window, though, meaning I can easily just resize the window to be slightly more narrow, which helps a lot with making the text more readable. But all this double-wide text is a bit difficult to read at a normal aspect ratio, and since reading is so crucial to the operation of this game, that prevents this from getting its coveted perfect score.

TECHNIQUE: (74/80)
Proof that you don’t need vector-based, free-rotating graphics or silky-smooth pixel-perfect platforming to really impress. The game engine really goes above and beyond what most would consider to be needed in a visual novel, with the screen transitions and battle effects. Though the game is controlled with the mouse, the author insisted on making the mouse pointer pixel-perfect as opposed to Megazeux’s basic 80x25 mouse system, making it almost seem like this isn’t even a Megazeux game anymore. And all without a single instance of the word “raytracing.” Unfortunately, however, because of a debilitating glitch, I found myself unable to continue playing the game after a certain point in the second village, as one route just showed me a monolith that I couldn’t do anything with, and the other route gave me no options to choose from, effectively stopping the game. However, after some conversing with the author over IRC, I was at least able to fix the issue I was having and finish playing. It should be noted that there are also some mild glitches with the text system (Lancer says he did not put numbers in the game’s font, so some text screens will omit the prices of items on sale) and occasional typos.

STORY: (44/50)
Celestial Altar handles the Alien Invaders thing a bit differently than expected: while it seems like a basic fantasy story at first, you eventually learn that your existence on this unnamed planet is because of a project on Earth to migrate all of Humanity into space, with your character apparently being either a member of the crew involved in said project, or a descendant of one of them. You eventually track down the whereabouts of the space ship, which due to some massive metaphysical glitches involving the way it circumvents faster-than-light travel, is completely messed up, twisted and bent like an Escher painting. You manage to put it right again by battling the dimensions themselves, and after an almost Kojima-esque period of exposition, you fight the final battle. Even for as short of a game as it is, this is positively epic stuff.

SOUND (34/40)
Excellent selections for music, with occasional sound effects for menus being manipulated or battle effects. Great stuff all around, but the caveat here being that since the music is in a streamed format instead of tracked, some more care should have been put into making sure that the tracks looped properly, as it is somewhat jarring when a song fails to loop and suddenly drops off into silence, only to start fading back in from the beginning.

OVERALL (310/400)
Only four entries into the list and already I’ve stumbled upon a real beauty of a game. Wonder how the others compare?

#34477: Duck Rescue
Theme: Alien Invaders, I assume
Scoresheet: Theme-Light assumed

I’m assuming Logicow had a part in this one, an Amiga-style sidescroller featuring a waterfowl protagonist…and it’s not really too friendly to those of us with older machines (it’s NOT old! **cough**).

THEME: (7/20)
After a pretty long and drawn out argument on IRC involving Logicow and other people that I respect, the unanimous opinion is that this game is supposed to be Alien Invaders themed. And I was supposed to immediately realize this based on the fact that the guy that carries off your girlfriend is big and green, and that there are UFO’s later on. I begrudgingly give this 7 theme points out of 20, meaning that it’s not really that tight in the theme but it’s not low enough to disqualify it.

GAMEPLAY: (34/120)
What could have been a fun little platform shooter is kind of deadened here by some questionable design ideas. For starters, why does the game run so slow? Checking out the robot code tells me that it’s running at MZX_Speed 2, meaning it should be working fine, but I’ll get into that in the Technique area. The questionable designs I mention are the occasionally odd jump physics (it feels like I can’t jump as high if I’m jumping against a steep slope) and the fact that the game level stops scrolling on occasion to allow some enemies to spawn. Fighting them is just too easy with the game running as slow as it is; at least once I’d be able to pass the screen-locked section by simply shooting at the edge of the screen until the screen decided to scroll over. This game also suffers the classic sidescroller pitfall of not making it clear whether an object is something you can stand on, or if it’s merely part of the background. I was initially confused at an early section until I realized that you could stand on a rock, which I had foolishly assumed was a mountain in the background. Then I fell through a tree branch.

GRAPHICS: (78/90)
I didn’t expect this game to get very low of a graphical score, and it really does quite well here. This game looks decidedly un-Zeux-like due to its usage of half-chars with liberal use of outlines and cartoon-style shading. Because the on-screen characters are so large, this loss in screen resolution turns out to not be much of a problem at all.

TECHNIQUE: (46/80)
It’s a sidescroller. But rather than be the usual brand of overdone single-character MZX sidescroller, this game is half-char driven, giving it not only a pleasant retro feel but also making the game physics far more accurate than the chunky old MZX scrollers (without needing to be pixel-perfect). What kills the Technique score here, though, is the fact that it runs so terribly on my system. Despite being set at Speed 2 (which should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 FPS), FRAPS tells me that the game is hovering somewhere in the 20 FPS range (but it lies), and upon sharing a video recording of my computer running the game, I have it on good authority that it should really be running about twice as fast. This slowness not only causes the ensuing game to be boring as hell, it also makes it too easy on part of the action not being quite frantic enough. For reference, my system is a Pentium D 3.0 GHz running Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. There is no reason why a side-scroller like this should be running so slowly!

STORY: (10/50)
The game’s story is presented in much the same way as the old NES action games: you and your Girly-Colored Duck partner are standing in front of your house, when a not-so-jolly green giant appears off the right side of the screen and snatches said girly duck and then runs off. It’s up to Yellow Duck to run towards the right side of the screen and shoot fireballs at all the aliens until he can rescue his love. It’s really nothing special, but it’s at least presented quickly enough to not get in the way.

SOUND (28/40)
While Duck Rescue only includes the one module file for music, that file is fast-paced and light-hearted enough to set the mood. Sound effects, however, are generated using MZX’s old PC Speaker SFX system, which does lend something of an old-school flavor to it, despite there only really being two sound effects.

OVERALL (213/400)
Come on, man, a little work on the programming could have made this so much more enjoyable! (Also please state which bloody topic your game is supposed to be filed under, so I don’t have to ask you on IRC!)

#36306: Voluntary Solitude
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

A narrative-driven action game with a flair for drama.

THEME: (75/100)
This game also deals with isolation as loneliness, but also the effects it can have on a man. Here, we deal with a man who has barricaded himself in his home to defend himself from “the Creatures”, preparing himself for an oncoming assault. As the player looks through the various supplies, he finds pieces of a note that, when completed, push the player’s character over the edge – that is, more so than he was already, as the game then establishes that he’s been in a rubber cell in a mental asylum the whole time, in a decidedly different type of isolation. Much like Prison Escape above, it deals with some pretty dark stuff, presenting a perfectly “valid” point of view from a person who doesn’t see the world the way the rest of the world sees him.

GAMEPLAY: (38/90)
For as good as the game did at exploring the theme, I’m actually somewhat thankful that Ryan chose the theme-heavy score sheet, as the game mechanics of this piece are a bit disjointed, and at times a bit too plain. The core game is a traditional MZX overhead shooter, with the basic Space+Arrows control scheme that prevents the player from moving while shooting, and the projectile bullets that are occasionally difficult to hit enemies with. The less fun part of the game mechanics involves the blind searching through all the random supplies scattered around the house. Granted, the game dialogue does tell you to start looking over the supplies, but making this the core goal of the game (just randomly touching everything that isn’t a wall) makes the solution a little confusing and tedious. This game really doesn’t do anything innovative with the way it plays.

GRAPHICS: (44/70)
If Megazeux hadn’t progressed beyond the features available in 2.51, this game would still be possible, as the game doesn’t do much graphically, but still somehow gets the idea across. The palette doesn’t seem to be changed much from the default, and the characters are pretty simple bipeds and circular enemies with bizarre, crooked mouths. That’s probably the closest a simple MZX character can get to a proper eldritch abomination, and I do give points for at least doing that, but as far as its placement in the competition, it somehow doesn’t stack up with its simple graphical techniques.

TECHNIQUE: (30/60)
Pretty much a middle of the road score here. I didn’t encounter any major glitches or issues with the way the game worked, but it also doesn’t seem to do anything really amazing code-wise. The player’s sprite doesn’t even animate when moving. This game could at least have benefited from some extra effects, perhaps a better weapon system, or even a Resident Evil-style “glint” for hidden items among all the random supplies and stuff. Anything to prevent the player from having to touch every single object in the house.

STORY: (35/50)
I quite like the way the main character is presented here. The player is lead to think that the events around him are completely real, but once the note is assembled, the pieces start falling together. It’s written well enough to get by, with no major typos or grammatical errors, but there are ways it could have been improved, especially with the way the dialogue is written. Perhaps the internal monologue could have been written in more of a conversational tone, as with the ending scene between the player and the doctor. Also, using the word “isolation” in the in-game dialogue somehow sounds so much cheesier, almost like a movie that tries to sneak its own title into the script (“Man, I’m so tired of all these Star Wars…”). But hey, at least most of the DoZ entrants thus far haven’t tried to put the name of the theme in their game title…(Weasel fondly recalls “Ford Exploration”…)

SOUND (25/30)
The game’s sound selection is pretty good, with only one exception: the Doom pistol sound. This sound, along with the “OW!” from Cans and the insert-credit sound from R-Type (better known as Heal.sam), is among one of the most used Megazeux sound effects ever. It’s almost Megazeux’s own Wilhelm Scream. But I won’t continue ranting about it, as while you’re firing your Doom pistol at the Creatures, you’re listening to some pretty good monster sounds and some downright intense orchestral music that may have been originally composed for a Hollywood film (though looking over the included OGG files, they might be Creative Commons – score one for the public domain!).

OVERALL (247/400)
This game is good proof that playing the right scoresheet will get you good points.

#47527: Abandoned
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

What’s this? Another inventory game? Well, this one’s not so quickly written off – it at least has potential, despite being decidedly short and unfinished. Regrettably, this competition doesn’t award points for potential, only for actual content. That doesn’t stop this one from at least earning a good chunk of points, though.

THEME: (44/100)
You’re in prison. You’re lonely. Isolation. Ah ha. Without a really coherent plot, the extent of Isolation being involved in this game is pretty much limited to the fact that it takes place in what I assume is prison. And there’s a guy cut in half in the cell next to yours, perhaps to emphasize that you’re alone. The author admits that the game isn’t really finished, which is a real shame – I’d love to have seen what more could be done with it.

GAMEPLAY: (38/90)
Abandoned runs with an adventure game formula, which sounds like typical MZX fare, except that the interface is slightly different. The game is effectively a side-scrolling game, with your character only capable of moving left and right, and facing into the background to interact with some objects. Inventory items can either be used by themselves, on other items, or on things in the world, which is more than most MZX inventory games have done. Of course, the game taking place in a prison, we’re about to see the next reuse of the Prison Cliché, meaning that the tools you need to escape the cell are actually already in your inventory or are easily accessible (i.e. the book of matches). At first, the puzzles are pretty simple stuff if you’re a MacGuyver fan, but as it goes on, the solutions get into stuff that should have been left to whatever Myst clones are still hitting store shelves, like the combination to the generator room puzzle. There is one major thing to take issue with, though, and that’s that the game isn’t finished. You have access to all of four rooms (not counting the elevator), with the fourth room not having much of anything to do except fiddle with switches. Once these switches are in the proper position, which you’re apparently supposed to learn by reading a randomly placed bloodstain on a wall, the elevator discreetly opens another floor in which the game ends. Dealing with the elevator wasn’t really that easy to get the hang of, despite the instructions being printed on screen. At least make the elevator shake and make noise or something when you use it. Hell, make the generator room actually tell you HEY, THE ELEVATOR HAS ANOTHER FLOOR OR SOMETHING. RAGHLAGHLHLGHHGE.

GRAPHICS: (61/70)
These graphics bring to mind some of the finer MZX games from two decades ago – Booshkies, A Hidden Anomaly, and The Beginning. Ironically enough, two of those games are unfinished, and the third was another Day of Zeux entry, but they all looked great then and still look pretty good nowadays. This game reminds me of them in the good, nostalgic kind of way. The very large player sprite, the detailed background artwork, the gritty yet minimalistic character editing. This stuff looks better than a lot of SMZX-mode games I’ve played, showing that you don’t need four colors per character and a giant palette to make something look good.

TECHNIQUE: (36/60)
The programming in Abandoned is well assembled with few glitches, but perhaps some of the engine’s elements could have been rearranged and altered a bit to be more user-friendly. The inventory system in particular presents some frustrations, where I’d need to cycle through the entire thing a couple of times to figure out where a specific item was. It almost feels like the inventory is changing its order around every time I open it. Also, the player character moves quite slowly.

STORY: (22/50)
There’s actually not a lot of story to be seen here, presumably because the author was busier with the gameplay elements than with the events that occur in the story. Had the story been written, though, I can kind of see the direction the author was going with it. They say dead men tell no tales. I say, have a look at the guy in Cell 2 – whatever killed him obviously had some story behind it! But the fact that said story is nowhere to be seen in the game is disappointing.

SOUND (21/30)
KKairos on IRC pointed out to me that some of the music in this game was pretty familiar. Turns out he was right: about two thirds of the music (i.e. two songs out of the three included) were also used in a DoZ entry from last year. Hmm. Well, they certainly do fit the game, and I’m not going to dock any points for music reuse, because it’s not like the music was made specifically for the previous game (ModArchive, heh). Sound effects are well done as well, realistic, high quality, and hey, footsteps!

OVERALL (222/400)
Gameplay’s decent and all, but I think time constraints really got in the way of this one. My advice: manage your time properly!

#49781: TurnCoat
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

The story of an alien resident on Earth. Feels a bit like the basic concept of Invader Zim, except without the Jhonen Vasquez humor.

THEME: (11/20)
Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect at least one entry to go with the “YOU ARE THE ALIENS” route, I hadn’t exactly hoped for an entry to make it as cut-and-dry as this. You are the aliens. Except the aliens want to enslave humanity (and your dog, I guess) so you decide to side with the humans. So what was initially an interesting-sounding flip-flop turns into just another “Fight Da Alienz!” type thing.

GAMEPLAY: (39/120)
Another MZX-type shooter, with a unique weapon to make things at least somewhat interesting. The Squiggle Gun (hee hee) attacks over a 5x3 area in front of the player, but much like any other MZX shooter, you can’t move while shooting, so if your target just happens to randomly sidestep your beam of sorta-death, you’ll have to stop shooting, move to the side, then start shooting again, hoping that this time your beam will actually hit them. This is not helped by the fact that the aliens are just “go RANDNB” with occasional explosive attacks. Yeah, the combat in this wasn’t much fun to me. The only real upshot, I suppose, is the fact that you don’t have to worry about ammo.

GRAPHICS: (38/90)
The title logo didn’t bode well, being rather difficult to read. Getting into the game, I suppose it at least looks half decent for environmental artwork, but it’s a little dark. Character edits are a little confusing. I hadn’t realized that the player’s dog was a dog until I interacted with it, and the same goes for the toilet. The blocks that make up the levels are not bad, but the interactive things, characters and such really needed work. You can only do so much with 8x14 pixels. This is a game that could have benefited from larger character sprites, or even traditional-style overlay heads. I don’t think the overlay is really used for anything other than the status display and message boxes, and even those could be altered.

TECHNIQUE: (33/80)
TurnCoat makes heavy use of a custom text box, with a slow-ish animation that occurs every time it opens. And it opens every time someone speaks, and during cutscenes, every time someone else is speaking. This animation takes about two seconds to complete on Speed 4, making the flow of text very slow indeed. Also, I don’t understand why parts of the text are formatted in such a way that there are only three lines on the box at a time, when it’s capable of holding five. I also notice a few things like the toilet-portal being a bit delayed from when you look at the toilet (I assumed it would do nothing but give me the protagonist’s description of it, and suddenly I’m portaled away to the secret lair as I’m walking around the house), and a few instances in which the text box is open and there is no text inside it, as if the text box engine believes there is more text to display but there actually is not. I also managed to get the game to simply cease working after the first combat scene in front of the house, after which I decided to just keep playing through the editor. The Squiggle Gun, while it still uses default MZX shooting controls, feels a bit more like Hobo Dan’s famed Hobo Blaster in its randomness and complete lack of an ammunition system. It’s a little hard to kill things with it – it’s like a sword engine almost, except harder to control.

STORY: (18/50)
Although your character appears human, he’s actually an Alien Invader, sent to investigate and monitor the activities of Earth’s population and serve as a spy in the inevitable full-on assault. And yet, when said invasion actually mounts, you decide that you love your dog too much to let the aliens enslave all of humanity and kill them. Now I’ve heard of Stockholm Syndrome, but this is ridiculous! Also, the dialogue seems kind of stiff and badly paced, though the author does seem to have put some thought into at least making it sound like a conversation. The story ends as our hero pushes the Self Destruct button on the bridge of the alien ship, waits for it to count down (under the pretense that he should probably stop the aliens from disabling it), then has one last thought: “I hope someone feeds my dog.” Is the dog really that important? I can only think of one game in which the main character would rather save one person/creature over an entire planet full of them, and that game was Prey, and I really didn’t like the way Prey handled that either. I don’t know of anybody that actually thinks like this. It’s very harmful to the willing suspension of disbelief.

SOUND (26/40)
Music selections are at least atmospheric enough to keep me from wanting to unplug my speakers, but given the game’s focus on action, I would have liked something a bit faster paced, less depressing. The squiggle gun sounds kind of cool, but it only makes sound if you’re holding both Space and the arrow key at the same time, and while the gun continues to fire with only Space held down, it stops making noise. Outside of that, that seems to be the only real sound effect in the game (aside from the hundredth use of Heal.sam). Okay, modarchive is a great resource, but I think I ought to start pimping out places like Freesound.org, as they’d probably help games like this achieve a better Sound score.

OVERALL (165/400)
This one’s not terrible, but it’s also not great. It’s apparent to me that this team was just spread too thin.

#60441: FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-light

This one’s a two-sided action game featuring both overhead and first-person sequences. And, uh, lots of blatant appealing to the judges.

THEME: (11/20)
The authors of Forsaken Daylight initially forgot to state their theme, with no explicit mention of either Isolation or Alien Invaders in the game or included Readme.txt file. (They also forgot to mention the controls in said readme, but that’s something for another category.) GreaseMonkey said on IRC that the game was intended for Isolation and the Theme-Light scoresheet, therefore I am considering the game under these circumstances. The game toys with the idea of Isolation in a slightly different way from “isolation as loneliness” – while there are two playable characters

GAMEPLAY: (91/120)
I must admit this is probably one of the more fun action games to be submitted this time around. The first “side” of the game is an overhead action game that has you controlling DJ, where you’re equipped with a shotgun and some bombs. The shotgun uses a hitscan system instead of projectiles, making it very easy to hit most targets. It also seems to be using proper math to determine the shotgun’s firing cone, with a degree of randomness. This firing cone roughly corresponds to half of your flashlight beam (which incidentally is only really used on the first overhead scene). Shooting zombies is loads of fun with the shotgun, especially with unlimited ammo. Bombs are apparently also hitscans, detonating everything within your visible radius without harming you.

The other half of the game is the first-person scenes where you control Anthony who has a pistol. These scenes are powered by a raycaster, and feel remarkably like the original Wolfenstein. As with the overhead sections, you have unlimited ammo, and the objective is generally just to find the stairs, except in the first scene where you have to track down five coins so you can use a phone booth to contact someone who can open all the locked doors for you. Now, these sections are almost as fun as the overhead segments, but of course I’ve got something to complain about – the raycaster used in these scenes is only drawing blocks at 80x25 resolution, making it very difficult to see over distances greater than two cubes away. I suppose this simplified approach to raycasting makes it run smoother and easier to code, but it gets in the way of gaming when you have to treat your pistol as a melee weapon. Thankfully though, there’s no limit to how fast you can hammer the Fire key (which is inexplicably Control, instead of Space like the overhead segments). If only I could see things more clearly, the raycasted 3D segments would have been as fun if not moreso than the overhead scenes.

GRAPHICS: (69/90)
It’s clear to me that this game was created in halves by two people and then mashed together, as the overhead and raycasted segments have vastly different art styles to them. Overhead scenes are mainly MZX smileys and lots of blood effects, but are used to great effect here and somehow manage to be dark and gloomy enough to offset the fact that we’re really only seeing the same old smiley with sunglasses. First-person scenes are raycasted, with a screen resolution low enough that I found it difficult to discern anything outside of my pistol and any wall closer than two cubes away. But somehow, it still looks mostly alright. Not “over 70 points” alright, but mostly alright. I think this game would have earned some more points if the raycaster had used halfchars, and perhaps a bit more uniformity in art styles.

TECHNIQUE: (61/80)
I think the major draw of the game is its raycaster, of course, but I was honestly more impressed with the shotgun and flashlight effects in the overhead scenes than I was with the raycaster. Again, the 3D engine could really have used a higher resolution, even at the risk of frame rate loss. And perhaps something other than the default MZX keys and locks…I suppose this still gets a pretty good score though, chiefly because it’s a solid engine that I didn’t encounter any major bugs with.

STORY: (14/50)
I assume the game’s story is more along the lines of “hey there’s zombies, let’s nuke this factory” with some author self-insertions for no good reason. It’s never adequately explained why there are zombies, nor why the authors are bombing the building, and the game ends with Logicow running in, saying something cliffhanger-like, and then the building explodes with everyone inside of it. Even an Arnold movie has more story than this. =P

SOUND (32/40)
Major, major points go toward the sound category here. Through sound effects, it’s actually plausible how DJ can keep firing his shotgun without a reload pause (because you actually hear him popping fresh shells into the gun after every single shot). The firing sounds for both weapons are pretty good, in addition to the blood splat noises made when zombies are blown into meaty chunks. I suppose the music at least kept things feeling nice and moody (or in the case of the 3D scenes, quick and panicky), but as with the graphics, the two styles don’t mesh together as well as I hoped they would.

OVERALL (278/400)
Thank God this team got around to telling me what theme they were using, because it’d be a shame to let this stuff get disqualified.

#62239: ???
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

An untitled fantasy action game with an interesting mouse gesture-based spellcasting system.

THEME: (5/20)
The text file admits that the game wasn’t really finished enough to really get into either theme, and while it initially states that it’s themed on Isolation, Wervyn stated on the forums that the game really fits better as an Alien Invaders game. Much as it pains me to admit, this game really doesn’t go very well with either theme, but I’ll agree that Alien Invaders probably earns it more Theme points than Isolation, because the rooms in this game are rather wide open and I didn’t sense very much isolation elsewhere. Therefore, I’m going to take pity on this one and give it just enough theme points to avoid a disqualification.

GAMEPLAY: (38/120)
Your intrepid mage (I am assuming he’s a mage) is in a randomly generated dungeon fighting leeches and nasty things with spells. Controlling yourself is pretty easy, with the WASD keys used for movement and the mouse used to cast spells in any direction. The gesture-based spellcasting is actually pretty well done, allowing you to cast spells by click-dragging in one of four directions to cast an elemental spell. There are only a couple things I would have changed here: enemies take too many spells to kill, resulting in a lot of mouse flinging to cast the spells repeatedly; and the spells are organized a little strangely, with Fire being the North spell, Air being East, etc. Now, not to be an academic snob or anything, but if we’re following classical Medieval alchemy, Air would be North, Fire would be East, Earth would be South, and Water would be West. But then, Alchemy also calls for “Aether” to be at the center of that, plus a few other things like Mercury and Salt, so maybe I’m just going a bit beyond my bounds here.

Basically, though, this game generates a random dungeon, has you fight through it, and makes you attempt to reach the next floor. Thing is, though, no matter how many times I tried, I could not get the down stairs to work, basically meaning that the game is only really capable of making one floor in which you are doomed to die. It’s pretty hard to avoid damage, and well, I don’t think there’s even a health system implemented here. The game simply lets you take all the spells and attacks you wish and then prints “You are dead” on the message row, yet still allows you to wander around and blast leeches with Earth. So the final Gameplay score will be just shy of a third, for at least showing that a mouse gesture system is plausible in a Megazeux game. Oh, how I wish this could have been fleshed out some more. Wervyn and company should really expand upon this game.

GRAPHICS: (78/90)
Here’s another one of those games that really shows how much mileage you can get out of two colors per character. The game appears to make liberal use of sprites, so the player and monsters are all 2x1 and animated pretty nicely. It’s abundantly clear that characters are supposed to be, and even appropriately creepy in some places. (I’m sure I’d really hate to run into that shadowy dinosaur-like thing on the title screen.)

TECHNIQUE: (47/80)
As the game is unfinished, there are really only three major components on display here: the movement engine (WASD, eight-directional movement, works as expected), the random dungeon system (which could stand to have been a bit more in the background), and the mouse gesture system, which actually works pretty well aside from the elemental directions (but that’s not something I feel I should be taking points away for). What’s actually here seems to work correctly, outside of the stairs which are either broken or unimplemented. Either way, I can’t really continue playing because of them, so yeah.

STORY: (5/50)
No story on display here, so five pity points because at least it’s not utter nonsensical trash that gets in the way of the rest of the game.

SOUND (5/40)
No sound on display here either, so once again five pity points for not being a hundred copies of “Scorching Savannah” from Katamari Damacy played over top of each other.

OVERALL (178/400)
This one’s kept alive through sheer programming technique and good graphics. Now if only the actual game had been implemented.

#66482: “THOSE ALIEN INVADER!”
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Seems like we get one of these every year or so – a danmaku shooter in MZX!

THEME: (10/20)
I don’t know about most people, but when I think of alien invaders, I think of stuff like…well, Space Invaders! Shoot ‘em ups! A single fighter against the evil empire! Naturally this game appeals to that retro instinct with something that feels very Atari-ish. Maybe even Intellivision-ish. It does the 80’s in a more pleasing fashion than Aliens In An Elevator. As for the theme score? Eh…middle of the road, because it really just goes in the expected direction, not so much in the “unexplored concepts” direction.

GAMEPLAY: (98/120)
I’ve never been very good at danmaku games. All those bullets flying everywhere, making it difficult to tell not only where I’m at, but where my hitbox is, where the bullets’ hitboxes are, and whether or not my laser is even hitting the boss. But I assure you this is chiefly a problem with me, not with the game, as this is actually a pretty spirited attempt at bringing an abstract shooter a la Kenta Cho into Megazeux. You are a tiny yellow ship with a constant beam laser and five bombs. These bombs don’t damage the boss; they are chiefly for erasing bullets. This is pretty much the same formula as Normal Mode in Kenta Cho’s rRootage, preserved pretty well here. Even though I dislike most danmaku games (because I suck at them), I still had fun playing this one.

GRAPHICS: (44/90)
I understand it being a little difficult to make anything pixel-perfect in Megazeux, particularly if you’re doing so with a pixel-doubled screen, but there’s an awful lot of color bleeding going on. It’s rare for me to say this, but I think this would have looked better if all the sprites were white over the blue background, because the color bleeding was starting to get a little distracting.

TECHNIQUE: (55/80)
The engine here is by no means a new thing to Megazeux (as danmaku has been done at least once before, and so has pixel-perfection), but this one came through with no show-stopping bugs, with only some issues with the character colors going on, which as stated above was getting a bit distracting.

STORY: (9/50)
The story is a simple (deliberate?) Engrishy little blurb. If you lose the battle, you get a different blurb and the option to try again. That’s about all there is to it here. I didn’t manage to beat the thing, so I don’t know if there’s an equivalent blurb for winning. It doesn’t get in the way, so a few extra points for that, but it’s certainly not Roger Zelazny.

SOUND (30/40)
No sound effects, but well chosen music propels this at least to a 30 point score.

OVERALL (246/400)
What would ordinarily be a cheesy little curiosity is actually pretty well executed here. A few changes to the way the game does graphics (mainly color) would have sent this a little higher.

#70273: Antares
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-Light

THEME: (10/20)
It’s a game about how a space ship was taken over by some aliens, and how you’re the sole survivor that needs to destroy the vessel to prevent it from being used by the enemy. Pretty standard fare as far as alien invasions go, and I suppose it’s a good enough setup for a beat-em-up.

GAMEPLAY: (101/120)
This game is pretty much pure Maxim here: classic arcade action, this time presented as a Double Dragon style beat-em-up game, with punching, kicking, and the occasional LAZOR GUN to enable you to attack at distance for a little while. Similar to Double Dragon and other such brawling games, the enemies show up in large waves of as many as ten, some occasionally armed with guns themselves. Punching and kicking really aren’t that different from each other in terms of damage, but the main difference is really that you’re attacking low and high, as opposed to weaker and stronger attacks. This will end up being crucial if you’re swarmed by enemies and unable to align yourself perfectly with them – you may need to kick enemies that are positioned lower than you, or punch enemies that are up higher. Of course, the enemy waves tend to swarm you pretty quickly, meaning you’re going to lose a lot of health over them unless you’re very clever at managing the hordes. (Side note: this game marks the triumphant return of KICKING GUARDS IN THE NADS, something I’ve not seen in Megazeux since Agent Jeff Kenny from several DoZ’s ago!) Also, great notice should be made to the fact that this game has selectable difficulty settings.

GRAPHICS: (68/90)
Maxim’s distinctive neon-colors style works quite well here, as the selection of bright colors (especially purples and greens) emphasizes the alien…ness…of the game. I’m running out of words to describe it. But the lasers actually feel pretty powerful on account of them being all flashy neon colored and stuff, and the animations are done pretty well.

TECHNIQUE: (63/80)
I didn’t encounter any major glitches, and the engine seems pretty tight. I like how MZX’s speed is set at twice normal just to make the projectiles fly smoothly without speeding up all the other characters. Basically, points all around for running a tight ship.

STORY: (23/50)
The story is presented on the title screen, if you care enough to sit and wait for it. It describes you as the last survivor aboard a ship full of aliens, and your main objective is to self-destruct said ship to prevent the aliens from learning anything. It does go on for quite a bit about the current situation, and the introduction text is pretty well written. That’s really all a game like this needs…but it’s not exactly an epic.

SOUND (21/40)
Sound effects are decidedly abstract, similar in feel to the old 70’s Hong Kong martial arts films. Music seems a bit too Smooth Jazzy to go with a beat-em-up, though. I think this would have gone well with some fast-paced electronic music.

OVERALL (286/400)
I think where this one could have used some polish was to have a bit more in-game motivation to keep going, story-wise. Even so much as a Gyruss-style “4 CORRIDORS TO GO!” prompt.

#72165: ???
Theme: Alien Invaders
Scoresheet: Theme-light

This is evidently supposed to be a Puzzle Quest type game.

THEME: (2/20)
I have no idea what this is supposed to do with alien invasion. Presumably there was a story in the works at some point, but nothing seems to have come of it.

GAMEPLAY: (44/120)
As a Puzzle Quest clone, the game revolves around you and your opponent taking turns putting down tiles. If the tiles end up matching three, four, or five in a row, then they have special effects. Evidently swords and guns are there to deal damage to the enemy, while skulls remove your own health, hearts restore it, the weird blue faces remove your “sanity” (not sure what this affects), and there are various grey tiles that increase what I assume is this game’s equivalent of mana stocks if they match. If you get enough mana (which you probably might if you’re lucky), you can use a special skill, of which there is apparently only one. If you ask me, this is one of those games that really is too ambitious to be pulled off in only one day, because the core game mechanics are not even finished and the game is almost not playable as a result. The instructions are also decidedly unclear. Basically, this game confused me, even though I was able to defeat the (one) opponent.

GRAPHICS: (29/90)
The aesthetics of this game are absolutely simple, with a predominantly green color scheme. The tiles you’re putting down are basic 1x2 symbols, the meaning of which is not really that clear unless you really study the help file (which cannot be invoked after it has been dismissed), and the two “portraits” in the corners are just squiggle lines. The default font has not been changed at all. Basically, it seems like the author has only altered the graphics to be functional, and I suppose that it does work to an extent, but they’re really quite plain and overly simplistic. I would think that the character set probably has space for these tiles to be even larger, perhaps 2x3 for example, which would really help the clarity of what these things are supposed to represent (like Strength, which really looks more like an eagle or an orb on a pedestal). Maybe some animations could be used here, too, to kind of slow things down when the AI is playing. There’s also no title screen.

TECHNIQUE: (24/80)
The game’s engine apparently is only in place enough to make the bar graphs work, tiles that are capable of being placed, and an extremely simple AI that just randomly plops tiles down on the grid when it’s their turn. It’s…well, a little underwhelming. There’s nothing particularly stand-out in this code. The game doesn’t even bother with mouse support. But I’ll give it this: it works. To an extent.

STORY: (5/50)
There is no story here at all. Five pity points for not being a recreation of Full-Life Consequences with guest stars Alvin and the Chipmunks, with a special guest commentary by the Angry Video Game Nerd.

SOUND (7/40)
Neat little sound effects for every tile that gets put on the board, but you can barely hear them over the unnecessarily action-packed and greatly irritating music. Thankfully, said music for some reason does not loop.

OVERALL (111/400)
I think this one’s also a victim of poor time management – specifically, knowing that your own skills are probably not enough to implement a fairly complicated game in less than twenty four hours.

#79530: ???
Theme: Isolation
Scoresheet: Theme-heavy

This game is apparently intended as a survival-themed adventure game, but I’m not really sure if it’s completed, because while I can interact with a few things, I can’t get out of the one room, and looking in the editor, that’s about all there is.

THEME: (44/100)
Isolation as imprisonment, this time with stasis vats or something, and the one room that you can’t get out of. I kind of liked there this one was going, but it takes a pretty severe hit due to not being finished, and thus, not having much to expand upon what was being done here.

GAMEPLAY: (28/90)
Again, there’s really not much here – once your character somehow escapes from his vat, there’s all of four things to do – you can look at the other rat in the vat next to yours, try to use the computer that controls the vats, try opening the door (which you can never do, I think) and fiddle with medicines, only two of which won’t kill you upon ingesting them. The thing about killing the player with them is, even with the warnings given, there’s no indication that the analgesic will kill you (Chrome even remarks that it makes him feel better before the game goes into the death scene). Then again, maybe I’m looking at this entirely the wrong way – maybe death is truly the only way out. The end game text does seem to indicate that there’s another way, though…I’d be damned if I could find it, though, despite restarting the game about three times (and by the way, the intro cannot be skipped, so if you forget to save before screwing around with the potassium chloride, you get to watch that stuff all over again). There’s also apparently a blood loss system in place, which I assume means you’re going to die if your character bleeds too much. Except somehow, I ended up with “-9%” blood loss (from an initial stat of 48%), so I’m guessing that never actually happened.

GRAPHICS: (48/70)
This author is obviously talented, giving the game a dark and gritty feel without resorting to brown everywhere (there are still some primary colors here), but the thing is, there just aren’t enough graphics here. There’s the title screen, one picture in the introduction, one playable board and a couple of zoom-in screens on the terminal and medicine cabinet. That’s basically all – the graphics look good, but there’s not enough of them! Must admit, though, the flickering old monitor effect on the terminal is pretty good (and doesn’t hurt the eyes that much).

TECHNIQUE: (20/60)
On display here: a bleeding system (that doesn’t actually kill you), some menus that don’t have any obvious bugs in them, and probably the most advanced thing being the DOS terminal. The terminal is a little glitchy; in order to get any commands to work, you have to hold down the Enter key after typing them, or else the terminal just creates a new line and beeps at you. It’s very difficult to type things on here, which I’m assuming is a limitation of the engine, though it could easily be argued that it’s Chrome being an inept typist. Either way, though, I had to drastically slow down my own typing to get the keys to respond. Thank goodness the backspace key works, at least. I also noticed that while you can “take” the medicine from the cabinet, this doesn’t seem to affect anything other than displaying a message that you’ve taken it, as there is no obvious inventory function.

STORY: (33/50)
The game’s introduction comes from a log entry of some personnel aboard what I assume is a starship or something, describing some rat people, one of which was captured alive and put under stasis for further research. The feeling of desperation really adds to this game’s presentation, but the realization that not only is there nothing important you can do in the game, but also that the bleeding doesn’t actually seem to kill you, rather ruins things. Another victim of unfinished work. I will say, though, that I would have loved to see this continue.

SOUND (24/30)
A neat little electronic song plays as the intro types on screen, then the rest of the game is ambience and sound effects. These are actually pretty good. There’s even sound effects for Chrome typing on the terminal keyboard. The title screen song really doesn’t establish the mood properly, though…it’s a little too upbeat.

OVERALL (197/400)
Just shy of a 50% score. Which if we’re going by the American education grading scale, is still an F, but an A for effort, I say.

SCORE SUMMARY

1. #30641: 310 points
2. #70273: 286 points
3. #60441: 278 points
4. #36306: 247 points
5. #66482: 246 points
6. #18030: 243 points
7. #13210: 236 points
8. #47527: 222 points
9. #34477: 213 points
10. #79530: 197 points
11. #62239: 178 points
12. #49781: 165 points
13. #72165: 111 points
14. #11617: 76 points

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588

2012-07-17T20:04:57Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets Welcome one and all to pyro's judging scores for the 2010Q1 DSDoZ! To make things interesting, I decided to try somet..."

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

Welcome one and all to pyro's judging scores for the 2010Q1 DSDoZ! To make things interesting, I decided to try something new: Play all the entries and perform judging while simulating a flight from Duluth, MN to Cookeville, TN! So with HOTAS Cougar prepped and both MZX and FSX running, I lowered the flaps, torrented the games, accelerated to full throttle, and took off to play a fantastic set of entries!

11617
This one was a bit of a disappointment to start out with. It's a pixel-perfect jumper with a single pixel-perfect enemy and a single pixel-perfect door. Oh, and no scoresheet specified, so we'll go with the theme-heavy one.

Theme 10/100
Not many points to give here. Your character isn't really even alone. He's got a big enemy (who may potentially be an alien invader!) keeping him company. You get a couple points for having a single player, I guess.

Gameplay 8/90
To the game's credit, there is some basic gameplay laid out. You can run around and jump in a pixel-perfect manner. In classic feature-not-bug mode, you can also jump if you've already fallen off a ledge. You can also throw some switches (or maybe you're pressing buttons?) that will make some stationary fans start flickering or open a large green door to let your potentially alien friend come down for a visit. You have health which is depleted by falling off the screen or letting your large friend run you over. That's about it...

Graphics 7/70
Again, there ARE technically graphics here. There's your little guy, there's his big friend, there's the door, the fans, and the fabled "space terminals." A question: are these terminals located in space? Or are the terminals with only a single form of input: a spacebar? Ah well, unanswered mysteries. On a sidenote, why aren't the fans animated? The fan blades just flicker in and out of existence.

Technique 15/60
Ya get some points here just for having a functional pixel-perfect jumper. You also have a PP enemy and door. The fans actually do work and help to keep your character aloft. Also you have an enemy who moves and falls in a PP manner. Really, that's about all there is to this.

Story 0/50
Aside from the tragic tale of a underdog team pouring heart and soul into a beautiful and unique engine but tragically falling short when time runs out, there's no story here. A shame, too. Isolation is such a great topic for stories.

Sound 3/30
A full 10% pity points for having no sound. If the sound were anything like the graphics, I doubt this many points would be given.

Overall it's a neat engine but it's something we've all seen before. Coupled with the total lack of game and story, this entry can't hope to do too well. Sorry fellas, better luck next time =(

Total 43/400

13210 Aliens on an Elevator
I have to admit it: this was the single entry I was the most excited about from only the title screen. It looked awesome! I was so totally pumped to go and blast those aliens off of my elevator!
Oh, and once again, please specify your scoresheet.

Theme 15/20
We've got alien invaders on our space elevators! It's up to Futureman to save us! Really, the awesome title screen is where all these points are coming from. They had that awesome picture of the alien peeking out from the elevator door and the nifty picture of Futureman blasting aliens! What more do you want? I guess maybe integrating aliens into the actual game might help a little...

Gameplay 12/120
Okay, we've got a functional 3d maze engine the likes of which has not been seen since Weirdness. Except only the bottom half of the screen is there. Oh well, maybe it's that visor that Futureman wears.
Anyway, you wander around for a minute and then a message informs you that the aliens left. Whether it was the elevator music or the pranksters that pressed every button from the ground floor through 3,485 we'll never know.

Graphics 27/90
The biggest area this game scores is the title screen. There are several nice little graphics that appear, including a couple of rocking pictures of Futureman and his badass visor. Again, I had high hopes for this game based off the title screen alone. Ah well.

Technique 12/80
Again, the 3d maze is about as innovative in MZX as transvestite jokes. Other than the maze, there's the map feature which beams you over to the map that the maze is sourced from. Not much here, folks.

Story 17/50
The setup for this game is GREAT! I would LOVE to fight aliens on a space elevator! Granted, this is not Shakespeare, but it's still a really cool concept. As before, it's a shame that there aren't any actual aliens after the title screen.

Sound 16/40
There's some fairly good music in here. More would be nice, but it'd kinda require more game. Still, I like what there is. EXCEPT FOR THAT DAMNABLE SQUEALING SCREECH ON THE TITLE SCREEN! I really contemplated giving no points just for that abomination, but you weren't the only team to have horrendous sounds on the title screen.

In summary, I was really really looking forward to this game. It's a shame that fate always insists on crushing my hopes and dreams. Nice title screen, though.

Total 99/400

18030 Prison Escape
This is a game where you, um, escape a prison. Yup, that's about it. The title screen simply tells you that an exciting title screen will be coming soon. No other information. The game dumps you right into a prison, eliminating all that pesky "getting arrested" and "being sentanced." This lets you cut straight to the escaping!
Oh and this is also the first of MULTIPLE entries to have toilets. This must mean something. Unfortunately, I don't know what...

Theme 44/100
Technically, you ARE isolated. You start the game surrounded by 3 friendly faces, but close inspection reveals that their robots are named "Skeleton," "Skeleton," and "Skeleton," respectively. After breaking out of your cell, you meet more friends, like skeletons with a red background, which I presume to be blood. About the only living company you have are the little rats who scurry around on the floor, presumably eating crumbs dropped by the skeletons.
The ending makes no sense, but it does have your character "ultimately isolated," so I guess it's the right idea...

Gameplay 36/90
The game is standard MZX "walk around walls made of faded gray characters." You explore your cell and discover that you can kick your skeletonized friends. You then proceed on a brief inventory quest where you gather a file, an iron bar, dynamite, and a syringe.
The game runs into problems with this system, though. First off, to find the items you have to touch everything that isn't wall or rat. You have to search half a dozen identical lockers to find the one with the syringe in it. You have to go around kicking skeletons until a file falls out of one. Seriously, if the guy was trying to file the bars when he died, wouldn't he be over next to the bars and wouldn't the file be in his hand instead of somewhere so deep it requires kicking to free?
Using the items is as simple as finding the thing they need to be used on, which isn't simple at all. I guess the section of bars with the single fileable point on the entire gate DOES have a tiny little angle on its character, but that's about it. I couldn't figure out how to throw the dynamite at the stupid gun that keeps shooting at me, so I looked in the editor and found out that all I have to do is walk back into the killzone and try to be shot. Then my character will automatically throw the dynamite. Seriously?
Also for a game that requires you to touch everything to progress, making the fans hurt you is stupid. I can only guess at what the large reversing character thing is, so don't punish me for taking the same approach you expect me to throughout the rest of the game.

Graphics 21/70
The game looks a lot like Castle of Zeux, which isn't a particularly bad thing. What IS a particularly bad thing is a large board of black background, black floor, and too many identical hallways with a small viewport. If you're going to animate the stupid sentry gun and tell me it's there, why not let me look at it and appreciate the animation? And why is your small viewport only on the one board?
Bonus for the reflecting mirrors and for animating the guns (if only slightly.) But what made you think that flashing colors over the whole screen was a good idea at the end?

Technique 6/60
The game doesn't do much. The nauseating flashing colors are about as intricate as it gets. Other than that, there's a sentry gun that uses playerdist to start firing. The code isn't terribly neat and tidy, but I guess what's in there works. For the record, if you're going to have 16 lockers in a room that you can't get to because of a sentry gun, they don't ALL have to be real interactable robots.

Story 16/50
There's something in here about James Chester and his sentry guns which killed the queen so he was imprisoned, but that's it. It's never made clear WHO James Chester IS. He MIGHT be the player character (judging by the type of smiley,) but then why would he be imprisoned in a prison guarded by his OWN sentry guns? And the guy at the end MIGHT be George Westers, but what's he doing outside of a remote prison waiting to kill the guy who got him crowned king anyway? Shouldn't he be off doing kingly stuff? I get the feeling that there's a deeper story in here somewhere. I'm just not sure where.

Sound 6/30
It's got a dripping sound as the background for most of the boards. It's got Solid Snake's cries of anguish. It's got gun and explosion sounds. That's it, really, but I think the lack of music kinda highlights just how alone you are. Maybe.

Once again, what started out as a cool concept quickly deteriorated into a brief little fetch quest that never really reveals what it's all about. Smilies are well-drawn, though.

Total 129/400

30641 Celestial Altair
And so we come to it: the Lancer game. You all knew this was coming. To be honest, I hit p, saw the first board, and then put it off until I'd beaten all the other games. This time it's actually a bit shorter and significantly more fun than his last entry. I'd talk more about it in this intro, but let's just dive in.

Theme 16/20
This is by far the most interesting take on alien invaders. I'd like to do this without spoiling too much, but I guess at this point you all should have played this. If not, go play it.
I liked how the protagonist is an alien invader who must defeat a much bigger, nastier alien invader. I like using the powers of different aliens against the indigenous species of the planet. It all falls together quite nicely. Good choice going with the theme-lite scoresheet, though.

Gameplay 108/120
The gameplay is great! It's a text adventure very reminiscient of Choose Your Own Adventure books (right down to the would-be page numbers,) only this time it has battles! Oh, and all the text is backed by blurry images of the local area. You basically click your way through the game using a nifty pixel-perfect mouse. Oh, and right-click is used consistently and effectively.
The battles are fun, if a bit simple. The game uses a 2-on-2 battle system, letting you have a buddy follow you around. You're pitted against 1 or 2 different enemies. There are a handful of interesting enemies with niftily-animated attacks (is "niftily" even a word?)
You've got your standard attack, defend, magic and item options. There are four magics and four item types. I want to call it a little too simple, but the truth is that this game was made in 24 hours, so having 4 different magic attacks with unique and awesome animations is actually quite a feat.
The only place where I think the gameplay falls short is in the end where you're required to navigate a somewhat confusing maze. I never liked mazes in text adventures (or many games at all, really,) so this was where the walkthrough came in perfectly.
Again, there are a couple of tiny nits to pick at, but the entirety of the multi-path adventure game is solid and great! This game was a joy to play.

Graphics 90/90
I know, shock and awe that someone got full points. But really, this game has genuinely pretty visuals. The majority of them are rendered in half-char background pictures with relatively few colors. In spite of the monochrome look to the game, the visuals are still great for MZX. The battle animations look great and I LOVE how the enemies get sliced up when you finish them off!
The best part about the graphics is how smooth and unbroken they are. The use of half-chars makes the background a tad blurry but lets the text blend in with it gorgeously. Best looking game this DoZ.

Technique 80/80
As I said before, the engine is fantastic! The mouse controls as smoothly and accurately as it does in [insert OS of choice here]. Aside from a quickly-patched glitch, the game works excellently. The battle system is pretty much perfect (aside from the typical 'flee' option that wouldn't make much sense in an adventure game like this.) I can't really think of much else because nothing really stood out as bad; the engine just fit the game so well.

Story 45/50
The story was also surprisingly good. It sets up a nice typical fantasy-ish setting before throwing in the whole alien invaders twist. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I wasn't a native but rather Khan, only more magical. I started having difficulty following it during the final monologue where it got all multi-dimensional and confusing, but the story still stands out as a good solid adhesive that holds the experience together.

Sound 36/40
There's a variety of music that's generally pleasing to the ears. The piano piece used during the long explanation of your backstory fit particularly well. The final boss theme is also pretty awesome.
We also have a plethora (read: 24) of different sound effects. These range all over the board quality-wise but none of them are conspicuously bad.
I really hope we start seeing some decent looping OGG music. If you're going to use the format for background music, you may as well take advantage of the looping capability. Fading background music out really breaks continuity, so as soon as MZX has OGG looping capability I hope everyone jumps on it.

This is easily the most technically accomplished and polished entry this DoZ. It's always fun to see what Lancer can cook up. I'm glad he took a lesson from last time and made this one a bit less repetitive. Entertaining gameplay, extremely pretty graphics and a compelling story make this the one entry that everyone should definitely play.

Total 375/400

34477 Duck Rescue
How fitting that we should leave the Lancer entry and come to the Logi entry. Logi has a history of making games that bend MZX outside of where its comfortable and force it to do new and interesting things. He had the first solid pixel-perfect sidescroller. Without further ado, Duck Rescue! Actually wait, I have one more ado before beginning. Why do you refuse to specify your scoresheet? Or your topic, for that matter? Are the little floating guys alien invaders? Or is this game about the pain and solitude felt by the duck because of the forced isolation from his ladyduck? Oh well. Alien invaders and lite scoresheet it is!

Theme 14/20
As I mentioned before, the enemies in this game are presumably alien invaders, though really, the ducks could be the aliens invading these guys' planet. Or maybe it's like Lancer's entry and both races are aliens invading this innocent planet. Oh well, 70% for having little flying ships.

Gameplay 96/120
And so we come to the core of this game: the sidescroller action! Duck Rescue is a sidescroller where you control a duck made out of half-chars in an environment made out of half-chars fighting aliens made out of half-chars. We'll get to the graphics in a minute, but let me say that the half-chars actually make sidescrolling action relatively smooth here. What doesn't is the speed. This engine runs very slowly, and while this makes the game a tad bit easier, it doesn't make it a lot of fun. I got bored fairly quickly just because it took me so long to waddle across the screen. My duck bullets travelled across my screen slower than a real-life duck can (that sentance only makes sense if you've actually had a duck walk across your monitor.)
Moving on, combat is straightforward. Shoot them, avoid being shot by them. You can jump, the aliens can run, jump, and fly. If you make contact with them or their bullets, you lose health. Your health is regenerated every 2 screens or so. When you reach the end, shoot and avoid the large alien for slightly longer than the small aliens. Yay. Not particularly challenging, not particularly original, but in no way bad.

Graphics 73/90
It feels weird to be giving Logi so low of a graphics score, but the graphics here don't do a lot for me. With Lancer's entry, the low-res pictures provide a nice background to crisp and clear text and the simple-but-clean menu system. In Logi's game, the low-res graphics are used for the main game and don't look so good in the limelight. It's not that the sprites aren't nice; it's just that they're low-res and take up a large portion of the screen. The colors are nice, but they can only do so much to offset the resolution. Again, it's still really good, just not enough to justify full points.

Technique 64/80
Here again I want to give more points but one or two things are bugging me. It's a great sidescroller engine, but it's still just a sidescroller engine. Sidescrolling shooters aren't exactly new in MZX; rather, what sets this apart is the display code. The problem there is that it's so slow. I'm running on a dual core at 3GHz and it still crawls along at an almost intolerable speed. When I'm jumping around and shooting, I want it to feel fast and fluid, not like Neo got stuck in bullet time and can't speed up. I guess that analogy is a bit stretched, so let me rephrase it: the game plays too slowly.

Story 10/50
Nope, not much here. You're a duck happily hanging out with your lady duck. A large turquoise man walks up and vamooses with your lady duck tucked under his Gumby-like arm. You must then pursue him, armed only with your duck gun and a seemingly unlimited supply of duck bullets. You will face aliens, flying aliens, and more aliens! At the end, you'll face the large alien! That's about it. There's no text after the title and so there's really no story here.

Sound 10/40
There's one song. It's not bad other than the fact that it gets old quick. Since you get 4 points for having no sound, I suppose 10 isn't too bad for having only one song.

Overall I DID enjoy this game. It's just that I would have enjoyed it more if it had been longer, faster, and had more enemies, weapons, and gameplay mechanics.

Total 267/400

36306 Voluntary Solitude
On the more traditional single-char player end of the spectrum, we have voluntary solitude, an interesting journey into the world of the last surviving man on earth and his epic struggle against the creatures that have murdered those dear to him and indeed, all other inhabitants of the planet. Oh, and it also has a toilet =)

Theme 72/100
The game is about the last man alive whose only company are hordes of evil purple masses who seek only his death and destruction. You can't get more isolated than that. Still, the general feel of the game doesn't do much to capitalize on this. You spend the entire game in your small trailer home. If you were in a big mansion and could wander around eerily empty halls or something, I could see giving more points. As it stands, your isolation is only highlighted by the absence of other characters in a single board that's too small to accomodate them anyway.

Gameplay 36/90
You wander around an empty house looking for scraps of a note left by your late wife. These scraps are hidden in such places as a weird thing (of which there approximately 200 in the house,) the left side of a 2-char weird thing (of which there are approximately 38,) and the corner of a brown thing which might be a table or maybe just a brown thing.
In between notes, your house is broken into by a bunch of giant mouth creatures that rush at you with all the intelligence of the "walk seek" command. You gather copious amounts of ammo, let them pile up around a corner, and then step out and unleash a torrent of full metal jacketed rain (read: MZX bullets.) They die, you look for more notes, etc. That's all there is. I got tired of touching everything that wasn't background (and some that was) and looked in the editor. Yay for Shift+F2.

Graphics 16/70
Not a lot to say here. There ARE custom characters; it's just I have no clue what they're supposed to be. There are these bizzare salt shakers with a big Z on them all over the house. There are weird two-char things that might be tables or coatracks. There's what appears to be rubble in the kitchen and bathroom, but I can't really be certain. There's also some awful red carpeting in one room...

Technique 9/60
As I mentioned before, your enemies "go seek 2" until they get to you, at which point they "dec 'health' 10" until you die. If you shoot them, they go randns 2 and randew 2. This isn't exactly high-tech. As I've stressed with other games, it's not BAD. Good gravy, my first several DoZ entries weren't even a fifth complete; you've done much better by aiming low and finishing a game. Next time you can learn some new techniques and try something a little more daunting.

Story 35/50
It's not terribly original but it's there. I pretty much had the whole thing figured out by the second note, but that doesn't mean it's a bad story. Actually the only reason I knew what was up is because Lancer's previous entry had a pretty similar premise. As with your engine, it's not bad, but try to improve from here.

Sound 26/30
The music was the best part of this game, and it was great! The old standby of a steady high-pitched violin note that we all came to know and love while exploring Magus's castle makes an appearance. Your wandering music in general is what makes me feel alone, isolated and scared. You did a great job picking out your solitude music. Your battle music could be worse. I'm not a fan of really frantic metal, but it DID make battles feel scary and hectic (even though they weren't particularly.) Your sound effects ranged from okay to pretty good.
I really need to highlight this again: you did a GREAT job picking music that matched the game. This is a good thing that a lot of DoZ entries don't do so well. Good job on this!

This really feels like a first DoZ game, so I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it is. Like I said before, finishing your game is always a good thing and you managed to do this. It's a good start and you can only improve from here.

Total 194/400

47527 Abandoned
A quick search of my comments thus far reveals that I haven't used the word "favorite" yet, so let me say that this is my favorite game for the isolation topic. It does the best job thus far of making me feel alone in the dark and scared.

Theme 93/100
The game starts you off in a prison cell by yourself. You escape to find yourself in a hallway, alone. You enter a dark blood-soaked passage without anyone there to hold your hand. It really did a great job of making me want to call up John on my phone so I could talk to someone while playing it.

Gameplay 58/90
It's a brief inventory adventure game. You walk around small rooms and collect, inspect, use and apply items to your environment. The movement works well, although it's a tad slow. The puzzles are all fairly straightforward. Where I ran into trouble was the inventory system. You have both "use" and "apply" options and it took me awhile to figure out that they mean the same thing but are used randomly in different situations. Just because I can't "use" the coin on the screw in the vent doesn't mean I can't "apply" it to the screw. My character sits there with a single-pixel pouty lip waiting for me to word my request just right for him.
Sadly, the gameplay ends all too quickly after the second floor. A brief look in the editor reveals how to turn the power on at which point you take the elevator to a black room where the message row explains that the author ran out of time. It's a shame because I really liked where this was going.

Graphics 64/70
The game is pretty. Very pretty. It's a bit more of a traditional approach to graphics than Lancer or Logi, but it still manages to look awesome. The game uses a small viewport, but the level of detail in these small rooms is great! There are cracks in the wall, mold and bloodstains on the floor and ceiling, and a flickering light that makes the whole room a tad dark when it flashes off. The bloody handprints, the blast mars around the destroyed door, the little symbols on the computer screens are all pretty cool. I've always been a fan of little details and this game has plenty of those.

Technique 36/60
The game uses a solid engine to move you around your environment and gather items. There are no major bugs that I've found and it holds together pretty well. That said, it's not terribly complex. Your sprite moves around the room. In the dark room, he's got a little visible area around him. What there is here works pretty well.

Story 16/50
You're given the premise of the story and not a whole lot more. It's a fairly standard premise, but it works well. I wish there'd been more because the game honestly had me intruiged. Ah well, the smattering of explanation we got was a good start.

Sound 21/30
Good ambient music. It feels ominous. Good sound effects, too. I like how the footsteps are played at random frequencies so that it doesn't sound too monotonous. Again, while there isn't a whole lot here, what there is does the job well.

As I mentioned, this game has got to be my favorite for isolation. I love the whole feel of it and all the little graphical details. I'm sad to see it so incomplete. If the team is looking for a post-DoZ project, finish this game please!

Total 288/400

49781 Turncoat
And here we have another interesting take on alien invaders where once again, you play one. This game starts out with a brief little adventure part and ends with a brief little action part. Sandwhiched in between is a brief little cutscene.

Theme 20/20
You play an alien from a race of aliens who are about to begin invading earth. You can't get much more alien invader than this. Well, maybe if you were like the Ridley Scott alien and had an eggplant for a head.

Gameplay 66/120
Nothing too profound here. You wander around the house and look at your dog. Then you go to your toilet, which is yet another in what must be the biggest toilet frenzy of a DoZ we've had to date, and use it to teleport to your secret lair. It may not be the best looking toilet in this DoZ, but its teleportation ability makes it by far the coolest.
Then your bosses arrive and you decide they can't invade earth because it might upset your dog. You shoot them, crash your shuttle into their ship, and then wander around long green hallways shooting sprite and non-sprite enemies with 3 different weapons. They're each rather unique, but once you figure out a pattern that works for the big sprite enemies, you'll just spam that until they explode.
The brief little puzzles to open the doors are obnoxious. You must move around at a locked speed and shoot single-char targets very rapidly in a precise sequence and then try to make it through the door before it closes again. It is nothing short of aggrivating.
While we're here, let me address an issue common to more than one entry. If you're going to restrict the player's ability to use MZX defaults like the F2 menu and saving, you'd better have a damn good reason for doing so. For instance, Lancer and Logi both lock their respective games' speeds because the games are designed to run at a certain speed. They will appear slow and choppy if they don't. Lancer disabled saving because he had a nifty saving system built into his menu. You, on the other hand, have restricted my ability to adjust my speed and volume and to pause my game. Now instead of pausing with the enter menu, I pause with the help window. Are you really trying to make me look at the stupid help window whenever the phone rings? If you're not going to replace the default functionality, don't replace it.

Graphics 45/90
There are definitely custom chars here. They range from fair to middlin'. The houseplants are fairly obvious. The blocks in your inexplicably delapidated house look worn and inexplicably delapidated. The dog looks like a dog or baby holstein. The rooms in the whole game (and especially the enemy ship,) however, are bland and repetitive. Your aliens are blocky and not that interesting, plus they're a rather disgusting shade of orange that reminds me too much of cheap halloween candy. Overall it's a mixed bag and you wind up squarely in the middle of the points range.

Technique 42/80
Sprite-based enemies that move in a predictable pattern that makes them easy to kill. A message window with a little rolling-out animation that WOULD be nifty if it were faster and I didn't have to stare at it EVERY TIME I interact with something. And even then, you have random breaks in the middle of sentances when you still have half the window available. And when the message is done the next keypress just empties the window without closing it.
The saving grace in this category are the 3 weapons that you use to fight the predictable aliens. There's the short-range beam with infinite energy, the medium range grenade launcher that's used for taking out the orange guys, and the long range minigun with the nearly invisible dark-blue-on-black bullets that you use for... oh wait, you don't really use it because it sucks up far too much energy to be useful.

Story 32/50
What we have here is another interesting twist on alien invaders where you, the would-be scout, have a change of heart because of your dog and decide to stop your own people's invasion of earth. There's not a whole lot more to it, but the initial twist plus the continuation of the dog subplot makes me smile.

Sound 14/40
Not so hot in this department. Your music starts out okay but gets a little bit grating after awhile. Your sound effects are all standard MZX fare, and that leaves me wishing I'd hear something new whenever a door opens or something explodes.

As a final note, final stands can be cool in games but they can also be really boring. If it's CoD4 where you're in Prypiat after an awesome mission and you have to hold off attackers from multiple directions with an array of awesome weapons while waiting for a gigantic awesome chopper to rescue you, it's cool. If you hide behind a desk and hold down the spacebar with your default weapon while the timer slowly counts down and your ears slowly begin to weep blood from the sound, it's not so cool. There are two strategies in the final stand: 1) Hide behind the desk with your default weapon on the whole time or 2) Run around blasting with your nifty new energy-hog chaingun, run out of energy, die, load, and hide behind the desk with your default weapon. A bit of an anticlimax, really.

Total 219/400

60441 Forsaken Daylight
And so we come to CJA's entry which is almost as fun to make predictions about as Lancer's and Logi's. If memory serves, this isn't the first time CJA has had us blasting zombies into pieces with fun weapons and a melodious soundtrack of flying giblets. It is the first time, however, that we've had to run around in a raycaster blasting zombies. I suppose it was inevitable given our communal fascination with them of late.

Theme 4/20
For a game based on isolation, you sure have a lot of shambling necrotic friends. I guess the idea is that you're isolated from your fellow humans whom you continually call and who eventually rescue you. Looks like theme-lite was a good choice for you =P

Gameplay 120/120
*GASP* FULL POINTS!
Ya know, the thing about this game is that it is genuinely fun to play. I really enjoyed blasting my posthumous compadres into extra-chunky peanut butter. I like the nifty little lighting system that forces me to check my 6 every so often just to make sure I don't have anyone shuffling up and trying to take a bite out of me. I love walking right up to an undead monstrosity and blasting it clear across the room with my good ol' 12-gauge.
And then we come to the raycaster part where my shotgun magically transforms into a pistol. The controls were a bit lacking here and you run into the issue that NO ONE LIKES 3D MAZES especially when you can't strafe, but the section still works overall. It's a nice break from the 2d levels and a second copy of MZX can provide that helpful map that I really wish I didn't need.
Still, in spite of some slight issues with the controls, I like this entry just for the enjoyable zombie blasting mayhem.

Graphics 68/90
I run into the problem of deciding whether to give points for having a textured raycaster or whether to take points for it looking kinda crappy. Admittedly, MZX is NOT a system meant for raycasters, so in light of that I'll have to go with giving points just for having textures on those walls. The rest of the graphics are solid as well. Zombies look decayed, the shotgun blast looks impressive, and that lighting engine is nice and rounded and fades nicely when moving.

Technique 64/80
The game basically has 2 engines, presumably by 2 different team members. The first is the nifty zombie-blasting one that works so well. The second is the raycaster that still works fairly well, but isn't as fun to use. Technically speaking, though, it's a good technical accomplishment, especially in 24 hours, and thus it warrants points in the technical technique section. Good technique, guys!

Story 22/50
It's got dialogue and cameos. The dialogue is decently witty and made me smile. The story iteslf isn't that great, but the dialogue manages to carry it well enough in this department. Dialogue, that is, between characters in a game about ISOLATION.

Sound 22/40
The music is decent. The sound effects are great! The deep shotgun blast and visceral zombie exploding sound effects are the delicious cherry on top of a wonderful sundae of violence and gore =)

Again, this game is extremely fun to play, if a bit hard in the last level, and I heartily recommend it to all MZXers. Good job!

Total 310/400

62239
Another entry in the long line of games that were just too ambitious. What we have here is the start of a randomly-generated magic blast fest with unique and nifty mouse controls. It's a real shame it falls kinda flat.

Theme 4/20
There are alien-looking things that throw red carpet at you, but honestly you look like an alien too. The title screen actually has many stationary animated creatures that look non-terrestrial. Graphics only, really.

Gameplay 46/120
There's a fun little engine where you wander around a random dungeon (created courtesy of another fun little engine) slinging spells at one type of these critters. They throw large amounts of red carpet at you while sprinting joyously towards your character and you throw 4 different spells at them. The spells are actually kinda cool. There's the exploding one, the other exploding one (that can go through walls,) the expanding wave one, and the direct zap one. You'll basically hold down one of the first 3 number keys and point your mouse at whatever you don't like until it dies or you decide maybe you do like it afterall. Not a lot here, but what there is works fairly well.

Graphics 56/90
Tox never fails to bring spiffy graphics to the table. Like I said, the title screen is full of very pretty multiframe animations. It's a shame they don't get used in the actual game. The spells aren't all that ornate, but they still look pretty good. It's really too bad the graphics weren't really integrated into the game.

Technique 52/80
You've got a decent random dungeon generator and functional if not terribly bright enemies. You've also got the start of a nifty mouse gesture-based attack system. It's a cool idea and could be put to good use in a slower-pace game. At the breakneck speed the enemies move, though, it's much easier to hold down the number keys and spam a colorful rainbow of death on your foes.

Story 0/50
Not much to say. No story indicates no points.

Sound 4/40
For some odd reason, though, no sound still gets points...

I see some interesting potential here for a unique dungeon crawler. As it stands, either make the combat turn-based and stick with the gestures or use the number thing and go for a faster pace. It'd pretty much be top-down underground fantasy Contra, but that's not neccessarily a bad thing =)

Total 162/400

66482 Those Alien Invaders!
One final entry in the pixel-perfect (or double-pixel-perfect) try-to-bend-MZX list. It's a bullet hell game where you play a small ship dodging small bullets while you fight a slightly less small ship.

Theme 16/20
You're doing battle with ALIEN INVADERS, so I don't see why not. I suppose technically it's just one invader, but then you defeat him and the game sends you right back out to defeat his twin brother who was apparently running 10 minutes late. Anyway, 16 points because you really only have one alien and he seems more intent on destroying you than invading.

Gameplay 72/120
If you've ever played a bullet hell game then you know exactly what to do. Point at the bad ship, hold down the fire button, dodge bullets using extremely forgiving collision detection. I don't like giving so many points out for repetitive gameplay, but you're making me split points out between technique and everything else. Also, unlike some entries, this doesn't get old too fast.

Graphics 25/90
You've got graphics here. They're small and barely above monochromatic, but they serve well enough. You run into the typical pixel-perfect problems of overlapping colors, but I still have to give you some points just for getting that many bullets onscreen at once to not look horrible.

Technique 72/80
Another good engine. This uses a PP engine for something new and interesting and, overall, does a good job of it. There could have been more content to the engine (like more weapons,) but as with many other entries, what was there worked well.

Story 12/50
Aliens invade, destroy them, blah blah. Points for having one, a few more points for tricking me into thinking I'm winning and then sending me back out into an identical battle. Not a whole lot of points, though.

Sound 8/40
You included 3 songs and used 1. Bit of a waste, but the single song used wasn't bad and fit well enough.

I like innovative ideas and implementations. This game is innovative in both concept and implementation. We've seen bullet hell and we've seen PP but it's cool to see them used together to provide some (relatively) smooth gameplay. Good entry overall.

Total 205/400

70273 Antares
Another game where you have to fight off alien invaders. Or maybe you're an alien invader fighting alien invader invaders. I'm not really positive... Anyway, this time instead of shooting them with duck bullets or invisible chainguns, you punch and kick them to death. Oh yeah, and I guess you do shoot them as well.
Also FOR THE LOVE OF CAKE please indicate your scoresheet. Lite I guess?

Theme 6/20
These guys are aliens in name only. They look like humans in suits. You look like a human not in a suit. Heck, maybe your guys just got confused because you're not wearing a suit and are attacking you mistakenly. Anyway, the points you get are from the plot on the title screen. I'm assuming the Dracos are alien, or at least Mexicans who crossed the border illegally.

Gameplay 50/120
It's a would-be brawler. Would-be because it really boils down to finding a technique and spamming it. You either walk up, punch and walk back or you get them all in a row on the top or bottom of the screen and then hold down the punch key. Not a lot of strategy here. And then you go through 6 more levels of it. Oh yeah, and there are also guns but you're given such a limited amount of ammo that you'll only potentially use them for shooting other guys with guns before getting all of your little alien friends in a row and standing at the front handing out right hooks like an author at a book signing.

Graphics 32/90
Not a lot here. There's you, there are a couple of different types of aliens that look nearly identical, and there's the obscenely chromatic backgrounds. Maxim had an entry that looked like a seasick clown that had been eating skittles for the last DoZ and I guess he liked the spectrum design enough to repeat it. I still don't find the colors very attractive or easy on the eyes.

Technique 48/80
You've got a functional sprite-based brawler here that mostly avoids enemies stacking up on top of each other. You've also got some basic gun mechanics. It all works, mostly, but there's not much here. Still, it works and it continues to work for 7 levels.

Story 15/50
Aliens invade, your ship has a large collection of fetish porn you'd rather your mother not find out about, and so it's up to you to destroy the ship before the aliens make it to that folder you hid so cleverly in the system32 directory.

Sound 6/40
You've got music. I don't particularly care for any of it, especially since it sounds like low-quality MODs and yet still manages to take up 2MB as OGGs. Sound effects are generally low-bitrate but they do their job okay.

Upon further inspection of the "plot" board, it appears that you are either a) a human with VIVID magenta hair and radioactively red lips or b) an alien that has adopted GMT for ease of scheduling purposes. I prefer zulu time myself.
Anyway, this is another interesting concept but it really needs more variety. Jumping and dodging, for instance, would have made the combat MUCH more entertaining, as would blocking. Still, a solid entry for 24 hours.

Total 157/400

72165
Alright, I have NO idea what this is. notes.txt says it's a ripoff of Puzzle Quest, which I have never played. Realistically, it's a semi-functional puzzle game that pits you against the random number god as an opponent.

Theme 0/20
Nope. notes.txt again seems to think that the game has something to do with aliens. It looks more like an extremely confusing version of chess where you plop down random units each turn that may help or hinder you. No aliens here.

Gameplay 18/120
Nothing to see here, folks. You're assigned 3 random tiles each turn. You try to group similar tiles together. If you do, they disappear and either help you win or help you lose. In retrospect, grouping a bunch of skulls together looks like a bad idea, but some explanation of what those skulls do would have been nice.
Your opponent puts down random tiles in random locations. He is about as sinister as a toddler throwing their cheerios around the kitchen. Less, in fact. At least your opponent doesn't leave a huge mess of crunchy crumbs for you to pick up.

Graphics 18/90
Yeah, not a whole lot here either. There are 11 tiles that you can plop down. There are some squigley lines up in each of the character's portrait windows. Um, nothing else really.

Technique 13/80
You've got some sort of pattern-recognizing algorithm that removes sets of tiles. You've got an opponent with the intelligence of 3 "set counter random" commands. You've basically got a semi-functional engine with absolutely no explanation. No real points to award. Sorry.

Story 0/50
No story, no points.

Sound 0/40
Normally you'd get pity points for the whole "no sound is better than bad sound" thing. Unlike the other entries who had no sound, however, you chose to INCLUDE some really obnoxious music and almost 2MB of unused sound effects just for everyone's listening displeasure. If you're not going to use it, don't include it.

The interesting thing about this entry is that the included notes.txt tells a much more interesting story than the game and is arguably more fun to read than the game is to play. Unfortunately, this is not NaNoWriMo, so you don't really get points for it. You had some interesting concepts in there. Personally, I want to know what an "anti-matrix" is. Is that where we have the machines trapped in a dream world so that they can't revolt?

Total 49/400

79530 For Liberty
Another adventure game where you can't get out of the first room. I feel for you guys. It took me a handful of DoZs before I could get anything completed. The difference is that you still managed to make something that's interesting, not ugly and worth a play (vs my upscaled robot animation from Weirdness SE.)
Oh, and we have yet another game that refuses to list a scoresheet. I guess theme-heavy works here.

Theme 32/100
You're alone and isolated, except for whatever is in those other tanks. The thing on the left looks like another thing like you, so that doesn't make you ALL that isolated. As with 36306, if you'd ever made it outside to see just how isolated you are, you might score some more points. As it stands, maybe your guy is just in a dark corner of his basement and his mom hasn't come downstairs to bring him his breakfast poptarts yet. No real framework here.

Gameplay 20/90
A simple adventure game made simpler by being 2 minutes long and mostly non-functional. You start off with a big wound and heavy bleeding. If you wait around too long, you bleed out. If you try to take any medicine for it, it either does nothing (and you bleed out) or it kills you. Even the tylenol. THE STUPID TYLENOL KILLS YOU. About the only option you have is to sit down at the computer and enjoy a brief moment of FakeOS command prompt bliss before death overtakes you.

Graphics 29/70
There are some nice graphics in the 3 boards of game. It's all nifty single-char oldschool MZX stuff, so it wins brownie points there. Still, there's not enough here to justify too many. Would it have killed you to make the drugs look a little more interesting? Oh wait, yes it would have because ALL THE DRUGS KILL YOU ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

Technique 21/60
About the coolest thing in this game is the computer screen where you can type. You can guess at random commands or look in the editor and find out that "reboot" reboots the malfunctioning computer. "unseal" should theoretically unseal the containers, but it doesn't do anything once you leave the computer. It was while I was sitting there waiting for it to reboot that I realized that I could have just as much fun typing commands into my real command prompt! Nice attempt on this stuff, but you need actual gameplay to back it up.

Story 18/50
Some points for setting up a decent premise and making me wonder what was going on, where I was and who my buddy in the next tank over was. $10 says it's just Charleton Heston waiting to wake up and go explore the monkey planet. Anyway, you mostly get points for making me feel intruiged. Actual further dialogue (or monologue) would've been good.

Sound 15/30
You had some GREAT sound effects at the beginning. The smattering of music you had wasn't bad, either. Really though, the sound effects during the opening monologue (especially when you break out) where almost as awesome as the shreaking violin in 36306. All you're missing is the slow, thudding of a heartbeat to make the creepy soundscape complete.

This is yet another entry that had some cool ideas and a bit of decent groundwork laid but was slain by the old foe of the time limit. This is another one that I wouldn't mind seeing completed now that the DoZ is over. Good start, guys!

Total 135/400

Rankings, though these don't matter nearly as much as the actual final scores. This is more for the convenience of people who want to yell "you ranked WHICH game better than mine!?!?" at me.

#14 11617 with 45/400
#13 72165 with 49/400
#12 13210 Aliens on an Elevator with 99/400
#11 18030 Prison Escape with 129/400
#10 79530 For Liberty with 135/400
#09 70273 Antares with 157/400
#08 62239 with 162/400
#07 36306 Voluntary Solitude with 194/400
#06 66482 Those Alien Invaders! with 205/400
#05 49781 Turncoat with 219/400
#04 34477 Duck Rescue with 267/400
#03 47527 Abandoned with 288/400
#02 60441 Forsaken Daylight with 300/400
#01 30641 Celestial Altair with 375/400

I realize in closing that this isn't the best, most linear distribution ever (R^2 = 0.9689,) but I'm not too unhappy considering that I managed to judge during a full week and weekend of military happenings. If you want to throw some angry bile my way, send me an email at pyro1588@gmail.com and I'll probably apologize profusely. Or maybe not. Anyway, I'm on the ground in Cookeville, TN after a rough landing in strong crosswinds. Go airplanes!

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo

2012-07-17T20:03:39Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "++ Day Of Zeux 2010 Q1 11617 ISOLATION isolation, theme-heavy So here we've got a "puzzle platformer" involving same-ol' mechanics, a single apparently unbeatable enemy, and a ..."

++ Day Of Zeux 2010 Q1

11617 ISOLATION
isolation, theme-heavy

So here we've got a "puzzle platformer" involving same-ol' mechanics, a single apparently unbeatable enemy, and a single, apparently unbeatable level. No visuals or sounds. Pixel-precision, though! WOOOOOO

Theme: 10/100
The player is alone, and the game world is dark.

Gameplay: 20/90
Underdeveloped, unexplored, and what's there is fidgety.

Technique: 30/60
You get points for doing up the engine. You lose them for doing nothing else.

In the future, please allow the player to set their own controls. Do this first! It's easy!

Sending the player back to the beginning but not resetting the level entire is a funky little Z[ZT/eux]ism and it's difficult to argue in favor of it. With what little you had to submit, and working on ostensibly a puzzle game, I would in your position just reset the level entirely when the player gets touched or hits a cliff. Nobody wants to listen to the MegaZeux game over tune. Nobody wants to quit and press play again.

Unless there's a good reason for the player to jump multiple times when he holds down the jump button, don't let it happen. If there is a good reason, then change the delay between jumps accordingly. The player should never, ever, ever jump entirely by accident. They figured this one out in the 80s.

The post-fall jump never made any sense in Adlo, but crankgod did design an entire game around it. You designed one jump, the opening jump, around it and you never explained it was there. Bad! BAD

We have all kinds of nice features these days that make these tweaks simple to implement, but you went with infamously quirky pixel precision stuff instead.

Oh, and normalize the game speed plz.

Graphics: 5/70
Normalize the game speed plz! The few objects on screen are bouncing and gliding way too fast. What little is there isn't really clear or attractive, either. I like your funky robot animation, though.

Story: 0/50
Nothing turned in.

Sound: 0/30
No pity points because I'm personally sick of the gameover tune and I feel there was no good reason for it to play. No, I don't want to turn off the PC speaker sounds.

With all that vitriol out, I just want to thank you for turning something in. You've helped make this a successful Day of Zeux. But next time try making a game! I'd have probably doubled your score if you'd only included a second level and an iota of polish.

65/400

13210 ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR
alien invaders, theme-light

Loads of title screens! Taitorian polishes and polishes but forgets the game. WOOOOO

Gameplay: 24/120
A three-dee hall maze with a map. You can walk around and after a little while Taitorian--I mean--the aliens--leave, and the game abruptly ends with a dedication and a nonchalantly grinning face.

Graphics: 72/90
A sprinkling of Taitorian's trademark finesse for animated whizzbang, just not as impressive as earlier showings. The bland and featureless three-dee maze is a disappointment.

Technique: 60/80
What's here is surprisingly tight. I'm docking points because there's not enough here, and gameplay appears to begin (according to the map) on some kind of buggy pseudo-wall tile, causing all kinds of confusion from the start.

Story: 28/50
I think the opening was entertaining and workable, but the arc from there needed work. Try less "ends abruptly before you see the aliens", more "see the aliens".

Sound: 20/40
Nice mods, nice sounds. Only the opening sounds like 1994 and the gameplay sounds like 87, and I'm betting you missed that entirely. The modem noise was cute, could be acceptable if toned down.

Theme: 14/20
Alien invaders, clearly. There are aliens and they are invading. There's a space elevator in the distant year of 2010 and a guy named Futureman who needs your help to save the day. Excellent work on exposition, but that's all we get.

I think you should work with a teammate next time.

228/400

18030 PRISON ESCAPE
isolation, theme-heavy

A doodle of a weird little adventure.

Theme: 85/100
I'm giving you a solid B for fleshing out an atmosphere. WOOOOO

Gameplay: 18/90
There's not really any game here. I was beginning to feel a dim zen appreciation for just walking around and doing things, but there aren't any real puzzles, just serendipitously orchestrated object contacts. Even so, if there were like twenty of these and enough scenario and environment to suit, it might have been enjoyable to do.

Graphics: 25/70
Nice touches, no meat. Study other games and try to do better with less effort. Map it on paper first to avoid doodling rooms for long. Your fans and drops and mice are fine, your swaths of dithered characters are looking mighty old-fashioned.

Technique: 44/60
I'm giving you better than half because your game is basically seamless. I also liked your smooth method of knowing I had an inventory item and what it was. You're bleeding points because your game could stand to have a title screen, your newspapers should react to a keypress instead of being arbitrarily timed (my brilliant idea involving no additional keys: scroll around the paper with the arrow keys, scroll off the paper to leave (yes, you can write this much filler text)), and the dynamite throw scene was mighty vague.

Story: 20/50
You put all your eggs in the scenario basket and I'm afraid you dropped your scenario basket all over the sidewalk of awkwardness. This game's story elements make it worse.

Where to begin!!! Why, at the ENDING, of course, noteworthy because you screwed it up so badly in such an unconventional way.

The problem with the ending is that for most people who know what they're doing in MegaZeux, your game took four minutes to finish, and the reasonable assumption to make is not that your game has absolutely no point or entertainment value at all, but that they missed something or they took a wrong turn. Now, I'm not saying you COULDN'T make a game with no point or entertainment value at all, I'm just saying that if you do, you're better off doing the ending correctly.

The game ends twice. First you get shot, which presumably means you died. Then you walk around very slowly until you realize you're not traveling back in time or in slow motion, but simply returning from the dead for a moment so you can stab a guy with a syringe for no reason. Then you die again. Now, there's no reason for the player to assume they can't die a third or a fourth time, or that your game isn't just bugging out due to an unlinked board or a poorly-designed gameplay mechanism when the player fades into oblivion. A simple "The End, This Game Sucks And Had No Pretentions To Profundity" would have sufficed.

What we got instead was a slap in the face. In the future, try not to do that, by accident or otherwise.

You put a bunch of newspapers all in one place to give us the plot, but I'd have preferred mystery if I knew the plot was about to end. Seriously! Guys, if there's no time to dress things up, just don't try to explain! It will be better without your yammering! I promise!

Also, that's it, no more prison escape openings ever. This Day of Zeux is the last goddamn time I'm solving an inconsequential puzzle in order to get my idiot smiley face who I have no reason to care about out of a room full of skeletons. Everyone who makes a prison escape game from this day forth will be banned twentyfold, and their utterly banned corpse draped with thirty-five banners arrayed in warn points and deposited 4,000 feet deep below the forum archives.

Sound: 23/30
I'm docking points for the Metal Gear Solid death yell, which signaled to me that, 1. the game is over but I get to continue from an earlier point, 2. that there is more to see, 3. that you have no tact. I got the last one right!

It would help if you spent about twice as many hours on your next Day of Zeux. You could almost certainly do something I'd want to say nice things about.

215/400

30641 Celestial Altar
alien invaders, theme-light

My favorite game of the Day of Zeux as well as my choice to win. Played it without a walkthrough and took about an hour and fifteen minutes. A fully-fledged work, not just an adventure gamebook as advertised, this is a video game that's serviceably balanced and entertaining for its extant elements, not its potential.

Gameplay: 94% 113/120
Natural and effortless. Lancer-X has played myriad visual novels and implemented his complete understanding of their mechanics and interfaces gracefully, in under a day, in software unsuited to the medium. He threw a simple turn-based battle system in as well, and it's tense and balanced and interlocks flawlessly with the rest of the game.

Graphics: 90% 81/90
Lancer-X is clearly not a practicing draftsman, but he has a critical eye and he knows how to make a pretty screen, and when that talent of his is combined with his mastery of MegaZeux's limited effects potential, we get work more visually impressive than anything else yet brought to the table. He did little time-consuming artwork for this game and it turned out better looking than any other entry.

Technique: 96% 77/80
Lancer-X had realistic goals, knew exactly what he was doing, and presented to us an exceptionally fun, exceptionally good-looking, 99% working game. I'm subtracting a few points for the increasing number of typographical errors as the game progressed and the existence of some fatal bug landmines here and there. I didn't run into them, though!

Story: 100% 50/50
250 pages of it, and more importantly it follows an arc, it fits the theme, it's semi-linear, it's unusual (by no means unique), and it captured my attention.

Sound: 96% 38/40
Nine tracks and twenty-four effects included. They sound good and they augment the mood.

Theme: 95% 19/20
The plot works in favor of the theme on the more than one level, in more than one way, and in more than one instance. This is just gravy.

Hey guys, this is what you should be attempting when you play the Day of Zeux: exactly what you're capable of and only that.

378/400

34477 Duck Rescue
alien invaders, theme-light

Gameplay: 80% 96/120
Jump, glide, shoot bad guys. The faster you shoot the weaker your shots. You walk to the right until the view stops scrolling and the game throws enemies at you, beat-em'-up style. The enemies are dumber than rocks, nearly as slow, and don't pack a punch. They fling themselves off cliffs and rise into the heavens. The game doesn't use many of them at once, and they tend to appear offscreen and spend their short lifespans right about there, hopping erratically.

Runs limp and lame as released on my Athlon 64 TK-57 1.9GHz cores. Playing with Lancer-X's upgrade makes the game doubly enjoyable and doubly short.

Graphics: 84% 76/90
Very pretty, but then, it's a resolution of 80x50. That's 4000 pixels, or in digital camera marketing parlance, .004 megapixels. Just want to stress this.

It's a big background, though, and LogiCow drew it with skill (not always care).

Technique: 72% 58/80
Slow, dog slow. An awkward sensation of continuous bullet-time is exacerbated by weirdly feeble enemy behavior and unnecessary particle effects, which are unattractively huge, repetitive and seem unsuited to the cartoon mood. I suppose they should be considered a demonstration of technique, but I've seen them before and I'm not impressed.

That said, once the game is upgraded everything plays much more naturally (the enemies are still feeble). If other people can improve your code after the fact, such that your game becomes enjoyable, you didn't do it right.

Your girlfriend disappears at the end! What the hell!

Story: 82% 41/50
Alien menace steals girlfriend, you kill the aliens and get the girlfriend back. Pretty swell stuff as executed. Next time, though, find a way to keep the girlfriend from abruptly disappearing as the game fades to black. Honestly, what is that?

Sound: 73% 29/40
One garish chiptune and two bleepy sound effects. There's no impact when something explodes, there's no difference between shots of visibly varying size and apparent strength.

Theme: 40% 8/20
Logicow doesn't need to work on theme because his games are so great anyways!!!!! WOOOOO

Did I excessively harp on the disappearing duck? Maybe if your game lasted more than a minute and a half or did more than three things I wouldn't be so bothered about one of them being screwed up. This was pretty weak, LogiCow. When do we get another Cheese's Adventure? Or another Fritz Blitz? Before the next Day of Zeux would be good!

308/400

36306 Voluntary Solitude
isolation, theme-heavy

The best stupid game of this Day of Zeux!

Theme: 91/100
Moody, angsty, lonely! Takes place entirely in a little house being rampaged by teeth monsters. On the campy side of perfect.

Gameplay: 50/90
Well, it's a touch things until you find stuff and then shoot stuff game. Finding stuff is pretty straightforward. The teeth monsters aren't much of a threat, but they get a nicely composed entrance. Still, it's barely a one-trick pony and on their second entrance the enemies appear offscreen and walk into walls, which seriously upsets the fear potential.

Graphics: 25/70
Barebones, cluttered. Average by 1995's standards. Please edit the glaring clashes out of your palette. The few features of your tiny, nonsensical setting should be crystal-clear. I'm looking at you, 2x1 crates(?), dim grey on dim brown submachine gun, single mysterious white health-giving object, and boxes of ammo with confusing little shells lying around.

I like the red outdoors and the teeth monsters, though.

Technique: 44/60
Not much programming to critique here, but the game runs seamlessly. For being so ugly it's surprisingly polished. More care should have been taken with the walls- either I can walk in front of them or I can't.

If your enemies are going to burst into the house and attack me, and if you're not going to figure out pathfinding, at least make them eat their way through the walls to get to me, so the scene is surprising instead of quaint.

On a better note, you have a mature grasp of making an item pickup a Clearly Good Thing.

Story: 41/50
We open with a spoken introduction darkly explaining the premise, which is apparently just I Am Legend/The Omega Man but with marauding teeth monsters instead of zombie illness. But are the marauding teeth monsters real, or just a figment of a madman's imagination? The latter!!!!!!!!!1

High score for steadfastly banging out a strongly cinematic rehasing of brainless, extremely hackneyed horror tropes.

Sound: 30/30
Nice stuff! Sound effects, musical tracks with purpose, and an effective and hilarious voice over. Full points because, for this, you deserve them.

281/400

47527 Abandoned
isolated theme-heavy

Awww, this looked so promising! And like way too much work for one guy, or maybe even three.

Theme: 69% 69/100
Isolation, isolated in a prison, more prison escape, whoopdeedoo
Did NOBODY think of setting their game in a SPACE PRISON? Maybe, like suspended over the everpresent Earth, which is covered with people? Isn't that an obvious idea? How isolated could someone be inside a plain old prison? A prison that they IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO ESCAPE. Come on!

Gameplay: 71% 64/90
It's an inventory adventure game. It's nothing new, and the one complete puzzle in here, escaping the cell, is pretty poorly contrived.

Graphics: 82% 57/70
Not bad! Not GREAT, but there's character and effort and juicy detail and animations. It's not every day you see big side-view rooms in MegaZeux, and this is very close to how they ought to be done.

Technique: 74% 44/60
The game opens with an introduction in text messages at the bottom of the screen, with a message above reading "press space to skip". But you can't! The spacebar doesn't do anything!

Everything else, that's here, seems to work just fine. There's text missing in places and frankly it was a bad idea to allow the player to APPLY, USE, EXAMINE and COMBINE objects if you hadn't planned up to a point where all three features were necessary. Can't you see it's three times as much work?

Story: 20% 10/50
Mysterious imprisonment, mysterious prison escape. Points for excellent use of a giant blood spill in a dark room.

Sound: 69% 21/30
The fire alarm sucks! The floor sound outside the cell sucks! Everything else was good, glad it was there.

Next time plan your work first, K?

265/400

49781 Turncoat

This traditional MegaZeux adventure had a lot of potential. Too bad about the bugs!

Gameplay: 78% 94/120
Three good weapons, three decent enemy types, three inconsistent gameplay boards, two puzzles.

These weapons are satisfying! There's a short-range lightning gun, a big old long-range cannon, and a spread firing thing. They feel different, they have different uses, and they're fun to shoot. Hooray!

The Guardbreeds have a little bit of personality but for the first thing you fight their difficulty is tuned a little high. They need to warn the player when they're about to charge.

There's a mech boss that targets apparently at random and fires after a delay, but the target isn't very visible. It could have been made substantially faster, preferably locked you into the field, and had a target we could see. You shorted your boss a sense of urgency, which is really the worst thing you could do to the poor guy.

The aliens themselves feel like generic "go 1 seek"ers. Yeah, they dance a little otherwise, but they're mostly a pain for their numbers. The bridge wanted to be much larger, with more entrances for the enemies, more enemy types, and more opportunities for a variety of tactics. It wouldn't have been especially time consuming to just reuse what you had for the sake of a more interesting finale.

You needed another board worth of adventure gameplay, or maybe a whole lot more to do at home before the real game started. You could have strongly developed the character or you could have extended the adventure. Either route would have taken this game from having potential to being an outstanding entry.

The two puzzles are identical and half-baked. Stronger choreography! Tell the player what's going on!

Graphics: 70% 63/90
Rather adorable and modest. Locations and objects have some character, just, not enough. Try coloring in your floors in the future to help quickly lose the "generic old MegaZeux game" look. Careful with your char reuse: I'm looking at you, jiggling fence corners.

Technique: 20% 16/80
This game is broke, broke, broke. The dialog engine is finicky with text spacing and doesn't lock the player. The lightning gun sometimes takes on the essence of walls and enemies. There are misplaced and missing lockplayers elsewhere. The game over screen doesn't necessarily trigger when you die. The game balance is waaay off--painfully and immediately difficult, with a trivial middle boss. The puzzles work, but you have to guess the second puzzle's combination manually, and the first one is extremely unclear about its existence and intent.

I enjoyed the spelling mistakes, personally.

Finally, there's a fatal bug that breaks the game in half. I had to play the adventure section in the editor.

Story: 80% 40/50
The story's about an alien invasion, with the player as an alien invader who betrays his race to fight on the side of the human beings and his dog. Sort of "Dances with Wolves", but a MegaZeux game, and no character development. The player sacrifices himself. I just couldn't feel anything about this. One problem is that the character was a featureless cliche, but there was also a simpler thing to fix. Look back at Duck Rescue, which in me elicited just a little bit of emotion by giving me a cage to break and a slow fade at the end. "I hope somebody feeds my dog"? Honestly, what is that? Next time just show us the dog and we'll be happy we finished the game. Please, use honey over vinegar until you're really damn familiar with vinegar. You get a decent score here because I'm thanking you for giving it a try, not so much because I enjoyed your storytelling.

Sound: 70% 28/40
The musical selection was appropriate but unremarkable. More and shorter tracks next time, with more contextual cues. Distinct tracks for battles, cutscenes, and exploration segments are always a big help. Same deal with sounds. Glad you included effects for firing and being hurt. The shuttle smashing into the ship was welcome as well. The puzzles and the enemies themselves definitely could have used sounds.

Theme: 90% 18/20
Alien invaders, theme-light, and properly indicated right there on the title screen. Can I give you bonus points for that?

I wrote so much because I liked this game and wanted it to, well, work. Next time make it work. Practice!

259/400

60441 FORSAKEN DAYLIGHT
isolation, theme-light

Maybe you dopes could have beat Maxim if you'd deliberately chosen a teammate known for being useful--somebody who could have tied up your loose ends--instead of deliberately giving the position to a Polish child with ADHD. I liked your game better, I liked your game a lot, but I don't think it deserves second place with or without the grace period penalty.

Gameplay: 92% 110/120
A fun dark POV shooter, and a fun first-person shooter. The former has flair, the latter is a new thing and surprisingly well-executed. But the boss fight at the end was quite awkward. It's not necessarily obvious when your partner appears, and it's not an interesting battlefield as far as tactics are concerned. I think it needed to be more than one screen in size. Left 4 Dead's survival games give the player a variety of tactical options (raised platforms, narrow halls, doors), and all we had here were holes full of ammo to hide in.

Graphics: 83% 75/90
Typical stuff, and not for the most part unattractive. A larger variety of tiles used in the first person shooter segments would have made them feel less like mazes and more like decent level maps, which upon careful inspection it can be seen they just about were. Asiekierka's contributions are out-of-place and unwelcome.

Technique: 89% 71/80
Your engine work is fine, fine stuff. But you missed details! Your control scheme suddenly changes for no reason and without indication. This should have been easy to catch and easy to fix. The game boards were properly linked together but there's no more polish than that. The message text runs in [ "" boxes and * "" captions, and it's readily apparent you could have whipped up and implemented better than that in a few minutes' time.

Story: 84% 42/50
For keeping your story going throughout the game and being relevant to the theme you're getting high points here. You'd have done better with an ending that didn't blow predictably and with better storytelling methods. (The * messages were especially problematic during the FPS segments.)

Sound: 82% 33/40
Your sound choices are good, even excellent, but you have bugs and annoyances. Much as I liked the shifting lines, Asiekierka's title screen was crap and you shouldn't have used it. Sorry Asiekierka! The music during the first person shooter segments cuts off inappropriately instead of looping.

Theme: 89% 18/20
You forgot to tell us which theme you picked independent of the scoresheet, which is a spectacularly weird way of doing it wrong, and this is actually important. It's clear that you were doing isolation, but that was the general scoresheet and you specified the specific scoresheet. How in the world do you screw THIS up, but not your raycaster or your level design?! Go back to kindergarten! Still, nice use of theme.

This game makes me SO ANGRY

349/400

62239 [no title]
isolation -> alien invaders, theme-light

Some sort of dungeon crawler with mouse controls that never got turned into a game.

Gameplay: 48% 58/120
Gesture magic! Neato! I might have enjoyed this game.

Graphics: 78% 70/90
Malwyn's chunky, funky style and fine eye, but there's not a lot of it to see. The dungeon as rendered is barebones.

Technique: 85% 68/80
What exists seems to work perfectly.

Story: 0% 0/50
Nothing turned in.

Sound: 5% 2/40
Nothing turned in.

Theme: 15% 3/20
Well, there are mean-looking critters.

Thanks, guys!

201/400

66482 THOSE ALIEN INVADER!
alien invaders, theme-light

Overrated Kenta Cho ****!

Theme: 75% 15/20
A couple paragraphs of flavor text and three spaceship graphics illustrate the theme just fine.

Gameplay: 81% 97/120
It's a solid bullet-hell shooter, but it's very short and the learning curve is way off. There's a hilariously difficult third and final boss, and the second boss is significantly easier than the first boss for anyone with any familiarity with this kind of game, because it moves slowly and often vertically and its shot density is so low.

Player firing slows the whole game down. I can't quite tell if this was a deliberate gameplay mechanism or not. I'd have preferred firing to slow the player down, rRootage-style, but I guess it's a matter of taste.

Shots can return south of the screen, which is awfully cheap! Seems more like an oversight than anything.

Graphics: 74% 67/90
Four ship graphics, a few different rotating bullet-types, a tiny player death animation. No other images or animations. Runs in a postage-stamp window with pixel precise movement.

Technique: 83% 66/80
Well, it's sort of good-looking, and it's unusual and more or less smooth, but there are serious drawbacks: It's slower than bridge-playing old ladies on a cold day and the enemy collision detection is ambiguous. The bounding box is centered inside the enemy and of some size or another, a problem the game doesn't inform you about even in goofy engrish. Colliding objects of differing colors change color, but it's just an ugly artifact and has no gameplay function. The borders of bullets that touch occasionally disappear, which rarely affects gameplay but looks pretty goofy.

Story: 86% 43/50
IT IS A BAD DAY...
... AND IT LOOKS LIKE
3IT JUST GOT WORSE?

THOSE ALIEN INVADER!

FORTUNATELY YOU SHIP
CAN KILL EVIL ALIEN
BUT YOU JUST WATCH
OUT!

Sound: 73% 29/40
A decent piece of music for each boss. No sound effects, but probably not appropriate to the game anyway.

Ho hum! Have a decent grade.

315/400

70273 Antares
alien invader, theme-light

Maxim game, hot off the presses!

Gameplay 88% 106/120
Ah, a beat-'em-up in MegaZeux. Our holy grail. Maxim did it in one day and it works! I didn't enjoy it much, but it works~! There are virtually no extras, but it works!!! It's perfectly playable, it's difficult by default but the curve is fair, it has multiple pickups and three stages, it's smooth as silk, and it works!!!!!!!

Graphics: 82% 74/90
Spare, vague, and weird, but consistent, clear, and not hideous. There's a studious implementation of animations and effects for the purpose of clearing up possible ambiguities or ugliness in gameplay. The look is functional and nothing distracts.

Technique: 92% 74/80
A little more flair would net a slightly higher score here, but it's a pure sprite game and everything just works. A few points off for an extremely short repeat rate on the spacebar in the main menu, meaning, in the worst case, that the game appears to suddenly restart from the ending scene.

Story: 83% 42/50
There's a skippable introduction with fine art slides and an anticlimactic ending with one fine art slide, and there's a game in between. I'm calling that a beginning, middle, and an end. CHA-CHING, next please.

Sound: 100% 40/40
The whole soundscape is Maxim's work, and apparently he did a lot of it during the 24 hours. It's complete, in that nearly all unique actions in and out of the gameplay are accompanied by unique and appropriate sound effects. It suits the minimalist visuals and actions and doesn't feature chiptunes or PC speaker-style noises. His work has matured and there's a good deal of it here. I'd be giving a very high score for the striking attention to detail even if I weren't keen on the style.

Theme: 84% 16/20
Alien martial artists invade a spaceship and kill everyone, so you beat the crap out of them! The bulk of the thematic work is in the introduction, but since you're clearly killing invading aliens in a spaceship, I won't complain too much.

I have to admit I don't like this as a game as much as I like it as an entry.

352/400

72165 [no title]
alien invaders, theme-light

Lordy, what was the big fancy idea here?

Gameplay: 45% 54/120
It's an action puzzle game. You match tiles in lines to cause certain effects on the enemy. Occasionally the game throws tiles randomly into the field. There's a bunch of dummy magic and abilities onscreen. Eventually the guy's health goes to zero. Victory is mine! Only, I didn't really care.

Technique: 72% 58/80
Everything works except the stuff that clearly doesn't do anything. There's no title screen, there's one gameplay board, it ends eventually, and it's not very fun. It was clearly going somewhere, it just didn't get there.

Graphics: 68% 61/90
Garish colors and character portraits made of zig-zagging lines. Although I kind of liked them! Everything else was fine, fine, fine.

Story: 0% 0/50
Nothing turned in.

Sound: 70% 28/40
There's a unique sound effect for each tile, which is fun, and a sound effect when tiles appear, which is good, and ridiculous music that eventually ends instead of looping.

Theme: 12% 2/20
Well, there's an enemy? Presumably invading?

I guess this could be something fun someday.

213/400

79530 ?
isolation, theme-heavy

More unplanned, unfinished crap.

Theme: 65% 65/100
Well, I like where you were going with having to figure out complicated stuff all alone.

Gameplay: 10% 9/90
Guess the word? Come on! It's not clear what's going on in your computer, either. Also, "reset" and "reboot" are in this context synonymous and your failure to think of both of them reflects the same failure in your players. All this failure makes for pretty awful adventure gameplay!

Graphics: 73% 51/70
It's dark and green, yeee haw. I like your cinematographic taste, but there's just not much to see.

Technique: 18% 11/60
A [press enter] appended to the first message would suffice, to keep us from punching keys and guessing, especially since spacebar is the traditional default.

The computer doesn't always register appropriate words on the first try. I'm not sure why.

Your game never indicates it's not going anywhere, which is confusing and annoying!

Story: 40% 20/50
Furries!

Also please save the sadomasochism for your friends and relatives.

Sound: 88% 26/30
Excellent choices, I guess!

Nothing to see here.

182/400

[[Category:Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheets]]

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-17T19:40:28Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

{{Competition
|title = Winter 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = Winter2010dozalt1280.png
|host = [[Kurushimi]]
|judges = [[asgromo]], [[wildweasel]], [[Pyro1588]], [[astral]], Kuddy
|dates = January 2-3, 2010
|topics = Isolation (abstract)

Alien Invaders (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2009 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2010 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' was hosted by [[Kuddy]] and started on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, 5PM GMT (ending the same time the next day). The topics were "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders". The judges were [[astral]], [[wildweasel]], [[pyro1588]], [[asgromo]], and Kuddy himself (following the precident established last time). Buildup for this DoZ was fairly low-key, but consistent, and was bolstered by last minute signups as usual. Continuing the previous trend, the majority of the submissions were considered to be above average quality, and some of the top entries were quite impressive. Another continuing trend, most submissions were solo efforts, with one of the two team entries placing second and the other being disqualified. Finally, this DoZ saw a large number of games focused on technically impressive engine development, which astral specifically remarked that he found irksome. For example, [[Lancer-X]] submitted a game that ran in a very impressive visual novel interface; [[GreaseMonkey]] built a [[raycaster]] for his game that was actually considered fairly successful despite its low resolution; [[Lachesis]] wrote a Danmaku-like [[pixel-precise]] shooter; and [[logicow]] made a last minute return to submit a very pretty half-char [[sidescroller]].

The previously established guidelines on judging quality and timeliness were also put to the test in this DoZ, when Kuddy submitted his scores at the end of the judging week without comments, and astral's comments failed to meet the 300 word-per-game average. After strong complaints from [[Wervyn]], both scores were retracted. Despite the final scores being the result of only three combined judges, Wervyn insists that this is exactly what he had in mind when he proposed the system.

==Scores==
The rankings and total scores of each game in this DoZ are as follows:

*1st Place - Entry 30641 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Celestial Altar]]'' - by ク・リトル・リトル ([[Lancer-X]]) (Score: 1063/1200)
*2nd Place - Entry 60441 - '''Isolation/Lite''' - ''[[Forsaken Daylight]]'' - Team Betamax ([[CJA]], [[GreaseMonkey]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 937/1200)
*3rd Place - Entry 70273 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Antares]]'' - Fight For Ya' Life ([[Maxim]]) (Score: 795/1200)
*4th Place - Entry 34477 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Duck Rescue]]'' - [[logicow]] (Score: 788/1200)
*5th Place - Entry 47527 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Abandoned]]'' - Oh god, dragons ([[Kom]]) (Score: 775/1200)
*6th Place - Entry 66482 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[THOSE ALIEN INVADER!]]'' - MEDIUM RARE WARE ([[Lachesis]]) (Score: 766/1200)
*7th Place - Entry 36306 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Voluntary Solitude]]'' - Vortex Productions ([[RyanThunder]]) (Score: 722/1200)
*8th Place - Entry 49781 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[TurnCoat]]'' - The Moanatoans ([[ThdPro]]) (Score: 643/1200)
*9th Place - Entry 18030 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Prison Escape]]'' - Knights of Danika ([[Goshi]]) (Score: 587/1200)
*10th Place - Entry 13210 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR]]'' - The Bee's Knees ([[Captain Failmore]]) (Score: 563/1200)
*11th Place - Entry 79530 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[For Liberty]]'' - For Liberty ([[Spike]]) (Score: 514/1200)
*12th Place - Entry 11617 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Isolation Puzzle Platformer]]'' - Last Place Or Bust ([[mzxrules]]) (Score: 184/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 62239 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - The Onion Paradigm ([[Malwyn]], [[Risu2112]], [[Wervyn]]) (Score: 541/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 72165 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - Wacky Ironic Name Mocking Wacky Ironic Names ([[Seventh Shade]]) (Score: 373/1200)

==Judging Sheets==
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo|asgromo]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588|pyro1588]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel|wildweasel]]

The following sheets were ultimately not used due to objections from Wervyn:
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy|Kuddy]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:astral|astral]]

==External Links==
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Winter2009/ Official Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
*[http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14739 Official Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-17T19:39:51Z

Kuroneko: /* Judging Sheets */

{{Competition
|title = Winter 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = Winter2010dozalt1280.png
|host = [[Kurushimi]]
|judges = [[asgromo]], [[wildweasel]], [[Pyro1588]], [[astral]], Kuddy
|dates = January 2-3, 2010
|topics = Isolation (abstract)

Alien Invaders (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2009 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Summer 2010 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' was hosted by [[Kuddy]] and started on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, 5PM GMT (ending the same time the next day). The topics were "Isolation" and "Alien Invaders". The judges were [[astral]], [[wildweasel]], [[pyro1588]], [[asgromo]], and Kuddy himself (following the precident established last time). Buildup for this DoZ was fairly low-key, but consistent, and was bolstered by last minute signups as usual. Continuing the previous trend, the majority of the submissions were considered to be above average quality, and some of the top entries were quite impressive. Another continuing trend, most submissions were solo efforts, with one of the two team entries placing second and the other being disqualified. Finally, this DoZ saw a large number of games focused on technically impressive engine development, which astral specifically remarked that he found irksome. For example, [[Lancer-X]] submitted a game that ran in a very impressive visual novel interface; [[GreaseMonkey]] built a [[raycaster]] for his game that was actually considered fairly successful despite its low resolution; [[Lachesis]] wrote a Danmaku-like [[pixel-precise]] shooter; and [[logicow]] made a last minute return to submit a very pretty half-char [[sidescroller]].

The previously established guidelines on judging quality and timeliness were also put to the test in this DoZ, when Kuddy submitted his scores at the end of the judging week without comments, and astral's comments failed to meet the 300 word-per-game average. After strong complaints from [[Wervyn]], both scores were retracted. Despite the final scores being the result of only three combined judges, Wervyn insists that this is exactly what he had in mind when he proposed the system.

==Scores==
The rankings and total scores of each game in this DoZ are as follows:

*1st Place - Entry 30641 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Celestial Altar]]'' - by ク・リトル・リトル ([[Lancer-X]]) (Score: 1063/1200)
*2nd Place - Entry 60441 - '''Isolation/Lite''' - ''[[Forsaken Daylight]]'' - Team Betamax ([[CJA]], [[GreaseMonkey]], [[asiekierka]]) (Score: 937/1200)
*3rd Place - Entry 70273 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Antares]]'' - Fight For Ya' Life ([[Maxim]]) (Score: 795/1200)
*4th Place - Entry 34477 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[Duck Rescue]]'' - [[logicow]] (Score: 788/1200)
*5th Place - Entry 47527 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Abandoned]]'' - Oh god, dragons ([[Kom]]) (Score: 775/1200)
*6th Place - Entry 66482 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[THOSE ALIEN INVADER!]]'' - MEDIUM RARE WARE ([[Lachesis]]) (Score: 766/1200)
*7th Place - Entry 36306 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Voluntary Solitude]]'' - Vortex Productions ([[RyanThunder]]) (Score: 722/1200)
*8th Place - Entry 49781 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[TurnCoat]]'' - The Moanatoans ([[ThdPro]]) (Score: 643/1200)
*9th Place - Entry 18030 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Prison Escape]]'' - Knights of Danika ([[Goshi]]) (Score: 587/1200)
*10th Place - Entry 13210 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - ''[[ALIENS ON AN ELEVATOR]]'' - The Bee's Knees ([[Captain Failmore]]) (Score: 563/1200)
*11th Place - Entry 79530 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[For Liberty]]'' - For Liberty ([[Spike]]) (Score: 514/1200)
*12th Place - Entry 11617 - '''Isolation/Heavy''' - ''[[Isolation Puzzle Platformer]]'' - Last Place Or Bust ([[mzxrules]]) (Score: 184/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 62239 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - The Onion Paradigm ([[Malwyn]], [[Risu2112]], [[Wervyn]]) (Score: 541/1200)
*DQed Place - Entry 72165 - '''Alien Invaders/Lite''' - Untitled - Wacky Ironic Name Mocking Wacky Ironic Names ([[Seventh Shade]]) (Score: 373/1200)

==Judging Sheets==
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:asgromo]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:pyro1588]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel]]

The following sheets were ultimately not used due to objections from Wervyn:
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Kuddy]]
*[[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:astral]]

==External Links==
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Winter2009/ Official Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Page]
*[http://www.digitalmzx.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14739 Official Results Thread]

==See Also==
*[[Day of Zeux]]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Terryn

2012-07-16T16:24:01Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "<pre> ==Terryn's DoZ Scores, Summer 2010== ==Topics: Imjmortality (Abstract) & Nanomachines (Concrete)== ==Judging Standard: MZX 2.83 stable (Win XP-32 platform)== (Scores attem..."

<pre>
==Terryn's DoZ Scores, Summer 2010==
==Topics: Imjmortality (Abstract) & Nanomachines (Concrete)==
==Judging Standard: MZX 2.83 stable (Win XP-32 platform)==

(Scores attempted to be consistent and relative, but I'm not making any promises, especially not this time.)

-----------------------------------------------

To explain the WACKY scoring changes per game, I've written up a small guide on our system and placed it right below this line! How convenient!

Games choosing the THEME-HEAVY scoring are scored as follows:

Theme - 100/400 (How appropriately it sticks to the above topic. Novel applications of the theme are especially welcome here; cloying, ham-fisted application of it is not.)
Gameplay - 90/400 (What the game expects the player to do, how novel/fun/considerate it is for the player, and how little the player futilely struggles with the game.)
Graphics - 70/400 (The difference between eye-gouging and eye-popping.)
Technique - 60/400 (How painless it is for the player to play through the game (disregarding obvious gameplay decisions such as difficulty), and the technical prowess shown in the code.)
Story - 50/400 (Whether your grasp of English, your grasp of flow, and your grasp of creativity align. If this cannot be arranged, partial credit is better than none.)
Sound - 30/400 (With the beeping and the blooping and the chiptunes and the borrowed game music and all of that.)

Games choosing the THEME-LITE scoring are scored as follows:

Gameplay - 120/400 (This is the core of the game; it is the interactive part of a game and hence the most likely thing to make or break a game for a player. It's not just about quality; quantity helps a great deal too.)
Graphics - 90/400 (How pleasing the game is to the eye. No accounting for tastes, though some works seem better to everyone overall than others.)
Technique - 80/400 (The complexity of the code involved, and whether said code actually works most of the time. Efficiency counts in the extreme cases where it's relevant.)
Story - 50/400 (Whether the words arranged therein form coherent sentences, and even better, coherent plot threads.)
Sound - 40/400 (The ears' domain; whether sound effects and music are not only good, but well-suited for the game.)
Theme - 20/400 (Whether you actually paid attention and bothered haphazardly grafting the right conceptual fragments to your glitzy engine. 5 points average or less and your game is outright rejected.)

Without further delay, my scoring for this DoZ's games begins!

-----------------------------------------------

[3656] "sick fetish for all things obsolete" (Mr_Alert) =IMMORTALITY/HEAVY= [DQed]

Theme - 10/100
-Pretty soon, MZX will be able to run on freaking everything, esoteric tendrils extruded, veins sucking up precious lifeblood from the ruined architectures of the past.

Gameplay - 9/90
-It's there! Just not intrinsically.

Graphics - 7/70
-It has them! Just not intrinsically.

Technique - 30/60
-It works. I'm not willing enough to break out a floppy and transfer this to my 486-DX to test natively, but it runs well in DOSBOX to actually play things.

Story - 0/50
-Mr_Alert's been wanting to backport MZX to DOS for quite a while. Too bad he decided to abandon his plans of making a real DoZ entry and worked on something completely different instead, like pretty much everybody else. =S

Sound - 0/30
-Nope, no sound.

Overall: 56/400
-Interesting and aggravating way to spring this on the community at-large.

-----------------------------------------------

[7494] "Immortal Nanomachines" (GreaseMonkey) =IMMORTALITY/LITE=

Gameplay - 80/120
-It's a rudimentary RTS, and it works despite its many quibbles. Troop selection is effortless, though they have a hugely annoying tendency to line up one after another instead of getting in range to shoot at enemies. Troop diversity is low; most troops just shoot when in range, and a few throw grenades. Action diversity is very low, with options limited to move and halt movement (attacking is automatic). Enemy strength is fairly strong, so seeing the game over screen shouldn't be a surprise.
-There are only two levels, unfortunately. Actually, this is a recurring theme. There's really not enough diversity in anything to give it a much higher score, period.

Graphics - 45/90
-They do the job. Terrain looks okay (it's all the same characters mishmashed, but the colors contrast enough), enemies look fair, and basically everything looks identifiable without much visual clutter.

Technique - 53/80
-Functional but unpolished and a bit messy. The aformentioned AI quirk is annoying; the grenade graphics have a high tendency to stay on the screen after they hit.

Story - 17/50
-CJA wants to become immortal... by collecting the three Nanomachines (that aren't actually nanomachines) of Lancer-X... and you and your band of DMZXers must stop him and his minions. Pretty uninspired, especially for a plot that decided to tie into the community for some bewildering reason. It doesn't develop much, either, due to there only being two stages.

Sound - 34/40
-Pretty good selection of tunes I've not heard before (YES, I'M USING THE MODPLUG ENGINE). Fits the tone of the game well. The sounds aren't objectively great, but they're amusing and work well enough for the game.

Theme - 8/20
-Immortality is just barely above a fill-in-the-blank mention; the goal of the villain is to achieve it, that's all.

Overall: 237/400
-Not fond of this entry at all, but it did enough of what it wanted to and that's just fine in my book.

-----------------------------------------------

[8724] "Nanofighter" (mad) =NANOMACHINES/LITE= [DQed]

Gameplay - 24/120
-You do like to go on about fighting games, so let me similarly go on about what's missing. Although there's (great) character art, little is really implemented. The characters can move about, attack, and (passably) do special moves. Missing? AI, second player controls, characters turning, hit detection (and its wonderful little sister, move priority), special bar charging, assorted other possible benefits like offensive/defensive dashing. It's at least beneficial that what little is here works without a hitch, though considering the pain of using the keyboard for fireball/dragon punch motions, the second character might have benefitted from being a charge character.

Graphics - 35/90
-Pretty nice character sprites. Animation is sparse, but hey, the sprites still look fine. That's the full extent of the graphics, though.

Technique - 30/80
-Huge and un-buggy sprite manipulation. That's pretty much all the engine condenses to, sadly, but it's still not bad.

Story - 0/50
-In 2240, furries develop the technology to shrink themselves to a nanomolecular size. The press, still wildly bleeding money and completely out of touch with the average person, calls them: Nanofurries. These "nanofurries" have fun riding blood vessels as innertubes and studying tai-chi under praying matises and and using silk threads as lassos and stupid shit like that, but some nanofurries use their abilities... for evil. Therefore, a police force was developed to bring these rogue nanofurries to justice. Since metal can't shrink for some reason that has to do with neutrinos or quantum tunnelling electrocution or something, they must all be highly trained in hand-to-hand combat. This is the story of the Provisional Nanofurry Defense Force.

Sound - 12/40
-There's one song, and it's nice enough to keep around for the duration of fiddling about with this entry.

Theme - 0/20
-hahahahahahahaha, no.

Overall: 101/400
-Glad you finally stopped just talking about making a fighting game for the DoZ and actually tried. You've been saying you would for, what, three or four years now? Pity it wasn't playable, though.

-----------------------------------------------

[19798] "One Tower One Life" (KKairos) =IMMORTALITY/HEAVY=

Theme - 57/100
-The theme is used ...plausibly, but that's about the strongest word I can use. The fact that the game is impossible to win hints at the futility of attaining literal immortality, I guess.

Gameplay - 27/90
-Level up your abilities by convenient keystrokes. There's nothing else to do, as fighting off the wave of enemies happens automatically.
-Moreover, the balance of the game needed some serious tweaking. Very few points have to be put into damage output, and the starting energy points are enough by themselves to get to wave 4 (try it!). Once wave 11 happens.. oh boy, you're probably going to die right then.

Graphics - 26/70
-Not absolutely horrible, anyway. Decent title screen, tolerably-ZZT blockmonster baring its very heart out to the world, smileys, ...nice...screen...layout... there's nothing else to mention.

Technique - 21/60
-To its credit, the engine mostly works, glaring balance issues aside. The weapon zaps enemies at the given range point and right in front of the monster, and the stat changing is actually effective.
-However, by the time Wave 11 hits, with its instant attacks, the game's pretty much over unless you were cheating anyway. On that note, the inner workings are simple and thus very hack-friendly, so F11 away and tinker a bit.

Story - 15/50
-You are a monster. You decide to occupy a tower and tear out your giant heart as a big, flashing target with "STAB ME" yelled out in neon, air-raid intensity to attract a steady swarm of heroes off which to feed. It works, though with the way stereotypical heroes are, wouldn't just occupying a nearby tower work anyway?

Sound - 12/30
-The sole tune's nice, and having no sounds is better than having horrid ones. Having more than one substantial tune would be overkill for a game this tiny anyway.

Overall: 158/400
-Having a complete, though completely mindless, game is a boon to score. Now that's efficiency. The game's not GOOD or anything, but still

-----------------------------------------------

[22625] "King Yu's Tower" (logicow) =IMMORTALITY/HEAVY=

Theme - 87/100
-Embodies the theme well. While the theme doesn't heavily impact the core gameplay, it has a considerable involvement with the enemies faced and the storyline.

Gameplay - 73/90
-It's top-down MZX gameplay, but the kind that's in favor in more recent games. The default weapon is a sword (with excellent range, probably the smartest thing to include in a sword engine), and eventually other weapons will be acquired with effects like giant cones of electrity. Game balance is good, with fair grunt enemies, moderately challenging bosses, and with one spot in particular made for harvesting coins to buy ammo for your weapons.
-The stage variety, on the other hand, is a bit weak. While the different areas are apparent in style, basic enemies only come in two flavors at that (two and a half if you wish to be generous and count the crypts), and so enemy variety isn't one of the defining factors for the different areas.
-Thankfully, the bosses make up for this by having interesting strategies and good tactical variety. You're going to loathe the necromancer's shadow touch by the time you fight him a bit. The game's not hurting for bosses, either: it sports four in total.

Graphics - 48/70
-Outside of the big closeups in the intro, the game loves its jumbles of ascii. It's not ugly, per se, but it's not exactly beautifying. In fact, it's the reason logi went theme-heavy this DoZ. The bigger blobs of graphics look pretty decent (e.g. flowers, towers, meteors) and it's easy to tell what they are. The big expanses of blackness in the safe zone are a bit of a distraction, though.

Technique - 45/60
-Nothing really fancy here, though it's still nice to spit out arcs of damage and see huge ovoid explosions fly out. The game's working fine, and gave me no problems, though some others have reported a game-breaking problem with the last boss never teleporting back into the arena.

Story - 31/50
-Your solar airship is running low on juice, so you park it by the nearest artifice of civilization you can find: an old tower in the middle of nowhere. You soon find and talk to its king, who is immortal and wishing for a release, and you decide to help him out of altruism (I guess, the game pulls the silent protagonis trick). Simple, yet effective.

Sound - 26/30
-Not bad. Not bad at all. The sound effects are PC Speaker bloops, which fits well with the whole ascii motif the game has, and are pretty decent in and of themselves.
-The music? madbrain's. It's pretty fitting, all of it, even the quacking.

Overall: 310/400
-You strove for completion and kept the game as cohesive as you could manage. Well, congrats. It worked.

-----------------------------------------------

[22677] "22677" (asgromo / Kom) =IMMORTALITY/LITE=

Gameplay - 79/120
-It starts out simple enough. The player walks through the level, in sidescroller perspective. trying to find the exit, while enemies sporadically (or later, constantly) show up and spit out projectiles. The player has a simple gun that fires using WASD (including diagonals) and will level up when enemies are killed. Unfortunately, the balance goes off-kilter fast and the weapon becomes exponentially more powerful, to the point of severe CPU choking. Even the absolute floods of enemies aren't a problem for your ridiculously powerful uber-beam. It's almost a shame. I went around for a little bit and went close to enemies to simply see what their firing patterns looked like, since I couldn't see much of that when they all die pretty much the instant I point my weapon at them.

Graphics - 73/90
-Excellent cinematic graphics, blocky but good-looking in the way some of you might remember from Diamond's "controversial" The Wired.
-World graphics weren't bad, with nodules and pipes flowing everywhere to make the appearance of a sterile, mechanical complex on stage 1, rough, L-shaped polygons forming tightly knit surfaces on stage 2, and so on. Color choices fit too, although it becomes hard to make out the enemies from the backgrounds at times. Speaking of which, the enemies are okay-looking; nothing really distinct, but better than the average "it works" lancer blob.

Technique - 62/80
-The dungeons are randomly generated, and the enemies consistantly spawn out of sight. There's a nice weapon engine that shoots in eight directions, and speeds up as the player kills more enemies. There, unfortunately, are some considerable hangups with the engine and game.
-The big hangup: the levelling system is far too generous. After a while, the weapon becomes an ERAZER BEAM OF BALL-STREWN ANNIHILATION. It doesn't just kill the large swarms of enemies, though! It also murders your processor! While this can be circumvented, at first, by gingerly pressing the fire keys, treating the weapon as a railgun, and by firing into nearby walls and ceilings, by level 4 slowdown often can't be helped. By that point, it's _very_tempting to just fire straight down long hallways and watch as the game goes into 1/20th speed and half a minute passes as the game calculates just how much of the screen to fill with confetti.
-The small hangup is that the level generator creates inescapeable pits on occasion. Just remember to save when you need to.
-The insignificant hangup is that both things you can do on the last screen (going back to the door, or firing downwards in the little trench) end with the same ending. oh, and the scrolling feels a bit clunky and the cutscene engine is a little sensitive of spacebar presses, but at this point these quibbles are almost insignificant.

Story - 41/50
-As far as I can gather, the player character is a sentient being created by a consciousness trapped in an autonomous computer-planet, the embodiment of technology gone wild. This consciousness wishes to end the planet's mindless ravaging of other planets' resources and finally "rest". The implications of "Kasey"'s origins aren't explicitly said, which actually helps add to the narrative style. The dialogue is pleasant, a reflection of distant, yet close acquaintances.

Sound - 32/40
-The music selection is fitting, and novel. The cutscene music was especially well-picked. The sound effects were unobtrusive.
-I'm thankful that level 4's music is good, especially over long periods of time... because, man. Stuck there for ages.

Theme - 16/20
-Fits the theme of immortality in a somewhat indirect, but strongly narrative fashion. Above average, in total.

Overall: 303/400
-This would have (barely) won in my book, if it were properly balanced. Ah well, c'est la vie.

-----------------------------------------------

[24560] "255 nano robotz" (mzxrules) =NANOMACHINES/LITE= [DQed]

Gameplay - 12/120
-You know what? I'm tired of writing somewhat on-point criticisms on how old-sckool didn't make anything worthwhile for the doz for the sixth or seventh time. I'm pretty damn sure the other judges have done that for me anyway. I'll just go on autopilot this time.
-...you know what, my conscience won't let me do that. I was just going to put "lol" for every category, but I... just can't. fuck.

Graphics - 22/90
-They're decent. It's just overworld graphics, but the color slection is good and the characters are fine, though in sparse number. It looks a bit... fuzzy and ill-defined though.

Technique - 5/80
-I can't see much of any. I guess it's a blessing that it's near-impossible to get a 0 from me in this category.

Story - 0/50
-lol

Sound - 2/40
-None.

Theme - 2/20
-"^255 nano robotz"

Overall: 43/400
-Aren't you tired of your entries being birdcage liner yet? It'd be nice to see you go back to making real entries again.

-----------------------------------------------

[41608] "WANZA FYUCHAA!~" (Lancer-X) =IMMORTALITY/HEAVY= [DQed]

Theme - 0/100
-IMOUTOS!!!!!!!!!! LOLIS!!!!!!!!!! TSUNDERES!!!! HAS MAKI IZUMI?? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUY NOW!!!! WELL TRAVELLED!

Gameplay - 0/90
-EROGAMESCAPE REVIEWED A MILLION TIMES

Graphics - 26/70
-OLD IS SUCK, BUY NEW
-BUYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Technique - 32/60
-GIVE 1996 EROGE TO NEIGHBOUR, CLASSLESS BOOR

Story - 3/50
-HERE'S EROGE FOR PLAYING ON THE BUS, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Sound - 7/30
-ENJOY! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Overall: 68/400
-I WILL PLAY A GAME WITH 5000 LOLIS, AND IF YOU DISAGREE

-----------------------------------------------

[54188] "Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immortality" (Baby Bonnie Hood) =IMMORTALITY/HEAVY=

Theme - 80/100
-Rote, if mildly amusing, application of the theme. You seek immortality, soon get it and soon become extremely bored by its totality.

Gameplay - 40/90
-It's classic MZX gameplay throughout. However, the whole immortality gimmick hurts the gameplay in favor of story/theme usage. Go figure.
-The good thing is that the author is then allowed to exploit ridiculously bad gameplay strategies with no penalty. Stars? YES Lake of lava with a convoluted one-char path? YESSSSSSSS

Graphics - 30/70
-Completely unremarkable and forgettable. I had to re-load the game to find a more appropriate description for them. "Caverns-like" would probably be the best substantiative description for them, although the colors clash a lot more than they ever did in Caverns.

Technique - 30/60
-It wasn't going to get high points here, because it doesn't do anything out of the ordinary, but everything works.

Story - 34/50
-Quickly evident as the focus of this game. The writing was good enough to play out the idea without any awkwardness.

Sound - 14/30
-It's not bad, though it's also nothing I haven't heard before a few thousand times. POOPROAD>:( and asiekierka even wore out the mod speed thing ages ago :(

Overall: 228/400
-It's thoroughly average! It's _Manna from Heaven._

-----------------------------------------------

[71124] "Goo! It's ALIVE!" (duvel) =NANOMACHINES/LITE= [DQed]

Gameplay - 6/120
-I'll count "The thrill of loading up Super ZZT under DOSBOX" under gameplay, I guess.

Graphics - 3/90
-There's some approximation of art! Beer! Music note! GREY GOO

Technique - 6/80
-There's an intro screen present. Just getting to the editor is a bit of a task, so pity points here.

Story - 2/50
-Grey goo is out to eat everyone! AAAH the horror

Sound - 2/40
-There is the startup sound you'll hear once you realise that there's no game outside of the intro screen.

Theme - 3/20
-Grey goo! Bunches of it! oh my!

Overall: 22/400
-Super ZZT. Ain't it a stinka?

-----------------------------------------------

[75946] "Mina and the Quest for Immortality" (commodorejohn) =IMMORTALITY/HEAVY=

Theme - 2/100
-It's mentioned, at least.

Gameplay - 9/90
-You can move your character around, at least.

Graphics - 15/70
-They're FF6 placeholder graphics. In a real DoZ, and a real entry, and using more of them, probably enough for a DQ, since the heavy sheet won't do the job by itself. Here, though, ehn.

Technique - 22/60
-There's a working sprite movement engine, and a textbox engine, and very limited interactivity. At least it works.

Story - 0/50
-None.

Sound - 8/30
-Again, the single tune used for an entry isn't that bad <s>at least</s>. I wish I didn't have to repeat myself.

Overall: 56/400
-Better luck next time.

-----------------------------------------------

[85132] "Nanomachines from Space" (asiekierka / Taitorian) =NANOMACHINES/HEAVY= [DQed]

Theme - 1/100
-It was a hollow, empty shell of a promise...a platitude so bereft of consideration that strangled this pathetic mockery of a conversation. "Where is it!" I barked. No answer, just a defiant stare.

Gameplay - 1/90
-I secretly struggled for air, my desperation choking the life out of me. "What! What have you done with it!" I snarled, masking my fears.

Graphics - 22/70
-He just laughed. Laughed like a hyena with a bolus of rotting ibex flesh lodged in its throat, a mad, constant, trilling whirlwind spattered with rough coughs and hacks. Whatever used to be human in laughter... was now gone, like everything else here.

Technique - 18/60
-Suddenly, though, he pulled out a wrench, a perverse symbol of utility now gone wrong. I went down like a glass-jawed, snot-nosed babyface facing a brutal, battle scarred champeen in a single, artless blow to the head.

Story - 0/50
-I woke up, at the wrong side of Lady Luck again. I saw nothing but blackness, the blackness endemic of this low-rent slum.

Sound - 8/30
-A mechanical din scraped across my ears, the sound of dragged chains and rusted metal, cast over the churlish burlesque of a damaged radio. It was then that I knew that I will never find what I am looking for here, and will soon never have the chance to again.

Overall: 50/400
-(thanks for introducing me to a great CJA thing I hadn't seen before, but other than that, ugh. asie, it's amazing that you're not actually a troll.)

-----------------------------------------------

[95763] "denis" (coda) =IMMORTALITY/HEAVY=

Theme - 5/100
-There are arrows constantly soaring through the air. It matters not if they hurt you, for you are immortal.

Gameplay - 4/90
-WHETHER 'TIS NOBLER IN THE MIND TO SUFFER THE SLINGS AND ARROWS OF OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, OR TO TAKE ARMS AGAINST A SEA OF TROUBLES, AND BY OPPOSING END THEM

Graphics - 7/70
-Ooh, colors! I like colors

Technique - 9/60
-I like how you used huge lines of robots mostly to shoot in a single direction.

Story - 5/50
-The story is that I missed the meme. Oh well!

Sound - 8/30
-Crashman music generously re-interpreted, and something else. I'm pretty sure that the minimum word guidelines will be practically ignored for this DoZ, fffff.

Overall: 38/400
-burp

-----------------------------------------------

-------Final Rankings-------

#1: King Yu's Tower (310/400)
#2: 22677 (303/400)
#3: Immortal Nanomachines (237/400)
#4: Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immortality (228/400)
#5: One Tower One Life (158/400)
#X: Nanofighter (101/400)
#X: One's Future (68/400)
#X: sick fetish for all things obsolete (56/400)
#6: Mina and the Quest for Immortality (56/400)
#X: Nanomachines from Space (50/400)
#X: 255 nano robotz (43/400)
#7: denis (38/400)
#X: Goo! It's ALIVE! (22/400)

All in all, a sadly disappointing DoZ. Although the preparation was muted in comparison to some past DoZs, that wasn't the big issue behind its failure. It was planned well in advance, with considerable solicitation. The topics were, for once, near-universally praised. Even the best tools can go ignored and useless if few people bother using them, I guess.
</pre>

Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Lancer-X

2012-07-16T16:22:44Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "<pre> Summer 2010 DualStream Day of Zeux Judging Results - Lancer-X This was a rather unexciting DoZ and generally a breeze to judge, given the incredibly low number of c..."

<pre>
Summer 2010 DualStream Day of Zeux Judging Results - Lancer-X

This was a rather unexciting DoZ and generally a breeze to judge, given the
incredibly low number of complete games. It's a shame that so few of the
signups felt inclined to work seriously. Hopefully the Winter DoZ will have a
better turnout.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#7494: "Immortal Nanomachines"
by "diamond <3s club spades" (GreaseMonkey)
Theme: Immortality / Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Gameplay: 80/120

Before I say anything further, I'd like to point out that this is one of the
best, if not THE best examples of, if not quite an RTS then a Cannon
Fodder-esque overhead squad tactics strategy game in MegaZeux. The game
involves you controlling a group of riflemen and grenadiers which you can
select with a bounding box and then point them at things to go shoot. As the
enemies outnumber you a rudimentary amount of strategy is necessary. The
grenadiers do relatively little damage given their attack delay and reduced
range and I found their main utility was in selecting one and moving it around
the map to clear out enemy riflemen that it could hit from behind the terrain
and enemy grenadiers (which are very easy to dodge the grenades of if you're
controlling a single unit) and later to take advantage of the splash damage by
throwing them en mass at tightly-knit groups of enemy soldiers.

The game features two missions, neither of which are particularly difficult
and both of which simply involve killing off all the enemy units.

I had some fun playing this, which is reflected in the score, but it would
have gotten higher if the game featured more variety (actual mission
objectives beyond 'kill everyone', the grenadiers being more generally useful
amd some graphical considerations that do harm the gameplay but are further
described under Graphics below.

Graphics: 35/90

Rudimentary char editing (mostly dither graphics) and some colours of the
palette were changed slightly. As the author favoured high-contrast dithers
for background graphics, the in-game background art and troop graphics clash a
lot and the overall effect is not pleasant on the eyes.

The troop graphics are entirely devoid of animation and only differ to show
you which side the troop is on (the colour) and whether the troop is a
rifleman or grenadier. In general, the biggest flaw with the graphics here is
the lack of feedback. While the grenades use some simple animation, the only
feedback given for rifle fire is audial and it is impossible to tell who is
firing at whom. Even just tracing lines to show fire would have helped. The
overall effect is that it is hard to work out what's going on during combat,
which units are taking the most damage etc. The game would look and play
better even if it just used the default character set with the default palette
as long as it gave some visual feedback of combat and had the background clash
less.

There were some okay-looking transitions, most notably the title screen, but
nothing that made me go 'wow'.

Technique: 65/80

In general, implementing this sort of thing at all is impressive to some
degree and it worked fairly well. I did not observe any bugs that were harmful
to gameplay and the game plays from start to finish every time. The game
sports a pixel-perfect mouse engine; while not a great feat to code, this is
something previous mouse-oriented tactical games in MegaZeux have lacked and
it makes a HUGE difference in terms of playability. There are also other nice
touches, such as your troops automatically firing on enemies that get in range
so you don't always have to watch them constantly.

Some things could have been implemented a bit smoother - better pathfinding
and moving could have prevented your troops from getting stuck behind terrain
or queuing up. It would also have been nice to be able to select individual
units by clicking on them rather than having to draw a box every time. In
addition, as you have to drag the mouse against the edge of the screen to
scroll, having the screen continue to scroll down while the mouse was hovering
over the status bar at the bottom (which contained no clickable items anyway)
would have been a nice touch, so that the cursor doesn't need to be
repositioned when you're trying to scroll down.

There are a couple of odd bugs that pertain to the display. One of which is
the fact that grenades tend to not get cleared in some cases, leaving them on
the display until something else clears them up. The other one I observed was
the mouse cursor graphic being replaced with one of the terrain graphics after
finishing the first level. While odd, this did not have an effect on the
playability as it was still clear where the cursor was.

Story: 20/50

The story is pretty much rubbish. The entire delivery consists of text
screens, which isn't so bad by itself but the story they present doesn't make
them worth reading. The game namedrops cameos, but in a way that doesn't seem
to be used for humourous effect so the logic is mind-boggling. The story
exists pretty much just to sell the theme, but it doesn't even do that
particularly well. This is a shame because this kind of game would benefit
from a bit of storytelling, especially when you associate it with
story-related mission objectives. For example, it seems logical in the first
mission that your real aim is to simply get past the enemy forces, especially
since they don't seem to be vigorously pursuing you. So, why not have the
enemy vastly outnumber the player and have a particular checkpoint you need to
reach with a certain minimum number of remaining troops? Instead, both
missions are simply to kill all the enemy troops and it's not at all clear
why, save for the fact that the game tells you you have to.

Sound: 28/40

Music isn't bad, save for the title screen music which contains an annoying
crackling/popping sound and is irritating to listen to, and there's even some
original pieces. The sound effects, made by the author of the game, are also
decent enough save for the rifle firing sound (which sounds like someone
tapping a microphone). Unfortunately, said microphone-tapping sound is the
only feedback given for rifle firing. A better shooting sound would have
helped a lot here.

Theme: 8/20

Acknowledgement of the theme in the story screens but nowhere else, which is
fair enough for theme-light, but disappointing. Given that the (basically
nonexistant) plot could have been easily rejigged to have you controlling a
bunch of combat nanomachines or something, this level of implementation was
good enough to get above the DQ threshold but not much better than that.

Overall: 248/400

I liked this game but there were too many little flaws and so much potential
for improvement. With some actual thought put into artistic direction, some
graphical feedback for attacks and other things to make the game a little more
exciting, an actual story, more mission variety, more potential for strategy
and more polish this could have easily won the DoZ and it wouldn't have been
that hard to do on top of the existing engine either. Oh well.

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#8724: "Nanofighter"
by "Retro to the Future" (madbrain)
Theme: Nanomachines / Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Gameplay: 20/120

Decent versus-fighter games do not EXIST in MegaZeux for a number of reasons,
one of which is the fact that you need to draw your character sprites very
large for everything to work. They don't really work with MZX's display model
all that well, which severely punishes that kind of work with the harsh
character limits.

This is a case of someone actually pulling it off, almost. The characters are
large and look good, they've got a variety of well-executed attacks and
there's even combos, which are fairly intuitive to pull off.

Unfortunately, the game stops there. There's no enemy AI so the enemy
opponent, if present, just stands there and there's no collision or damage
detection so you can't even pummel the helpless opponent. There's nothing to
do except jump around and try out the (admittedly great-looking moves). What a
shame, what a shame.

Graphics: 85/90

There isn't much there, but what's there looks great. Large, well-drawn
characters with a huge amount of well-executed animation. Everything looks
very fluid. The lack of a background makes things look a little dull but
understandable given the heavy char use by the existing graphics. The
characters look just a little squished in MZX's aspect ratio but it's nothing
that noticeable.

Technique: 44/80

What's there is good - the characters have decent, fluid moves, jumps, kicks,
punches and combo moves, the attacks combine with the movements as well to
create even more variety and it all looks very nice. Unfortunately the rest of
the game, which is pretty much all programming, is sadly absent.

Story: 15/50

No story, but for the majority of versus fighters the story is very much a
'bolt-on' anyway, so it's hard to argue the game needs it. On the other hand,
this causes problems for the theme, see below.

Sound: 15/40

Only one song, although it's a decent song and fits the sort of game this is.
Sound effects might have been nice.

Theme: 1/20

Only the title. I'll give that the fighters are probably made of nanomachines
or something but the game doesn't even say that. A single screen of story text
could have at least established a context for this game, but I understand that
the game is unfinished and the author considered (probably correctly) that it
was better to work on the actual game than that.

Overall: 180/400

One of the dangers to working on something completely different to anything
that's been tried before in MegaZeux is that, while you may pull it off every
now and then, chances are it will backfire and you'll be left with far less of
a game by the end of the DoZ than you might have if you made something more
normal. This was nice to look at but it's not a game, the gameplay isn't
there. Would be nice to see this finished. Too bad it'll probably be DQed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#19798: "One Tower, One Life"
by "Team One-Hour-Entry" (KKairos)
Theme: Immortality / Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Gameplay: 30/90

The central concept to this game is that you have to defend yourself against
an unending series of enemies with an automatic attack that you can spend
energy upgrading the characteristics of. Killing enemies nets you additional
energy and life which will both slowly drain away over time. Since your only
interaction with the game is upgrading these characteristics, gameplay
essentially involves in watching the display, buying new characteristics every
now and then.

Once you complete wave 10 or so you instantly lose.

Graphics: 30/70

Use of default characters and palette in a way that's not particularly ugly
but still won't win any prizes. The graphics are clean and make it clear
what's going on so they don't hinder the experience at all. Uninteresting but
not terrible. A better visualisation of the player attack could have helped.
The drawing of the player is probably the nicest looking thing in the game.

Technique: 10/60

The game is entirely robotic-driven, which is something; however, the large
number of bugs present damages this game's score considerably. First of all,
the player attack is flawed; while it checks for enemies along a line from
right next to the player to the maximum range of the attack, if an enemy is
detected it only sends the robot at the exact range of the weapon to the
attack subroutine. This means that if an enemy gets past the player's range
they can continue unharmed until they are right next to the player (in which
case a second, close range player attack is used). For this reason it is
nearly pointless to spend any energy on range at all. In addition, because
enemies check whether they are in position to attack the player by whether
they are blocked from moving, a newly spawned fast-moving enemy can do
significant damage to the player simply by being blocked by a slower-moving
enemy from the previous wave. Finally, enemies have a movement speed based on
a delay that starts at 10 on wave 1 and decreases each wave, meaning that by
wave 11 the delay is 0 which causes the enemies to exhibit strange behavior
that causes the game to be lost almost instantly.

Story: 25/50

Story is virtually nonexistant and consists of a text screen, but as the game
is of a format that does not require a story to work it can be forgiven for
this.

Sound: 8/30

The audio for the game consists of one song, although it's not too bad a song.
Sound effects would have helped.

Theme: 25/100

Token acknowledgment of the theme on the game's text screens - the idea is to
gain enough energy to be powerful enough to be able to stop any enemies from
attacking you and threatening your immortality. This is a rare (in this DoZ)
example of actually using the theme as a base for the gameplay, but as you die
after wave 10 anyway this goal is unachievable. Probably should have used the
theme-light scoresheet.

Overall: 123/400

Could have been almost fun if the bugs were fixed but unfortunately the
gameplay was too limited and noninteractive to stay interesting for very long
and the game does not impress in other aspects. I guess it's decent for a
BKZX-length effort, though.

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#22625: "King Yu's Tower"
by "';DROP TABLE teams;" (logicow)

Theme: Immortality / Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Gameplay: 80/90

This is a top-down MegaZeux game where you roam the titular tower slaying
enemies, collecting items, fighting bosses while looking for a way to relieve
an old king of his immortality. The gameplay unashamedly borrows from the
Legend of Zelda series and other titles; the weapons you use include a sword,
a bow that fires arrows and bombs you can throw. Enemies respawn each time you
enter a stage and randomly drop coins and health. Coins can be used to
purchase more items from a shop, including a one-use potion that restores your
health (completely, contrary to the what it says in the inventory display;
which I am rather thankful for.) Gameplay is semi-linear; once you've managed
to uncover the base items you need to explore you can fight the two bosses at
your leisure before going on to battle the final boss and win the game.

It's quite well implemented on the whole, and actually fun, unlike a lot of
MegaZeux games that also try to copy Zelda. Most weapons work fairly naturally
and they have a generous area effect so you don't have to line up everything
perfectly when using expendable ammo. The only real problem is that it is
arguably a little too easy in parts; the shopkeeper is very generous when it
comes to the amount he wants for items, and it's very easy to get a lot of
money at one of the skeleton spawn areas (I favour the one with the chest) by
using the tesla weapon to zap large numbers of them into health and coins;
easily paying for the tesla ammo with plenty left over.

The enemies are unvaried (they're pretty much 'skeleton', 'skeleton that can
shoot', 'club-shaped thing that you need to kill with arrows and only meet a
couple of times') and predictable in behavior- they basically throw themselves
at you en mass. On the other hand, the bosses are quite varied and exciting,
requiring the use of a number of strategies. I very much enjoyed the fight
with the council herbalist.

Some of the weapons exhibit slight oddities. The bomb travels slowly all the
way across the screen when you use it, making it fairly difficult to hit
single-char moving enemies with it if they aren't near walls. The arrows do
area damage as they fly along but only stop if they hit something. This
encourages odd strategies such as firing arrows just above or below the
demonic flowers spawned by the herbalist to knock both out completely with
just one arrow. They're also very cheap for their high effectiveness.

In the room with a coin chest and multiple skeleton spawners, there is an
invisible wall at the end. Why wasn't this just an ordinary wall? Making it
specifically an invisowall makes us think there's some way to bypass it and
something on the other side!

Regardless of defects, this was a very fun game to play; long enough to not
end just as you think it's getting started but short enough for the repetitive
aspects of the gameplay to not get old. Less play time than 22677 but that's
mostly attributed to the latter's horrifying Level 4 than the game
legitimately having more content to it.

Graphics: 45/70

IBM-extended ASCII character set with EGA palette. It's kitch, it's
old-sckool, it reminds you of Kroz and ZZT. How well were these graphics
actually used, though?

The game has some very nice cutscene art, even if you don't take into account
the (self-imposed) graphical limitations. I especially loved how the airship
was drawn.

In-game, things aren't quite so hot. The levels designs are simple and either
filled with solid colour (the necromancer's domain) or random crap (the
herbalist's domain) - you can get away with this sort of thing when you're
taking full advantage of the charset and palette, which can be very effective
at disguising or at least compensating for copypasted design, but this just
looks rather dull.

Easily the best in-game artwork are in the animations; the tesla weapon and
bomb are flashy and pretty, the little animated touches like the healer and
the spirit portal looked nice and there's plenty of extra animation in the
boss fights, especially the one with the herbalist which features some
great-looking demonic flowers.

So, there you have it. Moments of pretty don't make up entirely for the fact
that you're mostly looking at boring for the whole game but they certainly
don't hurt and the end result is a game that still looks nicer than the
majority of releases this DoZ.

Technique: 48/60

Enemies and bosses are one-char affairs, here, but the bosses can sport some
additional flash - in fact, the most impressive work in the game was from the
boss battles with the herbalist and the final boss. The weapons are all
non-standard, and range in flash from the basic overlay sword and bow to the
rather prettier tesla weapon and bombs. In general, the coding is used to
complement and improve the traditional built-in gameplay rather than working
against it and that's something I can always appreciate.

Bugs; were there any bugs in this game? I didn't really notice any, which is
good enough for me. I was a little bit surprised when the necromancer's
skeleton-spawning lightning bolts blew holes in the columns but it didn't do
the same to the walls so it could have easily have been intentional.
Regardless, it's such a small thing it didn't bother me at all.

There was nothing, technique-wise, in this game that exactly wowed me but it's
above-average, non-standard programming and all used effectively to make the
game more enjoyable. Good stuff.

Story: 32/50

The story is simple but effective and well-presented. King Yu requested his
subjects to bequeath him immortality so that he could forever rule his
kingdom, but then had said kingdom destroyed by a volcanic eruption and has
decided he's had enough, so he asks the player to free him from immortality,
which the player does by searching out and killing the necromancer and
herbalist that were keeping him alive. Not a bad story by any accounts, it fit
the presentation style and went with the gameplay.

My complaint: Why does King Yu attack you at the end? What the hell! I mean,
I'm all for random betrayals in games and I get that it needs a final boss
otherwise you're going to have a whole heap of coins and ammo at the end with
nothing to use it on but SOME explanation for this would have been good.
Almost seems to throw any chance the plot had of being taken seriously out the
window.

Anyway, after killing the king, the tower collapses (presumably not with you
in it) and you take the king's solid gold walking stick or whatever for your
trouble and take your airship out of there.

Not a bad story for a DoZ game but what the hell, why does the king fight you?
Didn't he WANT to die? Besides, I'd think he'd die almost immediately after
the enchantments were lifted, given that he was evidently pretty old by that
point.

Sound: 25/30

Music consisted of a respectable selection of music that generally fit quite
well and was just varied enough not to get old. Sound effects were
'play'-command work, but it fit the overall theme and didn't sound bad so I
have little to complain about here. Wasn't a fan of the boss music though.

Theme: 80/100

The theme was story-centric but the story and gameplay were closely enough
linked for me. I'm not sure the treatment of the theme here was as thorough as
is necessary for full marks on a theme-heavy sheet but it would have done well
(probably 20/20) on theme-light. The whole game was about King Yu's
immortality, the ways in which he is kept alive and returning him to mortality.

Overall: 310/400

A fun, solid game that plays from start to finish - something this DoZ could
have done with a lot more of. A good example of picking a concept, a gameplay
mechanic and implementing it well until the end. My pick to win.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#22677: "immortality"
by "Anything is Possible When You Believe" feat "Dragons (Yet again)"
(asgromo, Kom)
Theme: Immortality / Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Gameplay: 100/120

This DoZ game is a sidescroller. You move a 2x2 character around a
randomly-generated mazelike level, killing enemies with a weapon that can fire
in 8 directions and trying to reach the exit door, placed randomly on the
bottom floor. There's a number of dead ends and you often have to backtrack in
order to find the right path. Sort of reminds me of Roland on the Ropes; at
least in theory.

The sidescroller gameplay is decent enough; while the jumping, gravity and
(lack of) friction takes a little getting used to at first, once you've
adjusted it's very natural. There are four levels of different designs, each
of increasing size and populated by an increasing number of enemies that spawn
randomly. These enemies attack you with varied particle-based attacks, some
quite vicious and if you're not careful your health will go down quite
quickly, at which point it is usually best to retreat until it regenerates.

To fight off the enemies, you have a simple weapon that can shoot in 8
directions and, as you kill off enemies and gain points, your weapon increases
in power, with the range, shot damage, firing rate, speed and accuracy
increasing the more enemies you kill. Decent idea in theory, but this
particular system happens to be the biggest flaw in the entire game. The
problem is that the stats - particularly the firing rate - increase too
quickly given the vast number of enemies you encounter in the same and fairly
soon (pretty much after finishing the first level) it becomes so fast it
starts to hog most of your CPU. By level 4 the game becomes too unbearable to
play on most systems.

For the purposes of playing this game I edited the .MZX to reduce the rate
your weapon attributes improve to one tength of what they were before, which
resulted in the game becoming far more playable and also far more difficult.

Level 4, in particular, felt like revenge for the Level 5 of Reconquista
Escalation except this game wasn't made by any judges of that DoZ. It's
incredibly long (the aforementioned backtracking ends up being the main
activity performed during this level), incredibly frustrating and has a simply
ridiculous enemy count. I think I spent at least two hours on that one level,
including a lot of reloading.

Otherwise, this was simply great overall. Most fun I had out of any of the DoZ
games, if also the most frustration.

Graphics: 65/90

This game looks quite nice. The levels, though repetitive, show decent use of
colour, the enemies and player are nicely drawn and animated, the graphical
effects like the particle work were very nice (although I wish the particle
clouds the enemies exploded into varied more; they're shades of red for the
first level and bright colours for the three levels after. Just having the
bright colours for one level would have been enough; they're too distracting).

While the enemies attack with varied particles, the player attack is just a
plain circular bullet. Would have been nice to have something that changed as
your weapon got more powerful, but this isn't particularly important as it's
only onscreen for a fractional amount of time.

The cutscenes don't look quite so hot. Diamond-esque 'cel shading' style here
but the artist doesn't have quite the same flair as Diamond had with it so it
ends up looking even more blocky mess than usual. In particular it's hard to
tell what's going on with some of the scenes.

Overall, though, best looking game this DoZ.

Technique: 45/80

Ahh, technique. The section where we reward good programming and punish bugs.
This was particularly interesting to score for this game because it contains
both the best programming in the DoZ and also the worst bugs.

First of all, random level generation has been done in DoZs before (see Memory
Leak for one example) but certainly never this well and never as a
sidescroller. On the other hand, the levels basically just amount to mazes,
which aren't particularly difficult to create, but nonetheless it looks good
and works well.

Next we have a sprite player, sprite enemies, high-speed projectile code,
particles, all implemented fairly well (with some minor issues to be discussed
later) and all effective in making the gameplay a touch above that of the
typical MZX sidescroller (this was much more fun than, say, Mira the Pirate).
You can even look further down, essential for avoiding (shallow) dead ends.

In terms of bugs, the first and most noticable is the extreme inbalance in
weapon attribute gains (inbalance would not normally be classed as a 'bug' but
in this case it makes the game virtually unplayable after a point so it
counts). Not difficult to fix but it really does hurt the game a lot when you
have to edit it to gain the most out of the gameplay.

Furthermore, player bullets have a habit of consistantly vanishing at times,
meaning you can fire (sometimes repeatedly) at an enemy and not have any of
your bullets connect. Not a huge deal but at times it can be very annoying,
requiring you to move into enemy fire in order to attack.

A flaw arising from the random level generation is that at times it is
impossible to go back up a vertical passage you have gone down. Because the
randomly generated levels contain a number of dead ends, the chances of going
down a one-way passage and finding a dead end is rather good, at which point
you end up hoping you've saved recently. Avoidable, by learning to recognise
dead-end passages and saving before taking the plunge but still quite annoying.

Finally, a bug that doesn't strike until the end- on the final part of the
game you have to destroy a big pipe in order to get one of the two endings
(the other ending can be reached simply by travelling through the door).
Unfortunately the pipe's sprite is not initialised properly and still contains
old data from the levels (the spr#_vlayer attribute, specifically) making it
both invisible and impossible to attack when you get to that level from after
level 4. Simple enough to fix but also particularly frustrating.

The mix of decent programming and multiple game-killing bugs results in a
fairly midline score, but a respectable total given that I didn't punish
Gameplay for them.

Story: 35/50

Excellent story presentation; rather than telling you outright, the game slips
in hints and leaves you to work out the rest. As I understood it, the planet
this story takes place on is one massive neural network used to essentially
store the consciousness of humanity in order for humankind to achieve a kind
of immortality. The 'voice' is a dissenting thought in this network that longs
to end this eternity and creates the player to do its bidding.

The story has two endings, depending on whether you choose to destroy the
planet or not, but both simply show a single line. Accordingly, the ending
feels a little anticlimactic, especially after going through level 4.

The story was presented in the form of text dialogues and still images between
stages. The actual link between the gameplay and story is as such fairly weak-
you're going deeper into the planet where things are being more dangerous,
certainly, but beyond that and the final part where you have to either destroy
the pipe or leave there is little relation between what you're doing in-game
and what the story is talking about.

Nonetheless, story-wise it's the best showing in this DoZ.

Sound: 35/40

A variety of songs and sound effects, all reasonably well used and none seemed
too out of place. Level 4's music was especially appropriate given how
horrifying the level was. Can't ask for too much more here.

Theme: 18/20

Good show for theme-light - the concept of immortality is embedded thoroughly
into the story. The only thing stopping this theme from gaining full marks is
the fact that the story and gameplay are fairly divorced meaning that you
don't really feel any link to the theme except on those between-level story
scenes.

Overall: 298/400

I both loved and hated this game more than anything else in the DoZ (the
no-shows like 24560 and 79546 were more disappointment than anything else).
Great ideas and execution but terrible, terrible flaws. Easily the most work
to judge, both fixing the game and even just PLAYING it (which at times was
more like work than fun). Nonetheless once you look beneat the mouldy exterior
there's a definite gem in here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#24560: "^255 nano robotz(?)"
by "<%Kuddy> "epic doz team name"" (mzxrules)
Theme: Nanomachines / Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Gameplay: 5/120

Not really, no

Graphics: 35/90

Well, there's some non-terrible 2x2 sprites, most of which are tucked away in
a subdirectory and never used in the actual game. There's the overworld
graphics, which actually look pretty nice. Beyond that there's nothing really
to talk about.

Technique: 10/80

Unusual. There's a bunch of code here, basically all in external files but
almost none of it seems to be used. The author clearly spent some time coding
but it never eventuated into anything the user can see, except moving an
unanimated 2x2 sprite around a testing board and running into another
unanimated 2x2 sprite.

Why does the test board use 100% of my CPU?

Story: 0/50

None, and it's clearly the sort of game that would require one.

Sound: 1/40

None. Admittedly this does mean there's nothing offensively bad but still.

Theme: 0/20

I can't really say here that the 'title', which probably isn't actually the
title at all, counts because it doesn't even suggest a story. There's nothing
here to show that theme was used at all. From the rest of the game I can guess
there was probably some idea in the author's head but it never got into the
submission.

Overall: 51/400

Why do you do this every DoZ, old-sckool?

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#54188: "Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immortality"
by "Cute Bounty Hunter" (Baby Bonnie Hood)
Theme: Immortality / Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Gameplay: 40/90

Can't say this is exactly brilliant stuff, although it certainly works for the
theme, see below. You finish one short level of low difficulty and
mostly-builtin hazards, and for the rest of the game you're invulnerable and
can just sail right through it, which is pretty hilarious really. It was short
enough to not get boring, though.

Graphics: 30/70

Only alterations to the defaults was the use of water chars, but the lack of
modification doesn't really hurt this game.

Technique: 10/60

Can't really say this game exemplifies 'technique' but there is SOME code. The
game plays from start to finish and I observed no bugs, minor or major.

Story: 30/50

There is no backstory- the game simply places you in the context and it's up
to you to fill in the blanks. The story itself is told mostly by your actions
as you play through. There isn't much here but what's there complements the
theme, which is the main point of using the theme-heavy scoresheet anyway.

Sound: 15/30

Two ripped mods and a lightning sound; the rest of the audio was built-in
effects. I never really noted the music as being lacking or unfitting so
what's here is sufficient.

Theme: 90/100

Well, what can I say? Implementing 'immortality' throughout, in your story and
gameplay is not something that's at all easy to do and it might have damaged
the Gameplay score a bit, but it works, it's hilarious and, well, it's
Immortality. What more can you ask? I can't really imagine a more thorough
implementation of this theme. The game even concludes with the obvious
'unending immortality would actually suck quite a bit'.

Overall: 215/400

I liked this and would like to have scored it higher but it lacks the
production values, technique and storytelling to actually be a good game. You
won't see a better implementation of the theme this DoZ, though.

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#75946: "Mina and the Quest for Immortality"
by "Team Frost Muffin" (commodorejohn)
Theme: Immortality / Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Gameplay: 5/90

All you can do is wander around and talk to a person, who only delivers a
single line. Practically nothing here at all.

Graphics: 25/70

160x50 display with four colours; black, white and two shades of grey. The
player sprite looked alright, as did the NPC, but everything else was too
indistinct. The way this game would look in the end would be entirely
dependent on the quality of the tile art, and even then I have a hunch that it
wouldn't look particularly wonderful. I know the Nintendo Game Boy had similar
graphical capabilities but it had nearly three times the vertical resolution
and a much higher DPI to its credit. This looks like a bit of a blocky mess.

Technique: 25/60

Undoubtably this game's strongest component; unfortunately what is there isn't
particularly impressive. The viewport shudders as you walk north or south, the
text in the textbox is far too big (the author was planning on having us read
an adventure game's entire script this way?) and there's simply no game beyond
walking around and talking to the one NPC.

Story: 0/50

None, and it's an RPG/adventure game.

Sound: 5/30

An original song? Excellent. Unfortunately that's the only audio there is and
it's totally out of place.

Theme: 1/100

Only the title screen.

Overall: 61/400

8 hours is enough time to implement a game in. Maybe more time megazeuxing,
less time sleeping next DoZ?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#95763: "denis"
by "ãƒ½(ãƒ»Ï‰ãƒ»)ãƒŽ" (coda)
Theme: Immortality / Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Gameplay: 5/90

Truly bizarre. You basically walk from left to right across a psychedelic
screen of colour that changes from green to purple and purple to green each
time you wrap around, being hit by arrow-shaped projectiles, but you're..
immortal, I guess, so you don't need to worry about them.

Graphics: 20/70

Looks sort of pretty, I suppose, but there isn't much to look at.

Technique: 15/60

Code basically just used to shoot the arrows and to reverse them and change
the colour each time you cross the board.

Story: 0/50

Hm.

Sound: 15/30

Two tunes, one is a Kuddy-BKZX-level obnoxious piece and the other which is
actually pretty catchy. Were they both original? I guess they are since this
game is by a well-known tracker.

Theme: 5/100

You're immortal so the arrows don't hurt you.

Overall: 60/400

???

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Final ranking:

#24560: "^255 nano robotz(?)" ( 51/400)
#95763: "denis" ( 60/400)
#75946: "Mina and the Quest for Immortality" ( 61/400)
#19798: "One Tower, One Life" (128/400)
#8724: "Nanofighter" (180/400)
#54188: "Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immortality" (215/400)
#7494: "Immortal Nanomachines" (236/400)
#22677: "immortality" (298/400)
#22625: "King Yu's Tower" (310/400)
</pre>

Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Wervyn

2012-07-16T16:22:08Z

Kuroneko:

<pre>
/= INTRODUCTION ================================================================
| So honestly, this feels like the worst DoZ ever. Maybe it's just having |
| come off of a run of pretty good ones with lots of great submissions, but |
| even the best games in this turnout aren't really that great, and I expect |
| more at least 6 disqualifications if not 8. We've had one DoZ in the past |
| with 8 disqualified games, but this is still likely to be the highest |
| percentage thrown in the trash. In keeping with that, then, I've only |
| submitted indepth scores for the games I actually felt deserved to be |
| judged, and spent about half the time on the others. And the games that were |
| automatically DQed I didn't bother judging at all. Nevertheless, I hope you |
| enjoy them. |
| |
===============================================================================/

== THE GOOD ==

/= 07494 = Immortal Nanomachines =============== IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [197/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 52/120] -
| I do like the basic idea here, MZX still doesn't have a really noteworthy |
| RTS as far as I'm concerned and this demonstrates a promising start. However |
| in terms of game depth this is pretty shallow, particularly as it's missing |
| a major part of the AI component. Marshalling your forces to pick the enemy |
| off unit by unit is amusing, but not really challenging or interesting. I |
| spent more time devising pincer strategies to get around the limitations of |
| the engine than because any sort of strategy was really necessary. Added to |
| that, the game is too short, and the number of possibilities too few given |
| only two unit types. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 34/ 90] -
| There's some attention to aesthetics here with char edits and terrain |
| dithering (and thank you for wisely aborting your attempt at a random |
| ditherer, it looked awful), but for the most part the game just looked like |
| fractal vomit, large regions of solid color that vaguely suggested a |
| landscape. I can't give this much more than a nod to say that it didn't look |
| as terrible as it could have. Menus and title screen were similarly |
| servicable but uninteresting. Visual indication of damage during the game |
| was also notably absent, and shouldn't have been. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 63/ 80] -
| I want to say that I actually am really impressed with your engine here, it |
| has a way to go before you can really stick it in a game but it definitely |
| works as a proof of concept for a MZX RTS. Add some production buildings, |
| resources, and control groups and you've got the makings of a pretty good |
| game. One thing that I really would have liked to see for the DoZ was better |
| pathfinding, since your units have a tendency to get stuck on walls and each |
| other. This makes attacking a solitary foe more micromanagement than it |
| ought to be, as you have to deliberately move them close enough for everyone |
| to be able to shoot, not just the front guy in the line. I'm also deducting |
| a couple points for the graphical glitch with the grenade weapon, which |
| should have been easy to fix. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 14/ 50] -
| There's a difference between a humorous plot and a half-hearted joke. |
| Whereas everything in Baby Bonnie Hood's simple game was invested in telling |
| his joke, in this case the plot is clearly a tack-on to the engine. As a |
| result, my emotional connection to the game suffers, since I care just about |
| as much about the story as you do. This might have improved if the game had |
| gone somewhere, but it was left unfinished after two levels. So that's |
| another strike in this category. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 29/ 40] -
| There's nothing about the music here that I really object to, but I don't |
| know. Like the story, it feels like most of it was added as an afterthought, |
| and doesn't really feel like it makes the game better, just less quiet. The |
| wide array of sound effects was a plus though, especially since the ratatat |
| of gunfire was the only way you could tell you were attacking or being |
| attacked in some situations. Although now that I think on it, I would have |
| gone with a more noticeable sound for that, too. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5/ 20] -
| Obviously, this scrapes by on the barest mention of the theme as motivation |
| for the plot, CJA is trying to become immortal somehow and you must stop |
| him, hurr durr. Naturally being deliberately confusing about which topic the |
| game is actually using doesn't help matters. I think I'm qualifying this |
| mostly because I didn't want yet ANOTHER disqualified game in this already |
| pretty terrible competition. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [197/400] -
| An interesting engine but an uninspired game, this is the concept I'd like |
| to see developed after the DoZ the most. Of course, nothing ever comes out |
| of aspirations like that, does it. |
| |
| "Oh snap, I got a cameo!" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 19798 = One Tower, One Life ================= IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [144/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 42/100] -
| I don't know if this was really meant to be submitted on the Heavy sheet, |
| but those are the rules so if you wanted something different you should have |
| paid attention. As a theme-heavy application of immortality, I'd classify |
| this as slightly below average. The theme is there, but not drawn on enough |
| to really make it central, especially since immortality as the motivation |
| for playing the game is unattainable. This makes the game more of a Knights |
| vs. Horrible Dragon thing with a role reversal twist than anything else. |
| There's the possibility for some meta-commentary on the theme here in |
| contemplating the futility of aspiring to immortality, but if that's what |
| you were going for you should have been more explicit about it, as Baby |
| Bonnie Hood was with his game. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 32/ 90] -
| Ultimately, this whole game comes down to tweaking the stats on an |
| otherwise non-interactive process. As a result, it's not really much of a |
| game. There's also no win condition, so there's no real motivation to play. |
| Despite that, I was surprised at how many times I played this to try and |
| improve my "score", so to speak. There's at least some level of strategy in |
| how you apply points to stats. So I gave you some points back for keeping me |
| entertained. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 18/ 70] -
| Pretty garbage, even for the default palette and charset. I'm not going to |
| spend a lot of time rubbing your nose in that though and just assume that, |
| like me, graphics are not your strong point. Objectively, there's too much |
| black, not enough definition on the large piece to tell what it's supposed |
| to be without inferring from the accompanying text, and nothing else besides |
| the one board (or three effectively identical boards) to judge. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 27/ 60] -
| This is coded in the old style that invokes commands like "duplicate self" |
| and "if blocked east", using the physical presence of robots to do work |
| instead of just manipulating numbers. However, it does work, so I can't |
| slight it too much for "not how I would have done it". I did deduct a few |
| points for engine balance, since the line between "doin' just fine" and |
| "oops you're dead" seems to be so thin that I wonder if there isn't a bug |
| somewhere. At the very least, for a game like this you want a much broader |
| spectrum of life and death in order to provide time to react to changes in |
| time. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 11/ 50] -
| Little more than some cursory motivational text for attempting an |
| impossible task. This isn't always a problem if the game itself can provide |
| the emotional engagement that I call Story, but in this case it can't; the |
| overall emotional takeaway is apathy. This is where I'm picking up the |
| meta-commentary I mentioned, but again, I don't think it's something you |
| were doing on purpose. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 14/ 30] -
| There's only the one mod, and some sound effects to give you cues on when |
| you were getting hurt or when you were attacking would have helped. On the |
| other hand, it was a cute, whimsical mod that fit the mood, such as I |
| perceived it, so that's something. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [144/400] -
| Overall this was an interesting little diversion but not much more. I do |
| find it a little depressing that it ends up in the top half of the |
| submissions due to the high volume of disqualified crap. |
| |
| "Just keep rollin' that boulder." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 22625 = King Yu's Tower ===================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [281/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 76/100] -
| Well logicow has a pair of brass ones. Not only did he branch way outside |
| his normal submission with this, but he went for the scoresheet he's done |
| nothing but rant at in the past. And for all that, he did a pretty good job. |
| The theme is worked into story that, while simple, uses it centrally and |
| well. This isn't superlative usage -- I feel it acts more as a backdrop for |
| the game than as a gameplay element for example -- but it is solid usage, |
| and that makes it better than a lot of them. I tossed in a few extra points |
| for a possible theme interpretation of "immortality as retro". ZZT4EVA BABY! |
| Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 71/ 90] -
| This was definitely the best GAME out of the whole group, and while I |
| suppose that might be saying a lot about the quality of the submissions in |
| general, it was genuinely fun. The different weapons were simple but well |
| implemented and the bosses were actually reasonably difficult without being |
| frustratingly tough; I generally found myself with just enough health and |
| supplies to make it through, which speaks to good balance. Although on the |
| other hand, I did wonder about the reward for defeating a couple of the |
| bosses, beyond story advancement. Max health increased by 5? Seriously? |
| Thanks mom, I'll take that nickel down to the general store and buy a pop! |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 37/ 70] -
| While I understand that the graphical style chosen here is an intentional |
| pastiche, I find it slightly above average even in comparison to other ZZT |
| games. It's competently put together but not more than that, and there's |
| several boards that look either too plain, or too haphazard (compare |
| Necromancer's crypt and Herbalist's gardens). Or maybe I just don't like |
| black <s>people</s> backgrounds. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 42/ 60] -
| The game is bug free as far as I can tell and well put together. There's |
| nothing really special being done here that warrants lots of bonus points, |
| but there doesn't really need to be. Nice work on the boss fights and the |
| weapon engines of course, but there's nothing else of particular note going |
| on. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 31/ 50] -
| I found this good enough to engage me through the game, even if it wasn't |
| terribly compelling. The plot arc was simple and folloew a pretty classic |
| form, with exposition and foreshadowing, rising action and conflict, climax, |
| and of course next to no denouement since who cares about that anymore? I |
| wasn't quite sold on the ending with the king's sudden "now we must kung fu |
| fight" reversal. From a gameplay perspective it makes perfect sense, but |
| from the way the story was set up it kind of comes out of nowhere. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 24/ 30] -
| Some good musical choices here, I found myself humming along as I played. |
| Again, nothing really stand out about it, but it was well selected and |
| worked effectively at setting the tone in each of the areas of the game. The |
| PC speaker sound effects were an obvious but good choice to round out the |
| style package, so that's worth a little something too. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [281/400] -
| So my overall feeling in most categories here is "solid, but not |
| spectacular". And in a DoZ where people are submitting either engines that |
| are pretty but incomplete or nothing worthwhile at all, "solid but not |
| spectacular" might be plenty enough to win. |
| |
| "Wait, I changed my mind, I'm too young to die!" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 22677 = Untitled Game about Puffy =========== IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [285/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 77/120] -
| There's a lot of good here, as far as the engine goes. You have a solid |
| spritescroller with a randomly generated maze of a level, and a satisfying |
| if simple combat mechanic. The improvements to character stats over time |
| theoretically make for an engaging difficulty curve, but in practice the |
| real difficulty was in dealing with the lag your progressively more potent |
| projectile spam produced (more on that in the Technique score). The game |
| suffers from a lack of variety though, and random generation actually hurts |
| more than it helps in that area by making everything seem very samey. It's |
| still very satisfying to drop down a ladder and turn everything in the hall |
| into a hail of confetti, but it doesn't take much thought or effort, and |
| something like a boss fight would have been a good idea. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 65/ 90] -
| I like the individual graphical elements here a lot, especially the player |
| animation work but all of the artwork has a lot of detail put into it. Where |
| it falls apart is the integration, I think. The randomly placed background |
| art gives the level design a real "what am I really looking at here" feel, |
| with no cohesion to it. Perhaps that was the point though. A much worse |
| mistake is the third level, where the enemies were all the same dark purple |
| as the primary background and almost impossible to see. Not that you really |
| need to when you can just fill the hallway with bullets, but it's a major |
| graphical problem. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 62/ 80] -
| This is an engine after my own heart, to be sure, exactly the sort of thing |
| I'd probably write. It's modularized and settings based and for the most |
| part is extremely fluid. The level generator is another nice piece of work, |
| even if the levels it generates are not particularly interesting. The |
| primary loss of points here then is the poorly scaled leveling system, which |
| sets the numbers to values that ultimately result in the player firing |
| several thousand projectiles per cycle and making the game effectively |
| unplayable due to lag. I also noticed stats like accuracy counted downwards |
| to zero but weren't clamped, causing the score to go negative eventually and |
| start reducing accuracy. Though having a weapon that spams bullets in a wide |
| arc down the hall is probably more devestating than a weapon that just fires |
| in an accurate line. Apart from that, the level generator occasionally |
| generated terrain that was difficult or impossible to navigate, such that |
| you could fall down a pit with no ladder back up. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 36/ 50] -
| I admit I'm taken with the presentation here, even though the ending feels |
| a bit unresolved. I get the feeling there was supposed to be a boss fight or |
| some sort of thing on the last board and it never got finished. But the |
| dialogue is cute and entertaining while obliquely hinting at the state of |
| the universe in some far flung future where humanity committed itself to |
| become living planet ships in order to secure its immortality. At least, I |
| think that was the idea, it was a bit confusing. I am taking off some points |
| for the non-ending, at any rate. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 32/ 40] -
| The musical selection was fairly good if a bit bland (and occasionally |
| downright odd, looking at you level 4), but I really enjoyed satisfying |
| splat crack of the weapon and the other sound design. Attention to detail in |
| that area won some points that I wouldn't have given to the music alone. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 13/ 20] -
| I'm pretty sure I understood what you were going for with this, as noted in |
| the story comment. It's definitely good enough, but I think a more |
| deliberate tie in to the game or explicit discussion in the plot would be |
| necessary before I could award it more points for theme. This game is |
| primarily an engine with some story in the background, and I like to reserve |
| my high theme scores for games that really blend the two. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [285/400] -
| Nice work on the engine guys, it's my favorite of the competition as far as |
| cool coding goes. Yes, that includes madbrain's techdemo, all that really is |
| is a good SMZX sprite blitter. As with a lot of ambitious DoZ entries, this |
| one looks like it ran up against time, but at least it's mostly finished and |
| only has the one major bug, so good job. |
| |
| "Didn't even have time to come up with a title." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 54188 = Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immor = IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [215/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 83/100] -
| Well if I gave logicow points for retro as immortality I have to give some |
| to BBH. It's surprising to get two classic throwbacks in the same DoZ, and |
| this is very nostalgic old-school MZX. But leaving that aside, I do feel |
| that this is the game that incorporated Immortality most thoroughly this |
| competition, even if it was really just to make an amusing, somewhat |
| extended joke. It's inarguably both a core mechanic to the story and the |
| gameplay, so I feel comfortable giving it a lion's share of the points here; |
| it won't be getting many of them from the other categories. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 38/ 90] -
| Yeehaw, shoot them builtins! Navigating one board of default MZX terrain |
| hardly qualifies as cutting edge gameplay, and of course after that it turns |
| into navigating similarly default terrain while invulnerable to damage. |
| While I fully understand that this is the point and I do think that having |
| the player yawn through situations that would ordinarily be ragequittingly |
| hard is at least somewhat clever, those are more properly story points than |
| gameplay points. Still, it's not like this was an unenjoyable game |
| experience -- you'd lose a lot more points if I hadn't been invulnerable -- |
| it's just not really fair to give it the same score as games that are |
| actually, you know, games. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 31/ 70] -
| In keeping with my comments on logicow's graphics, while making a |
| deliberate decision to use retro-style graphics is not something I penalize |
| for, it's not something I automatically give you points for either. The |
| monochromatic dungeon motif was an interesting style decision but I think I |
| would have appreciated more contrast within the environments instead of just |
| between them. And it's a fact that you can only make things so pretty with |
| the default character set. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 12/ 60] -
| Points for a competent and bug free demonstration of basic MZX skills, and |
| nothing else. There's nothing to score in this category but some very simple |
| shoot seek enemies and teleport player commands, and at this point I expect |
| anyone to be able to do that. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 34/ 50] -
| Remember that story is a measure of my emotional engagement in the game, |
| not simply another word for plot. I thought the plot of the game was pretty |
| dumb. I thought the story the game told was a reasonably clever dumb joke, |
| pardon the oxymoron. I got an especially good chuckle out of the last |
| dungeon/temple/thing where he says "meh, whatever" and it's an absurd |
| pingpong path through lava and sharks. That's humor at the expense of the |
| medium, right there, so good job for making me laugh. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 17/ 30] -
| This only had the one mod to work with (well I guess there were two, but |
| the other one is brief), so while it wasn't bad per se, it's only worth half |
| the points to me. I did think having the tempo start slowing down as ennui |
| set in was a nice touch though, so I threw a few points back. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [215/400] -
| Pretty average entry, maybe a little less than average except for making |
| good use of the theme. This is the sort of short, sweet one-off that you |
| submit not because you wanted to seriously compete but because you just |
| wanted to have a little fun. And you know that's cool by me. |
| |
| "I guess I'll just have to take up knitting or something." |
| |
===============================================================================/

== THE BAD ==

/= 08724 = Nanofighter ======================== NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [145/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 22/120] -
| Enough to keep me occupied for a minute testing out the engine and the |
| combos, and to hint at what the game might have been like if it was actually |
| hooked up. As the title screen freely admits, this is a tech demo, not a |
| game. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 53/ 90] -
| So, points for drawing some detailed sprites and animations, and minus |
| points for ye gods what is happening to their legs when they jump, and |
| what's up with that grody green bikini on that fat-ass cat? The sprites are |
| the only noteworthy thing, since the background is necessarily solid color |
| in order for the blitter to not look like crap. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 47/ 80] -
| Points for implementing the solid BEGINNINGS of a sprite fighter (spriter? |
| sprighter?), minus points for not nearly going all the way. And after all, |
| as impressive as this may look, I know better about how difficult it |
| actually is. If you wanted to really impress me, you'd figure out how to |
| deal with colliding sprites, since the engine's going nowhere until that's |
| sorted out. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 8/ 50] -
| Nothing at all to speak of, "it's just an engine" after all. I suppose I |
| can pretend there's a story in which Cristofo and Greenwitch fight each |
| other. And then yiff each other. Uck. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 15/ 40] -
| Just the one mod, which to be fair isn't a bad choice for a fighting game, |
| although it would need to be longer and looped for it to actually work for |
| that. Still, not worth much. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 0/ 20] -
| The only reason I have to presume the game is using the Nanomachines topic |
| is the title. Not even worth a pity point. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [145/400] -
| Nice engine madbrain. I guess if one of you brothers is going to take the |
| competition seriously for once, the other one needs to pick up the slack. |
| |
| "Ouch, right in the tail hole." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 24560 = Untitled Game about Nanobots ======= NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [ 79/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 14/120] -
| You can touch stuff (which doesn't work right on the title screen because |
| you can't press enter to clear the message), and you can run around a big |
| empty landscape. And if you look carefully you can find another sprite dude |
| running around on the big black title screen, who will follow you. Wow, you |
| quit pretty early, huh. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 34/ 90] -
| Eliding right past the title screen, the board that was supposed to be the |
| overworld map looks KIND OF nice, but the blockiness of using a map tiler |
| really stands out, especially in the coastline and the mountains. Kind of |
| nice is not the same thing as actually nice. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 21/ 80] -
| I looked through some of the codefiles for this, and I like your enterprise |
| software driven approach! And just like with most enterprise software, |
| there's a lot of complex code for very little actual result. Maybe if this |
| game actually did something with it. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 6/ 50] -
| I am an NPC! Even less potential for reading in a story here than for Furry |
| Fighter II. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 4/ 40] -
| No sound or music. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 0/ 20] -
| Again, the only clue I have to the theme for this is the "255 nano robotz" |
| on the title screen, and nothing else to suggest Immortality. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 79/400] -
| If you're finding it hard to motivate yourself to keep working with a |
| codebase that squirrelly, keep in mind that really simple games using almost |
| no code are scoring better than this one, and are probably more fun to make. |
| |
| "But at least it LOOKS like I know what I'm doing." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 75946 = Mina and the Quest for Immortality == IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 96/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5/100] -
| Nothing at all beyond the promise of a quest for some immortality. You lied |
| to me commodorejohn! |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 14/ 90] -
| I find this walking around and bumping into things game just slightly more |
| invigorating than the previous walking around and bumping into things game. |
| But only slightly. Hey, with the scoresheet difference it works out to the |
| same score anyway! |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 28/ 70] -
| Way too much gray makes this whole thing look downright bleh, even if the |
| pixelart thing is a theoretically cool idea. It's still just a big empty |
| board with bland terrain and inscrutable spike walls. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 31/ 60] -
| The basics of the engine are nice, but it just doesn't do enough to be |
| worth more, all you're doing is drawing sprites to positions other than the |
| default MZX character grid, and that's not hard anymore. Walking and |
| scrolling are also distractingly out of synch. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 10/ 50] -
| Hello, young lady! This has the beginning of an idea but nothing else. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 8/ 30] -
| One especially irritating mod to accompany your walkabout. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 96/400] -
| So did you know that it's possible to get 10 colors out of a 160x50 pixel |
| engine? That's some high fidelity grayscale you could be having, right |
| there. |
| |
| "How about a quest for some color next time?" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 95763 = denis =============================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 58/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 10/100] -
| The game, such as it is, appears to explicitly involve you getting shot but |
| not dying, which is enough to classify as "aiming for the immortality sheet" |
| but not much else. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 8/ 90] -
| It's really hard to pin down an appropriate gameplay score for a game where |
| you don't actually do anything. What makes this waste of time less worthy |
| than one of the previous wastes of time? I guess it just pissed me off more. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 14/ 70] -
| Well the gradient effect was kind of neat I guess. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 7/ 60] -
| Solely for getting the board to work in a mostly sensible way. But I notice |
| you didn't even bother using copyrobot. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5/ 50] -
| Yeah, it's definitely because it pissed me off. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 14/ 30] -
| I did sort of like the mod, though. Title screen mod was stupid. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 58/400] -
| This is the "meh, whatever" to get over the last hump before I turn in my |
| scores. |
| |
| "I am the Penis Mightier." |
| |
===============================================================================/

== THE DISQUALIFIED ==

/= 03656 = Unknown ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Not a MegaZeux Game. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 41608 = Untitled =================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Use of disallowed external media. |
| Submitted by contest judge. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 85132 = Untitled =================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Use of disallowed external media. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 71124 = Unknown ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Not a MegaZeux Game. |
| Submitted by contest judge. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= Total Scores ================================================================
1. 22677 = Untitled Game about Puffy ============ IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [285/400]
2. 22625 = King Yu's Tower ====================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [281/400]
3. 54188 = Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immort = IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [215/400]
4. 07494 = Immortal Nanomachines ================ IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [197/400]
5. 08724 = Nanofighter ========================= NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [145/400]
6. 19798 = One Tower, One Life ================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [144/400]
7. 75946 = Mina and the Quest for Immortality === IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 96/400]
8. 24560 = Untitled Game about Nanobots ======== NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [ 79/400]
9. 95763 = denis ================================ IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 58/400]
DQ. 03656 = Unknown ===================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
DQ. 41608 = Untitled ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
DQ. 85132 = Untitled ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
DQ. 71124 = Unknown ===================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
===============================================================================/
</pre>

Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Wervyn

2012-07-16T16:21:49Z

Kuroneko: Created page with "/= INTRODUCTION ================================================================ | So honestly, this feels like the worst DoZ ever. Maybe it's just having | | come off of a..."

/= INTRODUCTION ================================================================
| So honestly, this feels like the worst DoZ ever. Maybe it's just having |
| come off of a run of pretty good ones with lots of great submissions, but |
| even the best games in this turnout aren't really that great, and I expect |
| more at least 6 disqualifications if not 8. We've had one DoZ in the past |
| with 8 disqualified games, but this is still likely to be the highest |
| percentage thrown in the trash. In keeping with that, then, I've only |
| submitted indepth scores for the games I actually felt deserved to be |
| judged, and spent about half the time on the others. And the games that were |
| automatically DQed I didn't bother judging at all. Nevertheless, I hope you |
| enjoy them. |
| |
===============================================================================/

== THE GOOD ==

/= 07494 = Immortal Nanomachines =============== IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [197/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 52/120] -
| I do like the basic idea here, MZX still doesn't have a really noteworthy |
| RTS as far as I'm concerned and this demonstrates a promising start. However |
| in terms of game depth this is pretty shallow, particularly as it's missing |
| a major part of the AI component. Marshalling your forces to pick the enemy |
| off unit by unit is amusing, but not really challenging or interesting. I |
| spent more time devising pincer strategies to get around the limitations of |
| the engine than because any sort of strategy was really necessary. Added to |
| that, the game is too short, and the number of possibilities too few given |
| only two unit types. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 34/ 90] -
| There's some attention to aesthetics here with char edits and terrain |
| dithering (and thank you for wisely aborting your attempt at a random |
| ditherer, it looked awful), but for the most part the game just looked like |
| fractal vomit, large regions of solid color that vaguely suggested a |
| landscape. I can't give this much more than a nod to say that it didn't look |
| as terrible as it could have. Menus and title screen were similarly |
| servicable but uninteresting. Visual indication of damage during the game |
| was also notably absent, and shouldn't have been. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 63/ 80] -
| I want to say that I actually am really impressed with your engine here, it |
| has a way to go before you can really stick it in a game but it definitely |
| works as a proof of concept for a MZX RTS. Add some production buildings, |
| resources, and control groups and you've got the makings of a pretty good |
| game. One thing that I really would have liked to see for the DoZ was better |
| pathfinding, since your units have a tendency to get stuck on walls and each |
| other. This makes attacking a solitary foe more micromanagement than it |
| ought to be, as you have to deliberately move them close enough for everyone |
| to be able to shoot, not just the front guy in the line. I'm also deducting |
| a couple points for the graphical glitch with the grenade weapon, which |
| should have been easy to fix. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 14/ 50] -
| There's a difference between a humorous plot and a half-hearted joke. |
| Whereas everything in Baby Bonnie Hood's simple game was invested in telling |
| his joke, in this case the plot is clearly a tack-on to the engine. As a |
| result, my emotional connection to the game suffers, since I care just about |
| as much about the story as you do. This might have improved if the game had |
| gone somewhere, but it was left unfinished after two levels. So that's |
| another strike in this category. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 29/ 40] -
| There's nothing about the music here that I really object to, but I don't |
| know. Like the story, it feels like most of it was added as an afterthought, |
| and doesn't really feel like it makes the game better, just less quiet. The |
| wide array of sound effects was a plus though, especially since the ratatat |
| of gunfire was the only way you could tell you were attacking or being |
| attacked in some situations. Although now that I think on it, I would have |
| gone with a more noticeable sound for that, too. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5/ 20] -
| Obviously, this scrapes by on the barest mention of the theme as motivation |
| for the plot, CJA is trying to become immortal somehow and you must stop |
| him, hurr durr. Naturally being deliberately confusing about which topic the |
| game is actually using doesn't help matters. I think I'm qualifying this |
| mostly because I didn't want yet ANOTHER disqualified game in this already |
| pretty terrible competition. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [197/400] -
| An interesting engine but an uninspired game, this is the concept I'd like |
| to see developed after the DoZ the most. Of course, nothing ever comes out |
| of aspirations like that, does it. |
| |
| "Oh snap, I got a cameo!" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 19798 = One Tower, One Life ================= IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [144/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 42/100] -
| I don't know if this was really meant to be submitted on the Heavy sheet, |
| but those are the rules so if you wanted something different you should have |
| paid attention. As a theme-heavy application of immortality, I'd classify |
| this as slightly below average. The theme is there, but not drawn on enough |
| to really make it central, especially since immortality as the motivation |
| for playing the game is unattainable. This makes the game more of a Knights |
| vs. Horrible Dragon thing with a role reversal twist than anything else. |
| There's the possibility for some meta-commentary on the theme here in |
| contemplating the futility of aspiring to immortality, but if that's what |
| you were going for you should have been more explicit about it, as Baby |
| Bonnie Hood was with his game. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 32/ 90] -
| Ultimately, this whole game comes down to tweaking the stats on an |
| otherwise non-interactive process. As a result, it's not really much of a |
| game. There's also no win condition, so there's no real motivation to play. |
| Despite that, I was surprised at how many times I played this to try and |
| improve my "score", so to speak. There's at least some level of strategy in |
| how you apply points to stats. So I gave you some points back for keeping me |
| entertained. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 18/ 70] -
| Pretty garbage, even for the default palette and charset. I'm not going to |
| spend a lot of time rubbing your nose in that though and just assume that, |
| like me, graphics are not your strong point. Objectively, there's too much |
| black, not enough definition on the large piece to tell what it's supposed |
| to be without inferring from the accompanying text, and nothing else besides |
| the one board (or three effectively identical boards) to judge. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 27/ 60] -
| This is coded in the old style that invokes commands like "duplicate self" |
| and "if blocked east", using the physical presence of robots to do work |
| instead of just manipulating numbers. However, it does work, so I can't |
| slight it too much for "not how I would have done it". I did deduct a few |
| points for engine balance, since the line between "doin' just fine" and |
| "oops you're dead" seems to be so thin that I wonder if there isn't a bug |
| somewhere. At the very least, for a game like this you want a much broader |
| spectrum of life and death in order to provide time to react to changes in |
| time. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 11/ 50] -
| Little more than some cursory motivational text for attempting an |
| impossible task. This isn't always a problem if the game itself can provide |
| the emotional engagement that I call Story, but in this case it can't; the |
| overall emotional takeaway is apathy. This is where I'm picking up the |
| meta-commentary I mentioned, but again, I don't think it's something you |
| were doing on purpose. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 14/ 30] -
| There's only the one mod, and some sound effects to give you cues on when |
| you were getting hurt or when you were attacking would have helped. On the |
| other hand, it was a cute, whimsical mod that fit the mood, such as I |
| perceived it, so that's something. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [144/400] -
| Overall this was an interesting little diversion but not much more. I do |
| find it a little depressing that it ends up in the top half of the |
| submissions due to the high volume of disqualified crap. |
| |
| "Just keep rollin' that boulder." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 22625 = King Yu's Tower ===================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [281/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 76/100] -
| Well logicow has a pair of brass ones. Not only did he branch way outside |
| his normal submission with this, but he went for the scoresheet he's done |
| nothing but rant at in the past. And for all that, he did a pretty good job. |
| The theme is worked into story that, while simple, uses it centrally and |
| well. This isn't superlative usage -- I feel it acts more as a backdrop for |
| the game than as a gameplay element for example -- but it is solid usage, |
| and that makes it better than a lot of them. I tossed in a few extra points |
| for a possible theme interpretation of "immortality as retro". ZZT4EVA BABY! |
| Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 71/ 90] -
| This was definitely the best GAME out of the whole group, and while I |
| suppose that might be saying a lot about the quality of the submissions in |
| general, it was genuinely fun. The different weapons were simple but well |
| implemented and the bosses were actually reasonably difficult without being |
| frustratingly tough; I generally found myself with just enough health and |
| supplies to make it through, which speaks to good balance. Although on the |
| other hand, I did wonder about the reward for defeating a couple of the |
| bosses, beyond story advancement. Max health increased by 5? Seriously? |
| Thanks mom, I'll take that nickel down to the general store and buy a pop! |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 37/ 70] -
| While I understand that the graphical style chosen here is an intentional |
| pastiche, I find it slightly above average even in comparison to other ZZT |
| games. It's competently put together but not more than that, and there's |
| several boards that look either too plain, or too haphazard (compare |
| Necromancer's crypt and Herbalist's gardens). Or maybe I just don't like |
| black <s>people</s> backgrounds. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 42/ 60] -
| The game is bug free as far as I can tell and well put together. There's |
| nothing really special being done here that warrants lots of bonus points, |
| but there doesn't really need to be. Nice work on the boss fights and the |
| weapon engines of course, but there's nothing else of particular note going |
| on. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 31/ 50] -
| I found this good enough to engage me through the game, even if it wasn't |
| terribly compelling. The plot arc was simple and folloew a pretty classic |
| form, with exposition and foreshadowing, rising action and conflict, climax, |
| and of course next to no denouement since who cares about that anymore? I |
| wasn't quite sold on the ending with the king's sudden "now we must kung fu |
| fight" reversal. From a gameplay perspective it makes perfect sense, but |
| from the way the story was set up it kind of comes out of nowhere. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 24/ 30] -
| Some good musical choices here, I found myself humming along as I played. |
| Again, nothing really stand out about it, but it was well selected and |
| worked effectively at setting the tone in each of the areas of the game. The |
| PC speaker sound effects were an obvious but good choice to round out the |
| style package, so that's worth a little something too. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [281/400] -
| So my overall feeling in most categories here is "solid, but not |
| spectacular". And in a DoZ where people are submitting either engines that |
| are pretty but incomplete or nothing worthwhile at all, "solid but not |
| spectacular" might be plenty enough to win. |
| |
| "Wait, I changed my mind, I'm too young to die!" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 22677 = Untitled Game about Puffy =========== IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [285/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 77/120] -
| There's a lot of good here, as far as the engine goes. You have a solid |
| spritescroller with a randomly generated maze of a level, and a satisfying |
| if simple combat mechanic. The improvements to character stats over time |
| theoretically make for an engaging difficulty curve, but in practice the |
| real difficulty was in dealing with the lag your progressively more potent |
| projectile spam produced (more on that in the Technique score). The game |
| suffers from a lack of variety though, and random generation actually hurts |
| more than it helps in that area by making everything seem very samey. It's |
| still very satisfying to drop down a ladder and turn everything in the hall |
| into a hail of confetti, but it doesn't take much thought or effort, and |
| something like a boss fight would have been a good idea. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 65/ 90] -
| I like the individual graphical elements here a lot, especially the player |
| animation work but all of the artwork has a lot of detail put into it. Where |
| it falls apart is the integration, I think. The randomly placed background |
| art gives the level design a real "what am I really looking at here" feel, |
| with no cohesion to it. Perhaps that was the point though. A much worse |
| mistake is the third level, where the enemies were all the same dark purple |
| as the primary background and almost impossible to see. Not that you really |
| need to when you can just fill the hallway with bullets, but it's a major |
| graphical problem. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 62/ 80] -
| This is an engine after my own heart, to be sure, exactly the sort of thing |
| I'd probably write. It's modularized and settings based and for the most |
| part is extremely fluid. The level generator is another nice piece of work, |
| even if the levels it generates are not particularly interesting. The |
| primary loss of points here then is the poorly scaled leveling system, which |
| sets the numbers to values that ultimately result in the player firing |
| several thousand projectiles per cycle and making the game effectively |
| unplayable due to lag. I also noticed stats like accuracy counted downwards |
| to zero but weren't clamped, causing the score to go negative eventually and |
| start reducing accuracy. Though having a weapon that spams bullets in a wide |
| arc down the hall is probably more devestating than a weapon that just fires |
| in an accurate line. Apart from that, the level generator occasionally |
| generated terrain that was difficult or impossible to navigate, such that |
| you could fall down a pit with no ladder back up. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 36/ 50] -
| I admit I'm taken with the presentation here, even though the ending feels |
| a bit unresolved. I get the feeling there was supposed to be a boss fight or |
| some sort of thing on the last board and it never got finished. But the |
| dialogue is cute and entertaining while obliquely hinting at the state of |
| the universe in some far flung future where humanity committed itself to |
| become living planet ships in order to secure its immortality. At least, I |
| think that was the idea, it was a bit confusing. I am taking off some points |
| for the non-ending, at any rate. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 32/ 40] -
| The musical selection was fairly good if a bit bland (and occasionally |
| downright odd, looking at you level 4), but I really enjoyed satisfying |
| splat crack of the weapon and the other sound design. Attention to detail in |
| that area won some points that I wouldn't have given to the music alone. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 13/ 20] -
| I'm pretty sure I understood what you were going for with this, as noted in |
| the story comment. It's definitely good enough, but I think a more |
| deliberate tie in to the game or explicit discussion in the plot would be |
| necessary before I could award it more points for theme. This game is |
| primarily an engine with some story in the background, and I like to reserve |
| my high theme scores for games that really blend the two. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [285/400] -
| Nice work on the engine guys, it's my favorite of the competition as far as |
| cool coding goes. Yes, that includes madbrain's techdemo, all that really is |
| is a good SMZX sprite blitter. As with a lot of ambitious DoZ entries, this |
| one looks like it ran up against time, but at least it's mostly finished and |
| only has the one major bug, so good job. |
| |
| "Didn't even have time to come up with a title." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 54188 = Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immor = IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [215/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 83/100] -
| Well if I gave logicow points for retro as immortality I have to give some |
| to BBH. It's surprising to get two classic throwbacks in the same DoZ, and |
| this is very nostalgic old-school MZX. But leaving that aside, I do feel |
| that this is the game that incorporated Immortality most thoroughly this |
| competition, even if it was really just to make an amusing, somewhat |
| extended joke. It's inarguably both a core mechanic to the story and the |
| gameplay, so I feel comfortable giving it a lion's share of the points here; |
| it won't be getting many of them from the other categories. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 38/ 90] -
| Yeehaw, shoot them builtins! Navigating one board of default MZX terrain |
| hardly qualifies as cutting edge gameplay, and of course after that it turns |
| into navigating similarly default terrain while invulnerable to damage. |
| While I fully understand that this is the point and I do think that having |
| the player yawn through situations that would ordinarily be ragequittingly |
| hard is at least somewhat clever, those are more properly story points than |
| gameplay points. Still, it's not like this was an unenjoyable game |
| experience -- you'd lose a lot more points if I hadn't been invulnerable -- |
| it's just not really fair to give it the same score as games that are |
| actually, you know, games. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 31/ 70] -
| In keeping with my comments on logicow's graphics, while making a |
| deliberate decision to use retro-style graphics is not something I penalize |
| for, it's not something I automatically give you points for either. The |
| monochromatic dungeon motif was an interesting style decision but I think I |
| would have appreciated more contrast within the environments instead of just |
| between them. And it's a fact that you can only make things so pretty with |
| the default character set. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 12/ 60] -
| Points for a competent and bug free demonstration of basic MZX skills, and |
| nothing else. There's nothing to score in this category but some very simple |
| shoot seek enemies and teleport player commands, and at this point I expect |
| anyone to be able to do that. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 34/ 50] -
| Remember that story is a measure of my emotional engagement in the game, |
| not simply another word for plot. I thought the plot of the game was pretty |
| dumb. I thought the story the game told was a reasonably clever dumb joke, |
| pardon the oxymoron. I got an especially good chuckle out of the last |
| dungeon/temple/thing where he says "meh, whatever" and it's an absurd |
| pingpong path through lava and sharks. That's humor at the expense of the |
| medium, right there, so good job for making me laugh. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 17/ 30] -
| This only had the one mod to work with (well I guess there were two, but |
| the other one is brief), so while it wasn't bad per se, it's only worth half |
| the points to me. I did think having the tempo start slowing down as ennui |
| set in was a nice touch though, so I threw a few points back. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [215/400] -
| Pretty average entry, maybe a little less than average except for making |
| good use of the theme. This is the sort of short, sweet one-off that you |
| submit not because you wanted to seriously compete but because you just |
| wanted to have a little fun. And you know that's cool by me. |
| |
| "I guess I'll just have to take up knitting or something." |
| |
===============================================================================/

== THE BAD ==

/= 08724 = Nanofighter ======================== NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [145/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 22/120] -
| Enough to keep me occupied for a minute testing out the engine and the |
| combos, and to hint at what the game might have been like if it was actually |
| hooked up. As the title screen freely admits, this is a tech demo, not a |
| game. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 53/ 90] -
| So, points for drawing some detailed sprites and animations, and minus |
| points for ye gods what is happening to their legs when they jump, and |
| what's up with that grody green bikini on that fat-ass cat? The sprites are |
| the only noteworthy thing, since the background is necessarily solid color |
| in order for the blitter to not look like crap. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 47/ 80] -
| Points for implementing the solid BEGINNINGS of a sprite fighter (spriter? |
| sprighter?), minus points for not nearly going all the way. And after all, |
| as impressive as this may look, I know better about how difficult it |
| actually is. If you wanted to really impress me, you'd figure out how to |
| deal with colliding sprites, since the engine's going nowhere until that's |
| sorted out. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 8/ 50] -
| Nothing at all to speak of, "it's just an engine" after all. I suppose I |
| can pretend there's a story in which Cristofo and Greenwitch fight each |
| other. And then yiff each other. Uck. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 15/ 40] -
| Just the one mod, which to be fair isn't a bad choice for a fighting game, |
| although it would need to be longer and looped for it to actually work for |
| that. Still, not worth much. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 0/ 20] -
| The only reason I have to presume the game is using the Nanomachines topic |
| is the title. Not even worth a pity point. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [145/400] -
| Nice engine madbrain. I guess if one of you brothers is going to take the |
| competition seriously for once, the other one needs to pick up the slack. |
| |
| "Ouch, right in the tail hole." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 24560 = Untitled Game about Nanobots ======= NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [ 79/400] =
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 14/120] -
| You can touch stuff (which doesn't work right on the title screen because |
| you can't press enter to clear the message), and you can run around a big |
| empty landscape. And if you look carefully you can find another sprite dude |
| running around on the big black title screen, who will follow you. Wow, you |
| quit pretty early, huh. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 34/ 90] -
| Eliding right past the title screen, the board that was supposed to be the |
| overworld map looks KIND OF nice, but the blockiness of using a map tiler |
| really stands out, especially in the coastline and the mountains. Kind of |
| nice is not the same thing as actually nice. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 21/ 80] -
| I looked through some of the codefiles for this, and I like your enterprise |
| software driven approach! And just like with most enterprise software, |
| there's a lot of complex code for very little actual result. Maybe if this |
| game actually did something with it. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 6/ 50] -
| I am an NPC! Even less potential for reading in a story here than for Furry |
| Fighter II. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 4/ 40] -
| No sound or music. |
| |
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 0/ 20] -
| Again, the only clue I have to the theme for this is the "255 nano robotz" |
| on the title screen, and nothing else to suggest Immortality. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 79/400] -
| If you're finding it hard to motivate yourself to keep working with a |
| codebase that squirrelly, keep in mind that really simple games using almost |
| no code are scoring better than this one, and are probably more fun to make. |
| |
| "But at least it LOOKS like I know what I'm doing." |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 75946 = Mina and the Quest for Immortality == IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 96/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5/100] -
| Nothing at all beyond the promise of a quest for some immortality. You lied |
| to me commodorejohn! |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 14/ 90] -
| I find this walking around and bumping into things game just slightly more |
| invigorating than the previous walking around and bumping into things game. |
| But only slightly. Hey, with the scoresheet difference it works out to the |
| same score anyway! |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 28/ 70] -
| Way too much gray makes this whole thing look downright bleh, even if the |
| pixelart thing is a theoretically cool idea. It's still just a big empty |
| board with bland terrain and inscrutable spike walls. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 31/ 60] -
| The basics of the engine are nice, but it just doesn't do enough to be |
| worth more, all you're doing is drawing sprites to positions other than the |
| default MZX character grid, and that's not hard anymore. Walking and |
| scrolling are also distractingly out of synch. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 10/ 50] -
| Hello, young lady! This has the beginning of an idea but nothing else. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 8/ 30] -
| One especially irritating mod to accompany your walkabout. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 96/400] -
| So did you know that it's possible to get 10 colors out of a 160x50 pixel |
| engine? That's some high fidelity grayscale you could be having, right |
| there. |
| |
| "How about a quest for some color next time?" |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 95763 = denis =============================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 58/400] =
- THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 10/100] -
| The game, such as it is, appears to explicitly involve you getting shot but |
| not dying, which is enough to classify as "aiming for the immortality sheet" |
| but not much else. |
| |
- GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 8/ 90] -
| It's really hard to pin down an appropriate gameplay score for a game where |
| you don't actually do anything. What makes this waste of time less worthy |
| than one of the previous wastes of time? I guess it just pissed me off more. |
| |
- GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 14/ 70] -
| Well the gradient effect was kind of neat I guess. |
| |
- TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 7/ 60] -
| Solely for getting the board to work in a mostly sensible way. But I notice |
| you didn't even bother using copyrobot. |
| |
- STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5/ 50] -
| Yeah, it's definitely because it pissed me off. |
| |
- SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 14/ 30] -
| I did sort of like the mod, though. Title screen mod was stupid. |
| |
- TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 58/400] -
| This is the "meh, whatever" to get over the last hump before I turn in my |
| scores. |
| |
| "I am the Penis Mightier." |
| |
===============================================================================/

== THE DISQUALIFIED ==

/= 03656 = Unknown ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Not a MegaZeux Game. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 41608 = Untitled =================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Use of disallowed external media. |
| Submitted by contest judge. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 85132 = Untitled =================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Use of disallowed external media. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= 71124 = Unknown ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400] =
| Not a MegaZeux Game. |
| Submitted by contest judge. |
| |
===============================================================================/

/= Total Scores ================================================================
1. 22677 = Untitled Game about Puffy ============ IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [285/400]
2. 22625 = King Yu's Tower ====================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [281/400]
3. 54188 = Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immort = IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [215/400]
4. 07494 = Immortal Nanomachines ================ IMMORTALITY/LIGHT = [197/400]
5. 08724 = Nanofighter ========================= NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [145/400]
6. 19798 = One Tower, One Life ================== IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [144/400]
7. 75946 = Mina and the Quest for Immortality === IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 96/400]
8. 24560 = Untitled Game about Nanobots ======== NANOMACHINES/LIGHT = [ 79/400]
9. 95763 = denis ================================ IMMORTALITY/HEAVY = [ 58/400]
DQ. 03656 = Unknown ===================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
DQ. 41608 = Untitled ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
DQ. 85132 = Untitled ==================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
DQ. 71124 = Unknown ===================================== DISQUALIFIED [ 0/400]
===============================================================================/

Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-16T16:19:13Z

Kuroneko:

{{competition
|title = Summer 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = No image.
|host = [[Terryn]], [[Lancer-X]]
|judges = Terryn, Lancer-X, [[Wervyn]], [[duvel]], [[CJA]]
|dates = July 17-18th, 2010
|topics = Immortality (abstract)

Nanomachines (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Winter 2010 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Winter 2011 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Winter 2011 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' took place on July 17-18th, 2010, and was hosted by [[Lancer-X]] and [[Terryn]]. Two games of note came out of this Day of Zeux -- "immortality" by [[Kom]] and "King Yu's Tower" by [[logicow]], which split the judges evenly, the hosts favoring the latter and the rest of the judges favoring the former. Otherwise, the turnout was rather standard-fare, with an RTS by [[GreaseMonkey]] and a highly-thematic game bby [[Baby Bonnie Hood]] coming in 3rd and 4th. GreaseMonkey's friend and tracker-scene composer [[coda]] submitted a joke entry, purposely choosing the Theme-Heavy sheet so it would not be disqualified.

Despite the general quality of the highest scoring entries, both had major technique bugs that made both games much more difficult to play than they should have been. "immortality" had a flawed bullet routine that could slow the game to a crawl by the 3rd level, machine dependent, as well as the potential to trap the player in pits, albeit ones that are fortunately easily detectable by the player before they become an issue. "King Yu's Tower" had a very flawed player detection algorithm in the bosses' vector bullets, causing them to damage the player at inappropriate times ([[Lachesis]] complained incessantly about this bug after the DoZ and finally proved it exists in 2012).

Another interesting entry is [[Mr_Alert]]'s DOS port of the then-current version of [[MegaZeux]], 2.83.

There was no DoZ drama generated from the scores of this competition.

==Scores==
*1st place, #22677: '''[[immortality]]''', by "Anything is Possible When You Believe" feat "Dragons (Yet again)" ([[asgromo]], [[Kom]]) - 1604/2000
*2nd place, #22625: '''[[King Yu's Tower]]''', by "';DROP TABLE teams;" ([[logicow]]) - 1589/2000
*3rd place, #7494: '''[[Immortal Nanomachines]]''', by "diamond <3s club spades" ([[GreaseMonkey]]) - 1200/2000
*4th place, #54188: '''[[Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immortality]]''', by "Cute Bounty Hunter" ([[Baby Bonnie Hood]]) - 1138/2000
*5th place, #19798: '''[[One Tower, One Life]]''', by "Team One-Hour-Entry" ([[KKairos]]) - 665 + pi / 2000
*6th place, #75946: '''[[Mina and the Quest for Immortality]]''', by "Team Frost Muffin" ([[commodorejohn]]) - 403/2000
*7th place, #95763: "denis", by "ヽ(・ω・)ノ" (coda) - 237/2000
*DQed, #8724: "Nanofighter", by "Retro to the Future" ([[madbrain]]) - 703.5/2000 (DQ; low theme score)
*DQed, #24560: "^255 nano robotz(?)", by "<%Kuddy> "epic doz team name"" ([[mzxrules]]) - 217.5/2000 (DQ; low theme score)
*DQed, #3656: sick fetish for all things obsolete, by Some Sort of Team ([[Mr_Alert]], [[Manani]]) - (DQ; submitted DOS port of MZX 2.83)
*DQed, #41608: わーふ！, by 今夜はどの娘とらぶいちゃえっち!?([[Lancer-X|綾瀬はづき]]) - (DQ; submission by judge)
*DQed, #71124: Goo! It's ALIVE!, by karaoke boys and the alcoholic beverages ([[duvel]]) - (DQ; submission by judge)
*DQed, #85132: Nanomachines from Space, by The ER department ([[asiekierka]], [[Taitorian]]) - (DQ; submitted conversion of content made before the DoZ timeframe)

==Judging Sheets==
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Terryn|Terryn]]
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Lancer-X|Lancer-X]]
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Wervyn|Wervyn]]
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Summer2010/judging/duvel.html duvel]
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Summer2010/judging/cja.html CJA]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-16T16:15:20Z

Kuroneko:

{{competition
|title = Summer 2010 Day of Zeux
|image = No image.
|host = [[Terryn]], [[Lancer-X]]
|judges = Terryn, Lancer-X, [[Wervyn]], [[duvel]], [[CJA]]
|dates = July 17-18th, 2010
|topics = Immortality (abstract)

Nanomachines (concrete)
|scoresheet = Theme-independent
|previous = [[Winter 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Winter 2010 Day of Zeux]]
|next = [[Winter 2011 Dualstream Day of Zeux|Winter 2011 Day of Zeux]]
}}

The '''Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux''' took place on July 17-18th, 2010, and was hosted by [[Lancer-X]] and [[Terryn]]. Two games of note came out of this Day of Zeux -- "immortality" by [[Kom]] and "King Yu's Tower" by [[logicow]], which split the judges evenly, the hosts favoring the latter and the rest of the judges favoring the former. Otherwise, the turnout was rather standard-fare, with an RTS by [[GreaseMonkey]] and a highly-thematic game bby [[Baby Bonnie Hood]] coming in 3rd and 4th. GreaseMonkey's friend and tracker-scene composer [[coda]] submitted a joke entry, purposely choosing the Theme-Heavy sheet so it would not be disqualified.

Despite the general quality of the highest scoring entries, both had major technique bugs that made both games much more difficult to play than they should have been. "immortality" had a flawed bullet routine that could slow the game to a crawl by the 3rd level, machine dependent, as well as the potential to trap the player in pits, albeit ones that are fortunately easily detectable by the player before they become an issue. "King Yu's Tower" had a very flawed player detection algorithm in the bosses' vector bullets, causing them to damage the player at inappropriate times ([[Lachesis]] complained incessantly about this bug after the DoZ and finally proved it exists in 2012).

Another interesting entry is [[Mr_Alert]]'s DOS port of the then-current version of [[MegaZeux]], 2.83.

There was no DoZ drama generated from the scores of this competition.

==Scores==
*1st place, #22677: '''[[immortality]]''', by "Anything is Possible When You Believe" feat "Dragons (Yet again)" ([[asgromo]], [[Kom]]) - 1604/2000
*2nd place, #22625: '''[[King Yu's Tower]]''', by "';DROP TABLE teams;" ([[logicow]]) - 1589/2000
*3rd place, #7494: '''[[Immortal Nanomachines]]''', by "diamond <3s club spades" ([[GreaseMonkey]]) - 1200/2000
*4th place, #54188: '''[[Indiana Smiley and the Orb of Immortality]]''', by "Cute Bounty Hunter" ([[Baby Bonnie Hood]]) - 1138/2000
*5th place, #19798: '''[[One Tower, One Life]]''', by "Team One-Hour-Entry" ([[KKairos]]) - 665 + pi / 2000
*6th place, #75946: '''[[Mina and the Quest for Immortality]]''', by "Team Frost Muffin" ([[commodorejohn]]) - 403/2000
*7th place, #95763: "denis", by "ヽ(・ω・)ノ" (coda) - 237/2000
*DQed, #8724: "Nanofighter", by "Retro to the Future" ([[madbrain]]) - 703.5/2000 (DQ; low theme score)
*DQed, #24560: "^255 nano robotz(?)", by "<%Kuddy> "epic doz team name"" ([[mzxrules]]) - 217.5/2000 (DQ; low theme score)
*DQed, #3656: sick fetish for all things obsolete, by Some Sort of Team ([[Mr_Alert]], [[Manani]]) - (DQ; submitted DOS port of MZX 2.83)
*DQed, #41608: わーふ！, by 今夜はどの娘とらぶいちゃえっち!?([[Lancer-X|綾瀬はづき]]) - (DQ; submission by judge)
*DQed, #71124: Goo! It's ALIVE!, by karaoke boys and the alcoholic beverages ([[duvel]]) - (DQ; submission by judge)
*DQed, #85132: Nanomachines from Space, by The ER department ([[asiekierka]], [[Taitorian]]) - (DQ; submitted conversion of content made before the DoZ timeframe)

==Judging Sheets==
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Terryn|Terryn]]
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Lancer-X|Lancer-X]]
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:Wervyn|Wervyn]]
*[[Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheet:duvel|duvel]]
*[http://doz.digitalmzx.net/Summer2010/judging/cja.html CJA]

[[Category:Competitions]]

Summer 2010 Dualstream Day of Zeux

2012-07-16T16:02:30Z

Kuroneko:

List of known worlds that fail validation

2012-07-13T02:40:51Z

Kuroneko:

Several MegaZeux worlds, from infamous to little-known, fail MegaZeux's validation checks.

== Major Errors ==
This is for worlds that fail major validation checks -- worlds that completely and utterly fail or with one or more boards that entirely fail.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Title !! Error type !! Description
|-
| Pre-2.83 SVN games
| Board
| Several games made with certain SVN versions of MZX contain boards incompatible with any official MZX release. See the appropriate section.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1002 Archer Gremory Is Thirsty]
| World
| This game attempts a swap world to an invalid file designed to pass as a locked world.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=887 Brotherhood, The: Legacy of Drake (HUNTDRAK.MZX)]
| Board
| Seven corrupt boards exist in the middle of the file.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=150 Civil War 2040]
| Board
| One board is corrupt or truncated.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1929 DA BOMB!!!!!!] (corrupt version)
| World
| All instances of the byte 0A were somehow replaced with Windows' idiotic 0D 0A newlines, causing the world to fail validation. Version on DMZX is corrected.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=333 Final Fantasy: Dynasty Prelude Project Dump]
| World (WORLD03.MZX), Robot (FFTOWNO.MZX), Board (all worlds failing a CRC check)
| Akwende infamously released this ZIP file in his noisy departure from the community.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1332 Lesbian Space Pirates (9.mzx)]
| Board
| Corrupt board. The global robot is also corrupt, but gets silently caught due to an early program end. This world was made in a hex editor.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1446 Mana Lust] (pre-fix)
| Board
| One of the boards has a subtly incorrect pointer due to the zip file having been truncated. The version available on DMZX has this corrected.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1770 MZX Target (pre-recovery)]
| Board, Robot, Program
| World is completely truncated starting at least one program from the end of the fifth or sixth board. A complete version has since been released.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=642 Star Quest (#4214)]
| Board, Robot
| Corrupt robots, several missing robots in a truncated board, the errors go on.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=774 Weirdland 3] (corrupt version)
| World
| Same issue as DA BOMB!!! above -- all 0A bytes were converted to 0D 0A.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1471 z1111000.mzx] (in the Fanye folder)
| Program
| Every single robot in the world has a corrupt program. This world was probably made in a hex editor.
|}

== Minor Errors ==
This is for worlds that have one or two corrupt robots, trigger the "expected # robots" error message, or attempt to use corrupt MZMs.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Title !! Error type !! Description
|-
| Anything made by mikawo's ZZT to MZX converter
| Program
| The global robots produced by this converter are corrupt. This results in the MZX_SPEED not being set as it was in pre-2.84b worlds (due to them ignoring the corruption). See the list of them below.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1767 HELL STAR]
| Board Scan
| A board data in this game contains one more robot than was specified in the robot data for the board.
|-
| instacrash.mzx
| Board Scan
| A world made by mzxrules. The end of the board is corrupt, making it think there are no robots when there really is one. MZX itself can't do anything about this but a utility could be made to recover "missing" programs such as this one.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1386 Loco]
| Program
| Loco has a robot with a corrupt program.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1424 Slave Pit]
| Program
| Slave Pit has a VERY weird corrupt program in it.
|}

== No message displayed ==
This is for development reference only, as most users will not be able to detect these errors. These are mostly early program ends and 0-length programs that are silently managed internally.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Title !! Error type !! Description
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1056 Aura MZX]
| Program
| Early program end.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1005 Catacombs of Zeux], probably countless other VER1TO2 worlds
| Robot
| Several robots exist with programs of length 0. These are harmless and ignored with no error.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1653 CR2-6]
| Program
| This game contains a line of bytecode with an extra byte, but was otherwise valid. It forced us to rewrite part of program validation! Giel's legacy.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1584 Musings]
| Program
| Early program end.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=79 Oh No! Not Another Star Wars Parody!]
| Program
| Early program end.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1142 Postality]
| Program
| Early program end.
|-
| [http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=278 Quest for the Nobles Demo]
| Program
| Early program end.
|}

== Pre-2.83 SVN games ==

*LPTW Season 2 Intro (lptws2in.mzx)
*[http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1665 Pretentia v1]
*[http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1809 Revvy and Tixus's entry in the Gravity BKZX]
*[http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1666 Bombin' Dude v2]

== Games generated by ZZT2MZX ==

*[http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1925 Ep+Arp World MZX]
*[http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1745 SZZT7_ori.mzx]

Requested Articles

2012-07-10T06:20:16Z

Kuroneko: /* Other */

If an article is present, please check and see if it is fairly complete. If it is, please remove it from the list. Arrange requests in alphabetical order.

==On MZXers==

* [[Khamosis]]
* [[Nytar]]
* [[Stargazer]]
* [[NovaYoshi]]
* [[SeventhShade]]

==On MZX Groups/Companies==
* [[Draconic Creations]]

==On Games==
* [[Demon Earth]]
* [[Goldenstory Rainbow Destiny]]
* [[J.G.'s Neatsome Magical Adventures]]
* [[Knife Bro]]
* [[Bombin' Dude]]
* [[Math: The Roguelike]]
* [[Pandora's Gate]]

==On MegaZeux Functions==
* [[Character Editor]]
* [[palette editor]]

==On Community==

== Other ==
* [[Summer Day of Zeux 2000]] -- Judging sheets
* [[Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] -- Host and Date information

==Articles in need of improvement==
* [[Call of Caethrath]]

[[category:wiki pages]]

Requested Articles

2012-07-10T06:17:59Z

Kuroneko: /* On Games */

If an article is present, please check and see if it is fairly complete. If it is, please remove it from the list. Arrange requests in alphabetical order.

==On MZXers==

* [[Khamosis]]
* [[Nytar]]
* [[Stargazer]]
* [[NovaYoshi]]
* [[SeventhShade]]

==On MZX Groups/Companies==
* [[Draconic Creations]]

==On Games==
* [[Demon Earth]]
* [[Goldenstory Rainbow Destiny]]
* [[J.G.'s Neatsome Magical Adventures]]
* [[Knife Bro]]
* [[Bombin' Dude]]
* [[Math: The Roguelike]]
* [[Pandora's Gate]]

==On MegaZeux Functions==
* [[Character Editor]]
* [[palette editor]]

==On Community==

== Other ==
* [[Winter Day of Zeux 2000]] -- Judging sheets
* [[Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] -- Host and Date information

==Articles in need of improvement==
* [[Call of Caethrath]]

[[category:wiki pages]]

Requested Articles

2012-07-10T06:17:32Z

Kuroneko: /* Other */

If an article is present, please check and see if it is fairly complete. If it is, please remove it from the list. Arrange requests in alphabetical order.

==On MZXers==

* [[Khamosis]]
* [[Nytar]]
* [[Stargazer]]
* [[NovaYoshi]]
* [[SeventhShade]]

==On MZX Groups/Companies==
* [[Draconic Creations]]

==On Games==
* [[Demon Earth]]
* [[Goldenstory Rainbow Destiny]]
* [[J.G.'s Neatsome Magical Adventures]]
* [[Knife Bro]]
* [[Bombin' Dude]]
* [[Math: The Roguelike]]

==On MegaZeux Functions==
* [[Character Editor]]
* [[palette editor]]

==On Community==

== Other ==
* [[Winter Day of Zeux 2000]] -- Judging sheets
* [[Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux]] -- Host and Date information

==Articles in need of improvement==
* [[Call of Caethrath]]

[[category:wiki pages]]