Christmas 2006 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheets:ShloobeR
2006 DUALSTREAM DOZ, Q4
TOPICS ARE :
MEMORY (GENERAL)
FLIGHT (SPECIFIC)
THE HONOURABLE JUDGE SHLOOBER PRESIDING.
LET US COMMENCE.
Team 525 - Aviation Aspiration.
- first impressions -
'Nice music!' That's what I immediately thought as I loaded up the title screen (at least until that trumpety thing came in), The title screen looks nice enough, the graphics seems, average at best but I'm not too worried about that, generally quite pleased with how it looks, the colours are very 'flight'y
-So then what? -
The introduction (again with some nice chilling music) is quite well written, I can't really complain about the plot here although it does seem a bit simple, the wind sample used in the song sounds truely flighty! Ok the other tune has just come in, and the slideshow has just sta-OH MY GOD what are those things. Those are the freakiest looking people I have ever seen, one looks like a cross between charlie brown and a giraffe, the other a construction worker and a hippy, if one of them weren't bald it would be hard to tell who was the girl and who was the boy :(.
- The game -
Ok, so you're presented with a menu, with different choices, now, while it may look at first instance as if some effort was put in to make the game harder or easier, it's in fact, just a simple speed change, a point or two for effort, but not really. I consider myself a sort of 'Normal/hard' person, no one calls me a BORING or alcoholic. Alcoholics, I have heard though, do enjoy a bit of difficulty, let's go.
Eek, what the hell has happened here, it looks like someone threw up on the game after eating alphabet soup, it seems some sort of BUG has attacked the game, this can be fixed by loading through the editor and (thankfully) the whole game can be played this way, but lose a few points here for obvious reasons!
The game has clouds, not just some clouds, the game is all clouds. The entire game centres aroudn clouds, you fly around clouds and shoot grey clouds to turn them into gold clouds. Fair enough I guess, it is about flight, you may see clouds when you fly!. So yeh, you're going through the air, being shot at by orbs, so you shoot them with your gun and uh... yeh, you shoot clouds. To be honest you don't really do much. There's not a huge enjoyment factor attached to this game, it can be quite challenging, but you regain health for seemingly random reasons (at one point i thought if you went through a cloud you got health but now i'm just NOT SURE! :O). All the levels are the same structure, just progressively harder, the difficulty curve is quite solid, starting off truely tedious and become quite frantic, but it's not particularly fun, 1x1 shooter never really are aiming is so annoying, the burst gun is somewhat helpful but doesn't help that much.
Ok so now I've got to what looks like the last level, where you and the girl have to confront your dreams or fears or something dumb like that and prove your worth, the way to do this is the most annoying thing imaginable, i'd rather staple my fingers to the table then do that again. What you have to do, is alternately whack Up-left and down-right over, and over, and OVER, AND OVER again. my fingers were smoking afterwards, that was the worst idea in the world! why did you do that to me?. It's actually harder then it sounds to maintain a good rhythm, the first time I did it I only got one of them in, and I was presented with a one liner ending, So I tried getting the other endings, all one liners. A little emotional (oh no she cant fly D:>) but apart from that a bit of a letdown, for all that bone crushing and muscle aching I had to give up for it!
Also, make sure you're READY and know exactly what you have to do in this last stage before you attempt it or you are guaranteed you lose, in fact, if you're not hitting those buttons before you begin you will have lost when you started, there is no warning as to what happens, it's a bit unfair : (
- On review -
I can't decide which part of the game is more enjoyable, the finger pain or the really boring part. I'll take a leap of faith and say the former, it was really pretty boring and somewhat illogical, who's even seen a gold cloud i ask you >:(, but there was some length/depth to it and it had more to do with the whole flight thing.
The one constant throughout this game is the music, it's definitely very good, I doubt it's original as the styles are much too varied but hey I might be wrong, it's a good selection anyway and represents the theme quite well.
Have I mentioned the graphics are pretty drab? No? Oh well they are, they're not HORRIBLE by any means but they're just quite boring to look at, the clouds are by FAR too curly for my taste and those people are just nightmare inducing, your character, honestly, I don't know what he's meant to look like in real life but he would be like, I dunno, kept in a zoo or something. Hopefully.
Ok I've figured it out now, you get health by shooting the grey clouds, so they're not essential to shoot I guess. What is 'Andante corporation'!
- Pros -
Music - Can't emphasis this one enough, but it's not enough.
Design - Apart from that one crippling bug the game is pretty much flawless, I don't like the way the game doesn't tell you how to 'win' the dream sequences though, I'm still not sure whether shooting the grey clouds is a must or not.
Plot - Half decent plot, can't really complain, a bit fanciful and doesn't leave much to the imagination, but solid nonetheless.
- Cons -
Gameplay - I know it sounds harsh but I'm sorry, it's like, as fun to play as tag, tag against a TREE.
Length - Slightly below average length for a doz game.
Graphics - Drab, tedious, dull. Won't go as far as to say BAD but they were not good by any means
Sound - No sounds
- - - SCORE - - - (SPECIFIC TOPIC)
Theme
----- 18/20
Not bad, on the new ruleset obviously theme isn't weighted very highly for a specific game, but it adheres to it well, not just the plot but the atmosphere in general, soft music in places, with windy sounds. Bright blues and whites in the game, plus the fact that you know, you're ALWAYS flying.
Gameplay
-------- 36/120
Could have been so much more, 1x1 shooters are just not very fun in MZX in general, aiming is too much of a bitch. But this game is certainly not one of the best ones out there anyway, really is nothing to hit more then one char wide. The final stage was just infuriating, I did not like it at all >:(.
Graphics
-------- 26/90
Nuh uh, not very good at all, the graphical cutscenes just ruined the atmosphere that the text slides had going. The graphics in game were pretty horrible, some edited chars but nothing amazing, the screens were quite boring to look at and had no real features on them, the best graphics of the game were arguably the pause screen, see it had... it had that mountain there and ... you know.
Technique
--------- 25/80
It has a sidescrolling shooter, which is generally quite functional, if a little monotonous, the last stage also worked, and hurt. While what was there was pretty workable, it was nothing remotely new or exciting, the robotic feels uninspired.
Story
----- 32/50
One of the stronger points of the game, the plot was above average. It developed somewhat as the game went on and had multiple endings which was nice enough. It was unfortunately, quite simple and did not really make me think much about it, coupled with the music however the plot felt quite deep. Flying in your dreams was an interesting take on the theme.
Music
----- 29/40
Probably as high as I can make the score for not having an original soundtrack or sound, the music was excellent for the game. We firmly believe that no audio is better then bad audio, but good sound is better still! Atmospheric
- TOTAL SCORE - 166 / 400
Mediocre
- Final Word -
I feel that that score is VERY generous for that game, in my mind I had it pegged as no more then 150/400 but when it all adds up, well, there you go.
Team 5389 - The thing what came from beneath.
- Rhyme!!! -
Exciting stuff rhyme, you don't see it much in DoZ games but then again you wouldnt really expect to would you?
When you first load this game you see a bunch of numbers and built in SFX, I was a little skeptical of the sound effects especially at first, wondering whether this was going to be a artsy retro game or just a plain lack of decent sound/music game. The title screen, as far as they go, was nice enough, it was all MONOCHROMEY which gives it a nice memoryish feel (I will take a leap of faith and assume this game goes on that theme). So ok, fair enough, let's hit P.
You're confronted with an intro, an interesting one due to the aforementioned rhyme, a sort of oldskooly graphics style abounds in this game too, with smileys and simple rooms and walls. The intro wasn't anything amazing itself, some demon's eating kids, buhh buhh, you must stop him. To be fair I probably don't give the plot enough credit but there you go that's just me. Anyway, so apparently you've challenged the demon, and what he says is, you must find out his name. There are 4 rooms in this game with different ... how should we say... 'challenges'. The way the main room works is a bit odd, when you finish one room another room becomes available or some become blocked off, sometimes the final question comes too soon, sometimes you get trapped behind a wall after a room, I'm not quite sure what the intended order of rooms is, as far as I know there isn't one, bugger.
- On my first try -
- The Liar -
So on my first try, I started off with 'the liar', seemed fair enough to me to try this one first, so in I go. Interesting, two rooms, the polar of each other. It took me a couple seconds to get what the scrolls meant but I figured it out soon enough, the scrolls contained letters of the Demon's name. I was a little unsure about 'the house of lies' and 'the house of truth' I assumed at first that the left was the former because it was below the sentance, but then I figured that the colour of the text was what mattered, I hope I'm right : (. With that you get a couple of letters.
Call me thick witted but I'm not sure how that puzzle on the right works, unless it's not supposed to work, there's a scroll in there which seems impossible to get to, there's a sort of hooky thing next to the house but it seems to do nothing. So I'm guessing you just exit via the left side. Fair enough. I found three 'true' letters... I think.
- The Murderer -
This penelope seems to be quite the character, killing people and getting cheated on, eh, I wish I knew her!, but to the point, this room looks pretty simple, there are 4 icons on the floor and one pushable object. There are 4 words in either corner, one of the icons produces a door and 3 letters if you roll the thing on it, the only logic behind this puzzle I can see is that the icon in question is closest to the word 'revenge' which is most relevant to the scroll in question. Weird. Anyway, moving on.
- The Thief
Looks like I'm trapped in the thief's room and have to enter. A slider puzzle, delicious. There's a rabbit in the top left so I assumed I have to reach him, why is there a rabbit here, what is with the rabbits, WHY DOES THIS GAME MAKE NO SENSE D:. I'm afraid this is probably THE WORST slider puzzle I have ever seen, there are like 50 ways to do it succesfully, I don't know why the author even bothered it seems a waste of time. 3 more letters. Oh and I'm stuck outside the room, game over!
- The Whore -
This is probably both, the most interesting, and the most retarded of the 4 rooms. You're inside a kidney shaped (IT BETTER BE A KIDNEY) room, there is a puzzley thing at the top of the screen, it's quite easy to work out what happens, basically you have to get the bombs to explode the scrolly things at the top, it's not too hard to figure out, you receive 3 more letters.
You wouldn't believe the groan I uttered when I saw 'the cock' and 'the egg'. Arty yes, original yes, dumb yes.
- Ok so now what -
Ok so you've completed all 4 rooms, and you're taken to the FINAL CONFRONTATION. You wonder, 'man that demon is gonna be hard as, I better get ready to kick him in'. He asks you his name, if you have the right letters (the only possible confusion being in the house of lies, 3 of the letters being technically useless) then he basically says 'oh k well done lol'...
...WHAT THE HELL, why doesnt he eat me! I fucking walked into his lair and wrecked up the place, he looks hard why is he such a wuss! I guess it's all in the name of 'style'. And when you look back, this game reeks of it. But, before you all stand gobsmacked remarking how much this game 'reminds you of forrester', remember that there are, tops, 2 minutes of gameplay in this game, and 0 replayability value, it's an interesting concept granted, and the way it was presented is definitely unique, but it's not really a game, it's more of an interactive short film. It does have it's charm though, don't assume I am not, somewhat, impressed.
- Hang on, aren't we forgetting something -
... let's see... game... uh... graphics... plot...
oh yeah. Theme.
What the hell is up with the theme here, unless I'm mistaken the topics were 'memory' and 'flight'. I think we can safely assume that there is NOTHING, associated with flight or any possible meaning of it, or if there is it's too damn obscure to be worth anything. So memory. Well, no, neither is there anything to do with memory here. The title screen was black and white I guess, and uh. It kinda reminded me of watching a movie and definitely not interacting with it at all. Oh hang on, there are some references to memory in the intro, well WHOOP DE DOO LET'S GIVE IT A THOUSAND SCORES shall we it definitely says the word 'memory'!. Not good enough.
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL TOPIC)
Theme
----- 18/100
Nope, I'm not buying it. I can imagine what you were aiming for here but you trod a tight line with the theme and you fell flat on your face. Haha! you fell on your face! That's funny!
The title screen and intro were about the only things that had anything to do with memory at all, you can argue to me that the game itself is 'in the past' but it's not really relevant, it could just as easily have been in the future (were it not said that the fog came before). Replace the words 'That this fog has been here before' with 'That this fog will be here in 20 days'. And the game suddenly becomes the opposite of memory! That's how shallow the theme is. Shallow, like a fox.
Gameplay
-------- 31/90
It's not got a lot to it, it mainly consists of poorly made slider puzzles, and a little bit of thinking. If you don't belive me let's break it down.
The whore - An interesting Slider puzzle, and a cock, oh boy!
The Liar - A little logic, and, wait for it... TWO KEYS, but here's the catch , they open their OPPOSITE DOORS! Hah, that fooled me for a while!
The Thief - A terrible Slider puzzle
The Murderer - Ran out of ideas eh? This was about as fun as a minefield
The final confrontation - Well, I shouldn't need to say anything.
Graphics
-------- 39/70
Yeah okay, I'll give you some leeway here, I understand that you went for the retro look and I can appreciate that, although the graphics are pretty simple the colours are excellent, and the char editing, when done, was sufficient. I liked the general mood the colours created. Board layout was a bit confusing at times but that's probably intentional, so fair enough. Retro perhaps, but I like some graphics.
Technique
--------- 30/60
Basic and to the point, but functional and flawless. Whilst I'm not inspired to do great things after playing your game, I appreciate the fact that it works perfectly from start to finish, and to me that added polish is worth a lot of points. There's nothing else to give here though
Story
----- 34/50
For a little puzzler game lacking gameplay like this one did, it's generally up to the story and development to carry it, this game did so only so much successfully, it's a shame that the story was quite blunt and undeveloped. But to be fair, it was relevant and to the point, it did what it set out to do and you can't expect much more right? sort of.
Music
----- 1/30
Some people might find Built in MZX sounds 'omg retro' and 'cool'. I don't. I think they're annoying and dumb. Unless they're done very well and somewhat subtley, exactly like they weren't here.
- TOTAL SCORE - 153 / 400
Below Average
- Final Word -
I kind of wish I could give this game more, I liked it's style and I thought it was quite original for a doz entry. But, let's be honest, it's a game competition, and this game had about as much gameplay as a baking tray which refuses to play games. I did honestly like some aspects of this game so don't take that score as my absolute opinion on it.
Team 12984 - Irreplaceable Memory
- Title screen -
Wow, nice title screen, I feel like I have to dedicate a subsection just to it! ok, there we go.
- Moving on -
The music that greets you on the title screen is nice, very nice, it includes organs and pianos, probably the two instruments that most shout 'memory' to me. Well done! It looks the part too, those moving clouds are all MEMORY INDUCING, I'm in awe of that title screen. Let's press P shall we?
- No seriously -
Come on, press P you git, stop staring at that... entrancing pink clouds... soft music... oh god I can't stop, it haunts me
Ok, I'm done, I've pressed P and am currently watching the intro as I write, I like the text. it's all Big, It's totally using up lots of char space though, unless there's some magic robotic being used here, I've lost track of what robotic can do these days, I must admit, I'm a more traditional 1 char text man!.
This story is pretty intriguing, you can't say it's not well thought ou- WHOA, those are some purdy cutscenes there, although they... aren't really anything. They LOOK good sure, but uh, you know, you might as well have drawn some bumble bees or a kettle or something, in fact i'd rather you drew a kettle, can you draw me a kettle like that? I'd be grateful.
What a sinister plot, you seem to be an absolute asshole, actually, what are you? oh man, mysteries. Okay, this music is even better, oh man I'm excited about this game. That's an odd name she has, why couldn't she just be called 'Jim' or something. Odd. Anyway, the musics stopped, the background fades, the text is long, the quest... goes on. Uh oh, the evil musics are on, why is the background red? This isn't fun anymore! I Suddenly feel depressed!
- ACT 1 -
Man this is a lot of dialog huh, you'd almost imagine there's a game attached... Oh god, it keeps going, LET ME KILL THINGS ALREADY. Oh man now there's some girl talking about her life, this is starting to sound like a harry potter soap. Any minute now, I'm going to be Thaumaturging the shit out of stuff.
Or not. The music changes back to angst mode again. I admit I quite like this tune as well for an eerie one but. WHAT THE HECK ARE THOSE?. That's more like it. Blaa blaa blaa blaa blballalblab.
Ok! Now there's some combat, now I read before I played this game on digimzx that Z X and C are all keys you'll need as well as H, although it doesn't mention them in game (tsk). So i go through this zone, killing stuff, It's quite fun, I've had more fun but I've definitely had less fun, the music and sounds are above average certainly, the graphics are impressive, and the attacks look good. I can't really fault anything here.
Until I kill everything.
Oh god, now what? NOW WHAT? I'M STUCK. What do i do? I try everything I can, I spend a good 5 minutes blasting walls and hacking things, to no avail, I'm trapped in this room and there's nothing I can do. I save and quit.
The editor is little help :/ I can't really understand most of this coding and the fact it's all on few boards just confirms my fears.
Upon further inspection I discovered that there was indeed, only one level! gasp! Who would have thought it, with an introduction that long I suppose it's only logical. You can't have an HOUR of words and a game.
seriously, lots of words... too many, Anger.
Not that they were bad. An interesting story to say the least and I would have been interested to see where it was going.
- Act 2 -
Act two was great!
There was no act 2
- Act 1 again -
The Weapon system had potential to be excellent but it wasn't developed enough. It's a shame because I read the txt file that came with the game and it had some interesting stuff on it. I liked the ZAPPER weapon. Some of the enemies looks funky, I especially liked the tiny one with the hat, I thought he was cool, there's really not much else to say about this game I'm afraid. Good graphics all around, but little to support it. There's about 2 minutes of repetitive gameplay in there, it's good gameplay certainly, and if that's what floats your boat then go for it, but not me.
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL TOPIC)
Theme
----- 61/100
It definitely looked like it was going places. I would have been interested to see where it WAS going. The game definitely has a sort of 'memory' feel to it. The music helps considerably here. The plot is obviously, quite heavily memory orientated, but it stops there, had this game progressed fully I could have seen it getting as high as 90 here.
Gameplay
-------- 18/90
What's there is definitely fun, but unfortunately, you have to go through seven years of dialogue for two minutes of sword slashing. It's not worth it. Would have been good, were it longer
Graphics
-------- 45/70
What's there was good, obviously there just wasn't enough of it. I always say that a lot of consistently decent graphics is better then a sparse helping of excellent graphics. The graphics, make no mistake, were excellent for a megazeux game, but there wasn't enough to warrant a higher score. The dialogues even looked better then some games, the game itself was spectacular, arguably.
Screw me that title screen was hypnotic.
Technique
--------- 28/60
I've heard that the combat has been called 'clunky'... I don't think so, it seems VERY smooth to me and non buggy. I was impressed with how solid it was.
The reason there are so few points here, is because the actual game itself, is just too short. And I can't really take much more off gameplay!
Story
----- 21/50
Would have been good, had it got a bit further, as it stands, it's half a story, and therefore, it sucks.
Music
----- 25/30
Very appropriate and nice sounding. I doubt it's original though so not maximum points here. The sounds were excellent
- TOTAL SCORE - 198 / 400
Decent
- Final Word -
Again, the score is quite generous, I would have pegged it around 180ish, but, then again, some points of it were just excellent. It's always confusing when a broken game completely outscores lesser, complete games, but sometimes technique just wins through, and this game oozed quality. Just... very little of it.
Team 21079 - Fuzzy loses his memory
- Load 'er up -
The first thing you have to notice when you load up this game is that it feels very 2000. The all-dominating bassline and the poor sounding Orchestralhitguitars have that mid schoolish effect to them. Mid school? Is that a word? It is now!. The title screen looks, simple enough, not very exciting really. Apparently this 'fuzzy' has lost his memory. Why should i care? do i care? I don't know.
- Upon starting... -
Buhh buhh story, simple enough, can't complain I guess. I like the way you have to go through the points IN NUMERICAL ORDER, why is there a numerical order, and WHAT HAPPENS IF I DO NOT go in numerical order? This game is already intriguing. Also, in this game, 'reach altitude above ground level' has replaced 'jump'. Eerie music! :O
- Let's get on with it -
Ok so we're on an island, with what I can only assume is lava or canned spaghetti hoops surrounding it, either way it looks quite hostile, true to the description we have 5 sites of interest, each with NUMBERS. Just for a HILARIOUS laugh I'm going to try #4 first, let's see what happens!
Ahh ok, so you CAN'T you say. Well, I'm feeling that this kind of defeats the point of a world map. You can't seem to go anywhere apart from the first location, which, although numerically and logically sound, does not provide a very open game experience, The map promised many things but I can only do what it forces me to do : (, better to have forgotten the map altogether, it is no longer a world map, it is now an inter-chapter-restroom. Why is the sky purple
- Nivel uno -
Ok, I'm confronted with a standard sidescroller looking thing, I have a 'blaster' apparently and shall use it to blast things indeed, the graphics looks, averageish I guess but I've NEVER been a fan of that kind of fade-blocky graphic style, nice chilling music. Uh oh there's a hole! no matter how much you reach altitude above ground level, you cannot bypass it! You find a charging cell later on which lets you fire, interesting, somewhat original shooter engine. And there is a 'technique' to assist reaching altitude above ground level involving your gun. Oh my, this bu-'technique' (who's intention at creation i somewhat doubt), is rather fun, I just hope they don't overuse it though, it can get kind of annoying, and isn't really all THAT fun let's be honest.
Well, still needing to use the technique, but you find some kind of hat and leave.
- Nivel Dos -
Urgh, I'm less fond of the graphics here, they seem too blended and indistinguishable, the music has gone from good to... mediocre too. I find a page of a journal after more reaching altitude above ground level techniques. The graphics were more distinguishable then I had feared they would be, but the viewport is too small too take advantage of this, it's too confusing in general.
- Nivel Tres -
This really is the worst song I have ever heard. I don't know why someone thought it would be hilarious to make a song with the worst sounding burp ever recorded, disgraceful, I award it negative 4 points. I've just noticed how scarily stupid and easy the enemies are, they pose no threat at all and have all the intelligence of a tractor.
This song really is annoying.
I find a locket.
- Nivel Cuatro -
More upbeat exciting music, I guess. Probably the most fun level so far, but that's not really saying much. You have to find 5 keys for 5 locks, the maze was not bad hence the most fun. The author(s) laid off the reaching altitude above ground level technique for the most part, which was a GOOD move on his/her part. Found a gitbox
- Y la ultima -
More Jumping, avoiding, buhh.
You reach a rocket and touch it, and get in (I assume) and that's the end of the game.
Now, call me crazy, but I have a few questions
a) How did the rocket get into an underground cave?
b) What good is a rocket in an underground cave? (apparently there's a volcano entry but I DONT SEE IT >:( )
c) Ok so fuzzy lost his memory, and found a... ship...
d) I understand that you find objects which somewhat jog your memory, but at the end of the game you don't seem to remember much more then when you started, You remember that you have a family, and you play guitar. Whoop! Now you just have to remember how to fly a spaceship right?
e) ARARHAGHAHGRHRAGH
The ending of the story did a little to help advance the plot I suppose, but it's still too basic. I dunno, maybe that's just me
Okay, that's me done here.
The last screen was your typical Doz credits screen, with the obligatory 'hope you had funs!!!11' message at the bottom.
No I didn't
Well that's too harsh, I did sort of I guess, but not as much as you probably thought I had.
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL TOPIC)
Theme
----- 27/100
No dice, replace the word 'memory' in the title, with 'shit' and you pretty much get the same game. In fact, 'Fuzzy loses his shit' makes a lot more sense. See, he lost his guitar and rocket and everything. You 'remember' things at the end but it feels too much like a slap on job.
There was no real sense of memory in the gameplay or graphics. The restricted viewport somewhat alluded to the theme, and the music helped a little bit (in places), but in general, nope.
Gameplay
-------- 37/90
Pretty tedious, there's really not a huge amount to do here, it's a sidescroller with one or two types of simplistic enemy, and much too straightforward, I quite liked level 4 but that was about it. The 'technique' got old fast, but they were sensible enough not to overdo it. Kudos for that.
Graphics
-------- 34/70
Pleasing at times, confusing at others, the colours and graphics did not reflect the theme in any way, the style of art they used is not one I'm too fond of but I've seen it done worse. The forest level was just annoying to decipher. Distinctly mid-range.
Technique
--------- 23/60
Yeh, well, there were no bugs to speak of but there wasn't really the possibility for anything this simple to go wrong, the jumping technique was an interesting touch but nothing amazing.
Story
----- 27/50
Enh, I know where you were going, but you didn't develop it nearly enough, you probably would have got more points if you just left out the plot altogether and went for more gameplay. The fact that you did try to develop the story, unsuccessfully, sets you back a bit.
Music
----- 19/30
Great at times, annoying at others, no sounds to speak of.
- TOTAL SCORE - 167 / 400
Mediocre
- Final Word -
Destroyed by it's theme score, If this had been in the specific topic, arguably could have reached 220+, feels like it deserves a little more.
Team 32427 - Dislocated Memories
- Back to roots -
The first thing you have to notice about this game is how well it takes MZX back to the old days when smileys were cool, and slider puzzles could be mixed in with normal puzzles, and there were silly boss fights, and you had all sorts of different engines all over the place which all come together to make one game.
This game wins the 'Most MZXy' game award, a special award given only to those games that remind me of being a kid and playing Daniel Balkins Second Strike. Hoo boy.
- Anyway, to business. -
This game consists of 3 'levels' with bosses and then a final bossfight. The levels get progressively harder and more complex which is a good thing for any MZX game. Basically what happened was, you were 'inserted' into someone's memory, and then you are able (using some imaginary technique, hopefully) to kill them from inside, sort of... I'm not quite sure what exactly happens, but either way people die.
This is one of the longer games of the DoZ and provides quite a bit of gameplay, unfortunately this game has a couple of major drawbacks.
- Graphics
- Variation
Emphasis on variation there. If they say variety is the spice of life, then this game was the blandest thing on the menu, or in the city for that matter, imagine scampi on toast, that's what we're talking. It's not that the game was boring, it's just that you felt like you were doing the same thing oover and oover again. the sequence of events was different (like the order things progressed in, such as in the first level where you steal the key, enter first class, crash the plane... etc... ) But it always ends up in some ridiculous bossfight where bullets are flying around all over the place and you really have no idea what's being shot at and what's shooting and where these bullets are coming from, everything seems to have a gun. I did chuckle at the boss scene in the second level, where all chaos erupts and things start screaming, but that's just what this game was, it was unorderly in the bossfights and they were just kind of dull.
Take the rooftop fight for instance, I don't know what the creator(s) were thinking but that's just a horrible idea for a fight, it took me like seven hours just to hit her once. And as if that wasn't enough, the final bossfight was essentially all the bossfights all over again. Wheefun!
- Scampi please -
There was a little variation provided, at two times in particular. First of all, the slider puzzles used in the club area, were pretty good, and provided much needed relief from shooting everything that moved (and being shot at by everything that moved). And the silly sidescroller bit, which, was terrible, was also a worthy addition to this game's arsenal of excitement.
- Phin beats -
The music was all decent, but it's all songs that have been in the MZX circulation for a while now. Perhaps this a good thing, maybe that's why I'm reminiscing about 1998.
Did anyone else think that their choice of club music was a retarded idea? It sounded like the most depressing night club. I wouldn't want to even be NEAR it let alone go in. God that club looks like a depressing place.
- Storylines -
The story in this game was pretty average, it had a fair little twist on the end but nothing unexpected. Going to prison for 20 million is probably not something you'd want to 'roll with' though, since... you know... That's life without parole right there. Although I guess when you can kill someone just by... remembering them or something, it's all good.
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL TOPIC)
Theme
----- 50/100
Yeh, I guess. It's so-so. The theme is interwoven into the plot and, to a lesser extent, the gameplay. But the graphics and sound do not reflect the theme at all.
Gameplay
-------- 41/90
There's a lot of it, so it gets more then it would at first glance, but most of it is quite poor. The slider puzzles were probably the most fun thing in the game, and I've done a million in my time. THe bossfights were just bad.
Graphics
-------- 29/70
Tacky, yucky, sickly, ducky. They weren't anything to be proud of, in fact... I'd put them up for adoption, hopefully you'll get some return (but don't bank on it). What I mean to say is that they are bad.
Technique
--------- 14/60
Nothing very new or amazing. Or fairly new or amazing. Or remotely new or amazing. Or amazing. Or impressive... Continue as you wish
Story
----- 37/50
Good enough! It gets the job done, and in a game with poor graphics and only moderate sound. It needs the plot to carry it some of the way.
Music
----- 14/30
Nothing we haven't heard before, and most of it didn't really fit anywhere, it had nothing to do with the theme either. And god, that nightclub, disgraceful.
- TOTAL SCORE - 185 / 400
Allriiiiiight
- Final Word -
MZX at it's finest. Nothing that will be stuck in your memory. But not a complete waste of 15 minutes. A good length of game which was let down because it's not 'hip' and 'with the times'.
That and competition is much more fierce this time.
Seriously, last DoZ I judged was an absolute disgrace.
Team 34249 - Fritz Blitz
- Wow -
What can you say about this game that I'm sure you haven't said anyway. It's shines of excellence all around. There aren't really any flaws with it apart from it's short length. Let's start at the beginning.
- From the start then -
The title screen looks good. It's just a simple ansi art picture (All the game is ANSI art actually) but, it's very appealing it looks very gamey, you can tell quite quickly that this game is probably not going to be about memory. I like the flight goggles :D. The music is also very fitting here.
- No intro -
The game thrusts you straight into the thick of things, which, for a game of this nature, is probably not a bad thing, it's a shoot em up, and as such you wouldn't really expect much of a story, it doesn't rock the boat here then, and has about as much story as a Mr.Men book. But let's not get off track, this game doesn't need a story for what it is.
The first thing you have to notice about this game, is just how smooth it is. There has never been a shooter made in MZX that actually felt like a shoot em up, it just can't be done with small 1x1 graphics. This game brings you large sprites, which seriously help the fun factor, it's actually possible to not be perfectly aligned with a target and still hit it! The vast majority of enemies were bigger then you.
The graphics, are, not the sharpest, nor the crispest graphics around, after all, they are only ANSI art, there is very little room for detail here, so there aren't many points on offer for that. What this game includes in mountainloads though, is smoothness. Yes the graphics aren't particularly detailed, but they're Big, they're bright, they're slick and there isn't a single graphical glitch to be seen. You can't help but be impressed by the visual aspect of the game, even if the detail is way below the standards set by a couple of the other games. It's one of the only MZX action games that has a 'frantic' feel to it.
The cutscenes are nice enough, nothing amazing, but the ansi art is well done.
- How does it play ? I'LL TELL YOU HOW IT PLAYS -
Beautifully, it's as smooth as silk and has no flaws whatsoever, it's slightly short and lacks some more advanced features that you could have hoped to see in a shoot em up (Things like power ups) but, it's still one of a kind, and hopefully this genre will get a bit more attention from now on, I'm sure it will.
It's pretty straightforward, You fly around with the keypad, and Z unleashes all hell on your screen. The game has an excellent difficulty curve and is neither too hard nor too easy (Some of the bosses are excellently designed, like the 4th one). The length of the game leaves something to be desired, and there isn't a HUGELY noticeable difference between the two difficulty levels, but that's not a grave error.
- Phat beats -
The sound is definitely above average for a Doz game. The music fits perfectly to the game (It sounds like it COULD be originally tracked for the game but I'm going to guess not) The sounds, whilst simple, are adequate and get the point across.
- So what's the catch? -
It's not often a game this ambitious and unorthodoz comes in a doz that is not hampered with bugs, this game defies that trend, it is polished in almost every way. It's not PERFECT of course, but then again, nothing is. The story leaves something to be desired, it's true that for a game of this genre the story is not an essential part of the game, but I'm sure with a little more time and thought a more involving storyline could have been created (revenge for your parents, anyone?) It's adherence to the th eme, is solid, but nothing amazing.
- - - SCORE - - - (SPECIFIC TOPIC)
Theme
----- 15/20
Adheres very tightly to the theme of flying, but doesn't do anything creative or exciting with it (you fly)
Gameplay
-------- 87/120
The highest gameplay score I can remember giving any game in a doz. Let's be honest, this is a FUN waste of 5 minutes. But that's the problem, it's only 5 minutes. If this game were longer it could have got a fantastic score, as it stands, it's merely 'very good'.
Graphics
--------<nowiki> 59/90''
Not the most detailed graphics out there, but they were SMOOTH, you just can't substitute functionality right? The ansi art cutscenes were cool, and the backgrounds were sometimes inspiring, the enemy sprites were hit and miss, but the player sprite seemed a bit simple. The bosses looked good.
THe most important thing is that they were nice to look at.
''Technique<br>
<nowiki>--------- 72/80
Fantastic, It's flawless and one of a kind, you rarely see that in a megazeux game, yet alone a DOZ game. It was an ambitious project that just happened to come off right.
Story
----- 25/50
I'll give this game mid-range in the story category since it's obviously not meant to have any regard to plot. It's a mindless action game and it's not ashamed of that. The story that was there, was sufficient, but weak.
Music
----- 33/40
Very lively and fitting music, good sound effects.
- TOTAL SCORE - 291 / 400
Very Good.
- Final Word -
Very impressive, but you can always do better. I'd be amazed if this game wasn't in the top two. Easily the most fun I've had playing megazeux for a while, unfortunately it was short lived.
Team 48625 - This is Greg (And hello kitty)
- Uhrr -
Well, The title screen gave me mixed feelings, on on side, this WAS greg, GREG was in the game, how could I not be at least somewhat excited about what lay in way. Also HELLO KITTY. This was a partnership with truely tremedous potential. That was all I really got from the title screen though. At first it appeared like it was just going to be some joke entry (especially when you press P and start on the title screen). But the team explains that they purposefully didn't make the game start properly (for some reason) and instead wanted you to waste your time loading it up yourself, where upon loading Hello kitty laughs at you, or wishes you luck, they're probably the same.
- Why thanks -
So the game tells you to start on 'level 1'. That makes sense. Most things begin at level 1. If they didn't they would begind somewhere else and that wouldn't make sense at all. If there's one thing that 'Fuzzy loses him memory' tought me it was that jumping was actually called reaching altitude abo- I mean, it was that all games must begin on level 1. DEFINITELY not level 4. Level one is certainly, where they begin. Armed with this knowledge I entered the pit of level 1.
- Level 1, and onwards -
What I was greeted with shocked me temporarily. BRIGHT colours, BALOONS, HELLO KITTY, and outrageous music. The graphics were, for the lack of a better phrase, unnerving yet very pleasing. They were clear, crisp, and nice to look at, there's nothing to complain about graphics wise, at least, apart from the lack of many different things.
The gameplay was... interesting, the first thing that has to be said is that this game had no challenge at all, it was the easiest, most challenge..less thing I have played all DOZ (Yes I do appreciate the gravity of that statement) and this is saying something. This is not to say it wasn't somehow... fun.
I must admit I was smiling like a madman whilst playing this game, something about running around with hello kitty, catching balloons and inflating your own just got to me. But I think with a little tweaking this game could have been great. (Perhaps a limited amount of times you can inflate? Maybe you can pick up extra red balloons or something, you could definitely make a game out of that, I think you should. Do it)
But alas, the game is short lived, there is not much to do in a game which the author admits (in the understatement of the year) is short. There is about 2 minutes of excitement in this game tops. A shame because I was really getting into it when it stopped.
- Hang on -
What the hell was up with that music, you can't do that, not to me, that was vicious.
- Moving on -
Okay so this game was about flight, well, it does that well enough, you fly a lot, definitely, there is certainly lots of flight related things in this game, such as ... balloons. OH and clouds, lots of clouds.
But yeh, this game is incomplete, so is this review.
- - - SCORE - - - (SPECIFIC TOPIC)
Theme
----- 12/20
Balloons steal Greg, you must use balloons to collect balloons. The key factor here being that balloons fly. Had someone not been aware of that, the topic may have confused them.
Gameplay
-------- 25/120
Oh MAN I was having fun until it ended, that sucks, make more.
Graphics
-------- 40/90
Fun, happy graphics, I enjoyed them. There just weren't enough of them. I liked the bright colours.
Technique
---------<nowiki> 37/80''
Hit and miss. On the one hand almost everything was 2x1 basic blocks. Which was very nice, but unfortunately there were a few glitches, sometimes you got caught in the walls, and sometimes half of the balloons would disappear. Nothing fatal though
''Story<br>
<nowiki>----- 10/50
Again, obviously not focusing on plot, but this was just silly =(
Music
----- 18/40
I was torn between giving 35 or 5. so I'll cut it in the middle, but uh... I probably should give you much less.
- TOTAL SCORE - 142 / 400
Poor.
- Final Word -
I liked where it was going, but there wasn't enough.
Team 51976 - It is time to compete games!
- From humble beginnings -
It was pretty obvious from the start that i should have been ON MY GUARD for something wacky and unpredictable here. But I have to admit, they got me, they got me good : (
I was staring at the screen for like a minute before I figured out what was happening, and from then on I was just laughing all the way, i wouldn't say laughing maybe but... snorting... or chuckling, or whatever. Anyway, I was amused.
Some of the quotes in that intro had me in stitches. 'Every milisecond we die' practically gave me asthma, and the final choice had me in tears. Obviously I chose correctly, then I got 4/7 in the big quiz. See, I pay attention.
It was hard =(
- - - SCORE - - - (SOME SORT OF TOPIC PROBABLY MEMORY)
Theme
----- 10/100
You have to like remember bits of the dialogue or something
Gameplay
-------- 5/90
...You have to like remember bits of the dialogue or something
Graphics
-------- 8/70
Dialogue, oh and a face.
Technique
--------- 5/60
Frown
Story ----- 5/50
Man, the goliath is a cool name
Music
----- 5/30
What a queer song
- TOTAL SCORE - 38 / 400
oh no
- Final Word -
THE GOLIATH
Team 65131 - Witch Switch
- Tsk tsk -
Ohh dear, what happened here? Oh wait, I know.
This game, let's be honest with ourselves here, started off terribly in every way, it was looking like, so far, the worst contender in the doz so far, and then, basically, it sort of got back on track, then not.
- From the beginning -
Ok, first of all, that's a pretty dumb title screen. It's 'animated' somewhat and looks Zztesque but it's pretty cheap and does not represent the game well at all. I quite liked the Speaker sound effects though! (For once).
Ok, so, upon pressing 'p' you are presented with the worst drawing ever. No kidding, this drawing makes the plague look good. I don't know what it's meant to be but it looks like a skull next to a waterfall. Anyway, enough of that, the story is revealed before you in terrificly bad ANSI art (Oh hey apparently it's... a statue), apparently you're a witch who's powers have been switched with another witch, hence the title of the game, ok then! Seems straightforward enough, there are probably a few ways this game could go and they could all be good, let's see what they do with it.
What happens next is a MZX catastrophe. We have a 1x2 top view engine. Okay, that can't be too bad right? Wrong. VERY wrong.
The engine is... 'buggy' to say the least (and trust me, that is the least), if you happen to press to arrow keys at once (As I'm sure many people did when playing this game, but if they don't then ok it's my fault), then your head multiplies, it becomes the undominable head, there is no defeating your head, your body is frail but the head always lives on. Plus, what the hell is up with that body anyway, you look like a skeleton in a skirt. Anyway, you go around zapping little blobby things (which are actually kind of cool looking), I say zapping but... well you get the idea, you don't really zap as much as swat. Oh and you can only swat left and right, with A and D respectively. Seriously, this has to be the worst made thing I have seen in MZX for a while, and there's a lot of bad things in MZX.
I... I don't know when I hit the things I was attacking, or when they hit me... every so often either you or they would go red, and they would seemingly die at random times. There is no logic to this combat at all :(.
I'm sure I'm getting this point across to you that this engine and gameplay is horrific, but let's move on to the graphics. Heh, well, load up this game now, and look at the scenery. Please, just do it, do it for me, I want you to be looking at it while I say this.
This is terrible.
I have no idea where you're meant to be, it looks like some sort of forest building hybrid. The walls are flourescent green and the floor is brown, the background is a darker brown. The detail on the floors and walls, I'm not sure if you've noticed, is dots. Stare at that floor for a while, doesn't it look funny. I'm honestly not sure how to express my feelings on this floor. This floor not only killed the cat, but chopped it up into little pieces, and ATE it. The wall looks a little better, but that's it. Apart from these walls and floors, the enemies and yourself. There is no single other thing on the board apart from your objective in each level, which is, handily enough, a mushroom both times.
The next level is the same, but has different colours and music! Also notice that the walls on the top are... inverted? is that the word? The wall begins at the top and ends at the bottom, or... something... those walls defy logic. It kind of looks like your not looking at it from a top down perspective but that you've... looped over the top and are looking at it from behind somewhat... I don't know. It's stupid. I hate these boards.
You have to find a mushroom again.
- And then -
Then after that, a miracle happens. The game suddenly becomes half decent!. You get a text box telling you the new controls, which was a little discouraging, but what followed was pleasing. Wait how come you can fly? Surely the whole point of the game, THE WHOLE POINT OF THOSE MUSHROOMS ON THOSE HORRIBLE BOARDS ... oh fuck it I don't care anymore :-(
These new zones are relatively fun though, and they look GOOD. Not like, amazingly good, but perhaps it's after what came before that you suddenly become thankful for what you have now, it's like your eyes are suddenly like 'Oh man, that was a close call, We're going to start appreciating all the good things in life'. Either way, you immediately notice that the colours are appropriate, things represent what they actually are, your player character works (and looks pretty funky), and you're not slowly dieing from brainrot.
The gameplay here is, unfortunately, not as fun as it could have been. Sure it's definitely got SOME gameplay now, but there's no real challenge (Until the airship), the razor wire on the trees was just about the only tricky thing in the forest level. Your special attack, pretty much does less then your regular one (it freezes them for like, a second), the flying engine is pretty fun, but, wasn't tested well enough in the levels, had you lost life for hitting trees or things it could have worked really well, but you can just sort of maneouvre past them after slamming into obstacles. Nevertheless, there's a somewhat original engine, and that counts for something. The forest level is completed all to easy.
I haven't mentioned so far that the music in this game is pretty nice, I doubt it's original but it sounds good and works for the game's atmosphere.
The airship level is a little more fun, but only a little. There is some challenge in getting past those sliding guns and opening the doors, but it can only entertain for so long, and once you're done with that, the game is over. Oh well, I don't really think it was going anywhere anyway.
The final message sums up this game pretty well! It has like a million spelling mistakes and the border of the text has overwritten some of the letters creating even more spelling mistakes. It's coloured in the worst way possible and is just annoying to read. Apparently I am to be thanked for making 'this fellow' appreciate fun teammates. Well, good, I rock like that.
Whoever this is however, is not.
Don't say you were never warned : )
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL TOPIC)
(Editor's note: Shloob made a slight mistake. He graded this game based on the Memory theme, which is, upon retrospect, I'm sure he'll feel very dumb about. He's incommunicado for several weeks, so to fix it, I'm just going to reweight his scores, including the Theme score. This does seem a little unfair, but the score should be relatively what Shloob intended. I apologize for any inconvenience.)
Theme
----- 23/100 (5/20)
Bleh it was an interesting concept but it didn't really involve memory too much, sure you forgot how to fly and all but that was because you were hit with a potion, or something, not really getting the memory jibe here. The game itself did not reflect the theme at all.
Gameplay
-------- 28/90 (37/120)
This game goes from like an X- to a C+, The first stage was ridiculous but the second one, still, unfortunately, was average at best.
Graphics
-------- 29/70 (37/90)
Same as above except it goes up to a B+, the graphics in the second area were really quite good. Not really reflective of the topic in any way though.
Technique
--------- 17/60 (23/80)
Bleh, the engine in the second half was good and warrants about 15 on it's own, but... come on... I don't even have to say it.
Story
----- 21/50 (21/50)
Could have gone places, didn't
Music
----- 17/30 (23/40)
Nice music all around, unfortunately music is only an accopaniment to the game itself, and in the first stage, although there was nice music, there was no game. In the second stage the music did help quite a bit. The sound effects that were there were good also. One point for the speaker effects on the title screen :-)
- TOTAL SCORE - 135 / 400 (146/400)
Very Poor
- Final Word -
Well what did you expect? Not only was the game hampered for obvious reasons but there was very little attachment to the theme, which will kill you on the general topic.
Team 77665 - Relapse
- Ohh... er -
The title screen is one of those ones where it could be hiding a really good game or a really bad one, you just can't tell, I was somewhat hopeful when I loaded up this game. Here is an account of my first game, written as I am playing it.
- Chapter 1 -
This house looks terrible, I'm sorry, it really is. It's a bunch of lines with black background everywhere. The house is apparently empty (when it is blatantly not, there was a small bear in the corner of a room somewhere).
I see I am a smiley, I can pretty much assume that the whole game is going to look this poor, hopefully it can develop a good plot or have some good gameplay to compensate (I'm not very hopeful about this but enhhh...' Anyway.
Okay, I'm slightly hopeful, having just seen some kind of flashback about you killing some girl, (apparently you are a total bitch!) but then feeling bad about it. The plot seems like it could be going places, the gameplay, so far has consisted of moving around a little bit, and then pushing something into a blue zone, bleh. The graphics, oh god, they're just horrible, I thought that was a beach or... something then you're on this brown square... I ... I Don't know what that brown square is, or how you got onto it, apparently you pushed her into the sea from the brown square but... the square's on the beach bit... you saw her splash into (I think) water with bubbles... but then she's dead on the beach bit? I dunno, I don't want to think about it. Moving on
Ooh, bits have appeared in the house that weren't there before, I'm getting good vibes about the plot here.
... oh MAN this is a fucked up plot right here. I'm loving what this game is doing with the story, and how they do it... holy crap your dead daughter just rose up from the ground. This is freaking me out right here.
- I'm finished! -
Wow... That was fantastic. I'm almost sad that the game is over!. The game was short but sweet... In a way.
I can't express enough how involved I was in the plot, even if it was for just like 5 minutes, I've never been that attentive to the screen. I am impressed.
The graphics suck, let's get that straight. The gameplay is almost non-existant. Hell, this may as well just be an interactive short film. But I was stuck to it. It just could have been so much MORE. And I wish it had been. What little sound was there was very good. Very moody, very ambiental. The song at the end was exactly what it should have been. It just... sound could have made that game so much more. And the team squandered an opportunity to turn what is merely 'good' into something excellent, and that saddens me :-(.
Seriously man, the graphics are terrible. I could have cried if it wasn't a bunch of smiley faces going around murdering each other and such.
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL TOPIC)
Theme
----- 71/100
Yes YES -YES-. This is a game that uses the theme well, in almost all aspects of the game (except graphics... kinda... it uses the theme of 'terrible' here), but that's not to say the visual aspect didn't help. In some ways, I suppose, my earlier comments about the house being just lines, grey, dark and with a black background... I suppose in retrospect that helped the game hugely. Yeh, I'm pretty sure it did. That doesn't excuse the beach areas and the outside for looking like a landfill though. The music was themed to the max. And the plot... well... obviously.
Gameplay
-------- 9/90
The game falls apart in two places, here, and graphics. The gameplay score is ridiculously low here as... you guessed it, it's not a game. A game implies challenge, a game implies a way to win and a way to lose. This was non-linear the whole way through (at least in pacman there were TWO possible endings to the game).
Graphics
-------- 11/70
Worst of the doz, and clearly. But in a way, somehow fitting... I don't know... they do kind of stick in my memory.
Technique
--------- 10/60
Very little robotic of any kind, but what was there was flawless.
Story
----- 35/50
The way the story develops was novel, I hugely liked the way more items appeared on the table the more you remembered, an excellent idea. The game was too linear and too... short to get anything higher then this though.
Music
----- 15/30
The two music pieces that were there fitted PERFECTLY (and it was just a piano!) these could very well have been originally made, and if so, well done!, but that's besides the point. There were only 1.5 songs, and no sound effects to speak of. Could have been so much more had you played your cards right. The silence though, was never going to be a bad thing.
- TOTAL SCORE - 151 / 400
Poor
- Final Word -
This game was probably the most 'stand apart' game of the bunch. I liked it a lot. But, realistically, those scores are accurate.
Team 83038 - Bionic commando!
- No messing about -
This game really jumps straight into it, it challenges me to get 80,000. Let's see how I do!
Ok, horribly. In my defence though, I spent like a minute shooting the demons to the left of the starting area which didnt seem to die. :( To the review!
- Dun dudu dun!!! -
Why is this game called bionic commando, I don't see anything remotely bionic or commandoish in this game. It's a fun little timewaster, you spend a little while zooming around on your stick and shooting demons, killing as many as possible before time runs out.
Unfortunately it just wasn't very well done.
It was quite an ambitious task... and unlike some of the other ambitious tasks in this game, (I hate to compare games but...) such as Fritz Blitz, this game felt very shoddy and badly put together. This game was almost everything Fritz Blitz was not. It was buggy, choppy, had poor controls, felt absolutely UNsolid, and just generally annoying to play sometimes. I commend the team on their efforts but they just didn't pull it off.
The sprite collision (or whatever they used) was poor. Bullets would sort of 'overlap' the enemies when they hit and it just looked very messy. The control system, while very novel I'll give them that, was annoying and hard to get used to. The enemies were boring and there was just not much variation in the style of the game. There were no sound effects to speak of (which I think are essential in action games), although the music was certainly nice. There was almost no plot (although arguably it wasn't needed), and the lack of any real purpose to the game just helps bring it's overrall rating down.
I liked what I was seeing when I first loaded the game. I thought it was pretty good and exciting, but urgh... I just don't want to play it again, I'm sorry.
It was all choppy and shoddy and the like.
It's a shame, because it could have been really good.
- - - SCORE - - - (SPECIFIC TOPIC)
Theme
----- 12/20
You fly, they fly, nuff said.
Gameplay
-------- 45/120
Close, but the game falls at the last hurdle. There just wasn't enough to hold the players attention. The mouse controls were just.. annoying and there was no real challenge after you figure out the enemies.
Graphics
-------- 42/90
Not very well animated but it was actually quite good looking. There wasn't very much of it though. Not nearly enough.
Technique
--------- 42/80
Arghhh, mid-range. On the one hand the game has some ambitious engines working for it, but on the other, there are too many little glitches and graphical problems with the game for it to get a perfect score. only being able to shoot straight too was a restriction. There were no FATAL flaws though which is a good thing indeed.
Story
----- 20/50
Nahhh, not really very good at all. Even for an action game, you can put a BIT more effort into it. At least there was something though!
Music
----- 12/40
One song, which was pretty nice, no sound effects to speak of
- TOTAL SCORE - 173 / 400
Mediocre
- Final Word -
Bleh, had potential, but just lacked a lot of things. Fun little waste of 5 minutes though.
Team 86715 - The stupid pile of rank shit.
- Oh well -
Yeh I'm not gonna bother.
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL TOPIC)
Theme
----- 4/100
You remember stuff on the sign (or do you?)
Gameplay
-------- 5/90
I guess i played until the end, but only because the energizer song is cool
Graphics
-------- 1/70
Technique
--------- 1/60
Story
----- 2/50
Hooray! There's something
Music
----- 2/30
EnergIIIIZerrr
- TOTAL SCORE - 14 / 400
Why do you bother living
- Final Word -
Seriously.
Team 90100 - The Red Giant
- The title -
I liked the title screen, something about it (perhaps the combination of the music and the graphics) just clicked for me. It was relaxing and i felt relaxed :-).
Wow, Gorka wasn't kidding when he said that the big parasite is tough, that was one angry looking dude.
I'm not sure about this game, on one hand, it's pretty original, but it's unfinished (as in short) and kind of annoying to play.
The graphics are great, fantastic even, for a doz game, the people actually (and i shudder to say this in MZX) look like people. It's insane! The rooms were nicely detailed and the scenery in general was very nice to look at.
- Battles -
Interesting Battles. I liked the RPG-Action hybrid, it was an interesting combination and with a little more work/care it could have been really good. As it stood though it was mediocre. The target floated about half a screen down from the colours, so it was hard to see what you're aiming for (even if this is intentional, it's still kind of dumb :D). The RPG battles were pretty easy in general, obviously, until you meet Lord Doom, which is what I've dubbed that last guy, he kills everything. I bet he could kill the world if he tried, Even my gun does nothing.
But yeh, it's short and somewhat sweet. But that's about the limit of it.
The RPG system with the look, use, talk commands and such were interesting and reasonably well implemented, the one big annoyance to me being that once you right clicked you could leave the menu without clicking on an option. But in the room with the random encounters there just wasn't enough time to do anything useful, so you just had to run away basically. The icons were too small to be of any use in real time.
But yeh, the graphics were awesome. And the ideas were too.
The plot was good, I liked where it was going but obviously it ended too quickly, that and... It's not really very related to the theme. Ok, spaceships do fly, I guess. But... you know... it's not enough.
- - - SCORE - - - (SPECIFIC CATEGORY)
Theme
----- 7/20
Poor poor use of the theme. Could have been about anything really.
Gameplay
-------- 41/120
It was a great idea, and the battles were really fun, but there wasn't much to do, and there wasn't enough done with the RPG engine.
Graphics
-------- 66/90
What's there was excellent, things looked exactly like they should, the lack of animation was a bit disappointing but there you go. There weren't enough graphics in the game to get a higher score. Good use of colour.
Technique
--------- 48/80
It was good, it was generally non buggy and worked well, especially the battles. But the way it was implemented was somewhat poor. I had very mixed feelings about the RPG engine.
Story
----- 25/50
Could have gone somewhere good, but I guess time ran out.
Music
----- 21/40
Pretty good, nice songs but not all that appropriate for the game.
- TOTAL SCORE - 208 / 400
You should finish this! : )
- Final Word -
If it was complete, it would be AWESOME.. but it's too short to be of any use.
Team 99115 - Memory Leak
- Can't be helped -
Sigh... another underachieving game.
This one was a REAL shame because it looked like it had incredible potential. As it stands however, it is just a bug-ridden engine with a few monsters thrown in for some gameplay. There's more to it, but you pretty much have to access it via the editor, as everything sort of craps out after a few boards anyway, I did take a look at what was there though.
Some interesting stuff. But let's start at the beginning
- As most things do -
What we have here, is a smooth pixel-by-pixel engine, similar to the one used in Cheese's adventure but with two differences. Firstly, the character is much bigger, so commendments for accomplishing that task, but unfortunately, it just doesn't work as well as the one used in Cheese's adventure. I'm not judging code complexity, or code efficiency or anything like that, bottom line is I wouldn't really know, all I know is that this engine glitches up increasingly as the game progresses. At the start, all is well, it works like a charm and you really don't think anything could go wrong. Then, for seemingly no reason (it's not like anything specific happesn to trigger it) Your character, and everything else that moves, gets hit by this disease, which turns them into big moving blocks. Admittedly, these are very smooth scrolling blocks which was somewhat cool, but yeh... It was ambitious and it just kind of wasn't pulled off.
The gameplay basically consists of walking around and using this 'power' you get to shoot stuff. Basically you have a yoyo, it's a pretty powerful yoyo admittedly but it can, for all purposes, be called one nonetheless. The Yoyo of power is quite an interesting weapon because you can aim it even after you've fired, which is... somewhat novel for a mzx game, and this worked almost flawlessly (occasionally the collision detection was off).
The thing that I found... SO annoying in the game was the fact that the creators of the game decided to make each and every passageway exactly your size and width. In a normal MZX game, this would not have been a problem obviously, but with a pixel perfect engine such as this, it's just asking for problems. It's tricky to get aligned correctly with the exit. The best way was to find something parallel to it and sort of 'anchor' your position on it, but even so, this is a stupid way to do things and it really should have been tended to. Not that I doubt the team had other pressing matters to attend to.
- Plot -
If you get a chance to read some of the story boards, do so. They're quite an interesting read, it's one of the more engrossing plots of the doz, and you get the feeling that had the game worked, the plot could have been very well woven in to the game. As it stands though, the plot is all but unaccessable apart from through the editor.
- Monsters -
The monsters were odd to say the least. They were somewhat similar to built-in MZX snakes. In that they charged along until they hit something, then re-honed their senses for another charge. The difficulty they posed was... average generally but if you got double teamed by one of them it was practically insta-death. What the hell were they anyway. They were like... Well the first ones seemed like those fuzzy little balls with feet you sometimes see in souvenir shops, you know the ones, the ones that squeak when you squeeze them, yeh those ones. The other enemies... probably looked good, but after the engine craps in you can't see anything but a block.
- Closing up -
The music was nice. Very appropriate. It gave a sense of adventure combined with mystery, it was a nice accompaniment when I was reading the plot. But of course it's not going to carry this game, there weren't really any sound effects.
Also why were there like 10 .mzx files >:(. I spent a while looking through all of them (I kept checking DOZREAL.mzx, it promised me it was the real one) which... seemed to have a different game altogether? Unless that was just the initial working title. When I finally found the right one, the title screen jumped out at me. It looks ... good... but I just wasn't too fond of it, it was a bit flashy and just sort of, to me at least, seemed like it had that falling effect, just for the sake of having some kind of graphical effect on the word, but they couldn't think of anything better. I suppose a few games do that anyway though... But at least they normally do it for a reason. Take Witch Switch for example.
- - - SCORE - - - (GENERAL CATEGORY)
Theme
----- 38/100
It was going places here, but it never really developed. The music stuck to the theme well, as did the plot. The graphics and boards themselves though... Just seemed indifferent to it.
Gameplay
-------- 24/90
The Yoyo was pretty fun for a while I guess, I've had more fun, but I've had less fun. Getting through the passageways though, and just navigating the boards in general, was frustrating as anything in this doz. As fun as shooting the enemies was though, it wasn't enough by far, and the rest of the game is navigating a sticky maze.
Graphics
-------- 53/70
Impressive, everything looks pretty good (Until the engine fizzled out), and what's more, people looked like people. The backgrounds and board designs were rich and colourful (how gay does that sound) and I like the cactuses.
'THERE ARE NO TREES ANYWHERE' but plenty of plants and cactii, just definitely no trees.
'THE LAND IS FLAT'... apart from all those pyramids and walls and blocks and cactuses and the fact that almost everything blocks your way
'I HAVE FOUND THIS MYSTERIOUS POWER, IT ISN'T WORTH EXPLAINING', interesting comment when it's like, a hugely powerful yo yo that saves your life every minute, I would have thought that was worth something : (
I'm done now :D
Technique
--------- 49/60
Coulda, shoulda, woulda, kinda did. The pixel-perfect movement was very fun to play with, and the movement side of the engine worked perfectly. Unfortunately the graphical side of it fizzles out after a minute or so.
The Yo-yo was good fun but the collision detection could use some work.
If there were none of these little flaws, it would have gotten 55+ here.
Story
----- 20/50
Now, I want to give this game something good just for what I read on that board. But I haven't been able to reach that board by conventional means, and even if I could, the game doesn't seem to progress after that stage anyway. This means that the worth of the story is only a fraction of what it was. A completed story is worth 10 times it's half-done brother. Remember that quote folks, that will be famous one day. I will be famous one day <:(
Music
----- 22/30
I liked, very ambiental. No sound effects to speak of.
- TOTAL SCORE - 204 / 400
Decent
- Final Word -
For something incomplete this is an impressive score. The Technique and graphics carry it most of the way though. Probably the most ambitious project of the doz, but it shows by also being the least complete. Still, credit where it's due, this was a good effort.
In Conclusion !
Final Scores ------------
Team 525 - Aviation Aspiration - 166
Team 5389 - The thing what came from beneath - 153
Team 12984 - Irreplacable Memory - 198
Team 21079 - Fuzzy loses his memory - 167
Team 32427 - Dislocated Memories - 185
Team 34329 - Fritz Blitz - 291
Team 48625 - This is Greg (And hello Kitty) - 142
Team 51976 - It is time to compete games! - 38
Team 65131 - Witch Switch - 135
Team 77665 - Relapse - 151
Team 83038 - Bionic commando! - 173
Team 86715 - Quite a poor game - 14
Team 90100 - The Red Giant - 208
Team 99115 - Memory Leak - 204
Rankings --------
1st GOLD Team 34329 - Fritz Blitz
2nd SILVER Team 90100 - The Red Giant
3rd SHEEP Team 99115 - Memory Leak
4. Team 12984 - Irreplacable Memory
5. Team 32427 - Dislocated Memories
6. Team 83038 - Bionic commando!
7. Team 21079 - Fuzzy loses his memory
8. Team 525 - Aviation Aspiration
9. Team 5389 - The thing what came from beneath
10. Team 77665 - Relapse (My personal favourite :D)
11. Team 48625 - This is Greg (And hello Kitty)
12. Team 65131 - Witch Switch
13. Team 51976 - It is time to compete games!
14. Team 86715 - Whatever
The problem with this doz is that there were pretty much no games that were good in ALL categories. Most of the game with good graphics, were poor in that they were either incomplete, or were buggy, or were not related to the theme (Memory Leak, Irreplaceable Memory). Likewise, the games that were high on plot, generally failed to deliver in other parts of the competition (Relapse, Aviation Aspiration) The only real exception to this rule was, not surprisingly, Fritz Blitz. Where, although the plot was not amazing, the game as a whole was simply solid, and this is reflected in having a score almost 100 points higher then anyone elses. Yes, it was that far a gap in terms of game quality.
It's a shame. But there you go.
Also, it's worth a mention, that the overrall gameplay rating of this doz was quite low, not many of the games were fun to play.