Summer 2008 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheets:Exophase

 Summer 2008 DsDoZ scores by Exophase

36825: DoZing Off, by Mr_Alert
Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the end of the world

Theme: 8/20

The game seems to "take place" during the DoZ, and incorporates MZX stylings
heavily in its design, which vaguely ties into the DoZ portion of the theme as
well. The "end of the world" portion isn't touched on so heavily - Mr_Alert
frantically says some nonsense about the world ending and one of the mini-games
has a "don't destroy the world" button (there's also a "defend the world" game,
but its relevance is a stretch). It looks like some effort was made to
incorporate the theme and the overall strong presence of MZX lends some decent
undertones to it, but it really strayed far from ever feeling like it ever hit
the main premise.

Gameplay: 88/120

This is a very gameplay oriented game. The style is clearly imitating the
original WarioWare game for GBA. I don't think it works quite work as well as
WarioWare did, mainly due to an overall lack of games, and because some of the
included ones feel like filler added to pad it out. It does manage to capture
the same kind of frantic gameplay, and the difficulty ramp works out well. It
loses a good number of points because one of the minigames was completely
pointless ("don't press the button"), and because at least two of them often
trapped you in losing situations (although perhaps non-trivial, this should have
been rectifiable). The lives given did seem to offset this flaw suitably enough.
One other complaint is that there is really no indication that the games would
ever end, which saps incentive to go on playing - fortunately it does actually
end.

Graphics: 40/90

Bare bones. Passes with the typical imitation IRC screen and decent sprites for
the sparse objects in the mini-games. Nothing fancy or especially eye grabbing -
really just functional material.

Technique: 50/80

The "stream of minigames" approach is a great and effective pastime of the DoZ,
but it really doesn't bring anything interesting to the table, especially with a
lot of pretty typical designs (shoot everything, dodge things as you're scrolled
horizontally, catch things that fall). It's the overall presentation reminiscent
of WarioWare that makes this worthwhile. The kind of quick reflex segmentation
wrapped around the minigames is not especially common for DoZ's, and it all
flows seamlessly.

Story: 6/50

The opening is the only bit of story given, and it feels completely disconnected
from the rest of the game. There's no provided sense of progression, or even any
kind of explanation for why you're playing these mini-games. What's more,
there's no narrative given for either losing or winning the game.

Sound: 34/40

There are lots of catchy little jingles that fit the WarioWare style perfectly.
Nothing of any real duration, but really there's no need for anything to have
been. Nice sound effects here and there complete the category.

Total: 226/400

Nifty game, or an enjoyable waste of a few minutes at the very least. For what
it is trying to accomplish it seems sufficient, but on the other hand it would
have benefited from having any kind of narrative to fill in the gameplay. Still,
this is at the very least something new to MZX, so kudos for that.


38887: The Somewhat dull adventures of Gun Guy, by Revvy, ShloobeR, and Bolan
Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the end of the world

Theme: 10/20

The protagonist would have liked to have DoZed, but unfortunately the world
suddenly began ending, which prevented him from doing so. This is unfortunately
very much part for the course for theme utilization in this DoZ. Trite,
hamstrung nonsense. The only explanation (eventually) given for why the world is
ending is that the core of the earth happens to be cooling, and this is no way
tied into the DoZ (except for that the two happen to be occurring at the same
time). The theme is reinforced about mid-way, but it all feels very forced.

Gameplay: 70/120

There is a segment that's semi-rewarding, but unfortunately the game is overall
hampered by a number of design issues. First, the shooting requires you to
(usually) duck, press space, and press the direction you want to shoot
insimultaneously, which is very uncomfortable. The barrel pushing puzzle is
challenging but really highly unintuitive - it relies on behavior which seems to
only work a fraction of the time, and it's very easy to reach situations
whereupon you can no longer progress (and this cannot be corrected in any way).
There's also at least one item that someone says he's giving you, but you don't
seem to actually receive it.. it's just as well though because I don't think it
was tied to the rest of the game in any way. If everything was more streamlined
and connected then... I think this would have maybe been a slightly above
average game. Sorry, there just isn't a lot of substance here, aside from a
puzzle whose challenge is mainly in figuring out how to do things that you'd
never expect to work. There is also one hideously inane instant death, and
although the game does warn you about it several times it still feels like it
serves no purpose but to irritate you. There's a bit of standard inventory game
content as well, but it's very minimal (which is probably for the best).

Graphics: 43/90

They're not especially good, but could've easily been a lot worse. The player
animations are a highlight and look fluid, if not slightly awkward. The drawings
of the other NPCs are above average as well. The enemies are simpler and less
detailed (being only one character), and lack variety. The backgrounds are very
plain (utilizing just a few colors each), but look clean and sharply defined.
The "cave of savegame" looks terrible, consisting of nothing but solids. The
overall package isn't great work, but it's easy to see where effort was applied
(and where it wasn't), and the end result is not eye damaging by any means.

Tecnique: 20/80

This game is very buggy. A number of things manage to fail sporadically and
completely non-deterministically, which is actually rather odd for MZX. I had to
constantly reload old games because board transitions failed, or objects refused
to be "ran" over ledges. There is also a section where the music was changed but
failed to be reverted to what was originally playing afterwards. Add to this the
clunky multichar player which breaks up on the moving lift. It just isn't a very
clean or snappy presentation, and the sheer amount of work that needs to be done
in order to fix the game does not leave a positive impression either.

Story: 20/50

There is no intrigue whatsoever. You start off dumped into a subway (and
eventually a cave) with no explanation given, beyond that the world is ending.
You find some people who were quite coincidentally anticipating the end of the
world, but since it's ruining their MZXing experience they want you to prevent
it from happening. After doing so you're presented with a screen telling you you
saved the world. I get the impression that it never took itself seriously in the
hopes of playing off of comedic value, but it never managed to be especially
funny so I don't think that this was effective.

Sound: 30/40

Some of what's there can get a little repetitive and grating, but overall it
fits the tone of the areas well, especially the caves. The rendition of "take on
me" is strange and arbitrary.

Total: 193/400

To be perfectly blunt, this game annoyed me. Less so when I realized that you
could in fact progress through the caves (and eventually managed to do so), but
even this didn't really redeem the game enough. I can see that a fair amount of
effort was put towards giving it its distinct style, but it wasn't anything that
won me over.

51921: Triumvirate of Villains who have to Poop, by Spectere, Rowan, and
Old-Sckool
Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the end of the world

Theme: 17/20

I give this game credit for actually somehow unifying the concept of the world
ending with a DoZ taking place and not merely making the two occurrences
coincidentally happening at the same time. The theme doesn't lend itself to the
gameplay or overall "feel" of the game, but for this theme such a thing is
excusable.

Gameplay: 12/120

Very little gameplay is included. It looks as if there were supposed to be four
elemental levels; only one of them is even remotely playable, and it's still far
from completable. The gameplay that's there is a directional shooter that works
poorly, and at best feels like an obfuscation of classic MZX gameplay. If the
game was complete then I think it might have ended up as having somewhat below
average gameplay at best, but as it was submitted it falls very short of even
reaching that goal.

Graphics: 34/90

The title screen and cinematics are actually quite good (especially the castle
artwork). What's provided of the levels ranges from mediocre to remotely decent.
The graphics category suffers most from an overall lack of content.

Technique: 30/80

It's hard to give much of a score here, again because there's just so little,
but also because no attempt was made to convey to the player how incomplete the
game is (aside from calling it a demo). Teleports are done to boards that don't
even exist, making you wonder if the team had a more complete copy that they
didn't submit. The user is also presented with several other .mzx's, although
none of them offer anything additional. The "hold down enter" to continue
"feature" seems polished, but entirely pointless.

Story: 25/50

Lancer-X is angry because he did poorly in the previous DoZ, and wants to get
revenge at the judges and the rest of the world too for some reason. As his
minion you collect crystals but then he betrays you; you're saved by "Vince"
(Caverns Vince? It wasn't clear), and then the game stops. It's an interesting
enough premise that is presented in a convincing way but the abrupt ending
without explanation heavily detracts from it.

Sound: 15/40

One boring mod is used for the opening/title, then lightning ambiance for the
intro. There's also a menu sound effect. The latter two work fine, but the game
needs much, much more audio. Even just to fill out the tiny amount of content it
has. Incidentally, the game did come packaged with several mods and sound
effects, but I can't give credit for anything not actually used in the game.

Total: 132/400

Good job on being the only DoZ game to really have an even remotely interesting
take on the specific topic. Bad job on not submitting an actual game.
Unfortunately, this one doesn't look that salvageable post-DoZ because I didn't
get any impression that there was potential for good gameplay.


59446: Operation: Break Into the Building, by KKairos, WildWeasel, and
GentryXaties
Bureaucracy

Theme: 93/100

Ah, a wonderful incorporation of elements that bureaucracy is known for. From
the constant redirection, the convoluted filing, and the bewildering ending, to
the elevator music and even the slow movement pace and bizarre office
inhabitants, I felt that this game really did a great job conveying the theme in
many ways.

Gameplay: 54/90

The crux of the gameplay lies with two minigames, with a bit of movement glue
leftover to get you from one to the other. The first minigame doesn't involve
much thought, as it simply has you figuring out very simple math problems to get
from point A to B (and then it breaks down into making you try things randomly,
which makes you wonder why you had to bother with the direction in the first
place); despite this it does make you feel as if you've accomplished something
after you've cleared it. The second one is a "connect the nodes" puzzle which
provides a small amount of challenge. The game doesn't make it clear that you
need to have all the wires connected in addition to the nodes, although this was
addressed by the author later. All of what's there is fine, the game could have
just used more content to pad it out.

Graphics: 53/70

The player animations are well done, and the puzzle graphics are about as
fitting as one could expect them to be. The background graphics are a bit on the
plain side, although objects and players are char edited nicely. What's there
really fits the game fine, but the game doesn't present a tremendous opportunity
for exceptional graphics.

Technique: 35/60

All pretty standard presentation, although not bog simple MZX. There weren't
really any horrible glitches or mishaps, so it rolled out as it should have,
which is enough to get it an overall somewhat above average score, but nothing
very high.

Story: 38/50

There's dialogue from start to finish and some of it is pretty funny, although
nothing extremely deep or substantial (and the game is also pretty short). One
nitpick, you mention wanting to follow a woman's advice because she said she
loved you, but actually she was insisting that you love her. Maybe that was the
joke, I don't know.

Sound: 21/30

Only two mods are included, although both are fitting and catchy enough. The
music was supplemented by some nice sound effects which fit events as they
occur.

Total: 294/400

Very nice usage of the topic. I just wish it just wasn't over so quickly. Maybe
this team should do a longer game outside the DoZ.


61892: The Bureau, by Insidious, paul, and Apage43
Bureaucracy

Theme: 52/100

An agency regulates RPG-like questing because, for some reason, this has become
necessary. Some of the comments by NPC's seemed to pad this concept out with the
usual "meh, bureaucracy" sentiments but I wasn't feeling it enough on a broader
scale. I do wonder if the presence of meaningless micromanagement was a
deliberate nod to the bloat of bureaucratic mechanisms..

Gameplay: 28/90

Alright, I guess a lot of people know how I feel about battle engines in MZX
that miss the mark. The thing is, I want to give this one a higher score than I
am because respectable effort was put forth behind it. At the very least it lets
you fight multiple enemies in a battle with a variety of skills. Really, it
looked like it should have been packed with a decent amount of gameplay in the
battles even if it had close to zero outside of them. The problem is that the
because of the way the game is constructed you can't, even with any sane amount
of modifying the code, actually experience just about any of it. The balance is
way off, and it's all but impossible to win a single battle, much less multiple
ones (which is just as well since you can't get into more than one random
battle), much less any against the bosses. The game is very heavily randomized -
you can keep rerolling your stats to get something that seems acceptable, but
even the enemy stats are all over the place, with most of them being in the
"unbeatable" range. I tried to get good draws and pass as much as I could but
really it's close to impossible. It appears that it was trying to employ D&D
rules of some sort - personally, I'm not into this, and I suspect that anyone
else who isn't won't understand what it's about. It doesn't help that it has you
fill out dozens of stat points that contribute to nothing. Nor do the time based
(instead of movement based) random encounters.

Graphics: 41/70

Colors are suitable, and multichar edits are.. present, but in a word, they're
clunky. There is very little in the way of battle animations, in fact, there
aren't visible enemies at all for the normal encounters, and the bosses aren't
highly impressive. The city is full of solids with some editing here and there.
The trees look fairly decent. It falls short due to overall lack of content.

Technique: 20/60

This game is very sloppy and crude. I know that the team had more time (due to
early submission) so they should have tested it out more and polished it up a
little. A couple hours of that could have done wonders for this game.

Story: 20/50

There's a premise that could have been interesting, but it isn't well
established by any means, much less does it progress in any way. The ending
screen gives a vague idea of what was intended but it's not enough to base a
score on.

Sound: 18/30

There were three themes - the town and the forest pieces seemed to fit decently,
particularly the former. The battle theme was a chip tune, that while somewhat
fitting, also got on my nerves very quickly. No sound effects were used.

Total: 179/400

I'm sorry that Insidious's team flaked out on him, and that his efforts were
wasted. But he shouldn't have submitted this early. It's a huge shame, because
the game could have probably scored a lot higher if those extra hours were used
for mundane brush up work, with the core components left as is.


76722: (no title), by logicow
Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the end of the world

Theme: 8/20

You're DoZing and OMG aliens come to destroy the world! It's up to you to stop
them... Very typical for this DoZ, and for logicow. Random things happen to
fulfill the theme requirements but at least it does have something actually
happen. Aside from a kind of meta reference made implying that this game is the
DoZ game the player worked on, it doesn't get back to the DoZ part of the theme
much at all.

Gameplay: 94/120

It's actually pretty fun! A little challenging as well. There are a few boards
containing enemies that must be avoided (shooting them is much less effective),
then a boss battle where you have to frantically avoid an increasing barrage of
projectiles while pummeling him from all angles. What's there is perfectly
entertaining but it's much, much too short of a game to get a better score than
I'm giving it.

Graphics: 65/90

We've seen pixel precise MZX games from logicow before, but this one seems to be
doing pixel precise ZZT instead. As usual, the floating text and nice smooth
animations/color effects look very good, but the base material is not that
stellar. There are a few nice ASCII drawings though.

Technique: 64/80

logicow presents a game that he has effectively done at least twice before for
the Day of Zeux - a side scrolling engine with pixel precise movement. But it
works very effectively. No bugs are to be found and the gameplay is very smooth.
But seriously logicow, you could try something else for a change. Or at least do
a game that has the overall depth and substance of Cheese's Adventure, if you're
going to keep reproducing the basic engine. At least this time you didn't use
that awful weapon, probably because I threatened to give you a zero when you
said you were going to. Nice change.

Story: 13/50

Of course, story never was logicow's strong suit, and this is one of his weaker
showings. It gets some points for the dialogue that's there, which I suppose can
be mildly amusing, but really you feel more inclined to skip paste it. The
aliens are never given a motivation for invading, and no satisfying resolution
is given to the game. It's all very shallow.

Sound: 28/40

Oh man, this time logicow made a soundtrack ENTIRELY of his own a capella
renditions. It's hilarious. And it works very well. Only it also gets old fast
because the pieces are far too short. Still, props are deserved, especially for
the sound effects. Unfortunately I would have almost definitely enjoyed a good
normal soundtrack much more, but the game was so short I doubt it'd have made
much of a difference to the overall contribution.

Total: 272/400

logicow has returned to try to win the DoZ again, and I'm sure he has a pretty
good shot of doing that. As much as I'm tired of logicow pushing the exact same
game as previous ones when he's capable of so much more, I can't deny that he's
pretty damn good at making it work (while completely failing to deliver a plot
and barely hanging on to the theme). Sadly, the entries are just getting shorter
and shorter with simpler and simpler gameplay, although this time I guess it's
due to not having enough time to work on things.


84459: Monroe Monroe Attorney at Law, by CJA and Kom
Bureaucracy

Theme: 10/100

I'm not sure how the theme works into this game, save for starring a lawyer.. or
a senator, it's not clear. Of course, government is not necessarily
bureaucratic, and neither is law. I suppose that by playing as some kind of
official you carry a feel of representing organization but it's difficult to
describe the theme contribution as anything beyond that, a faint "feel" of
bureaucracy. All of the points given are for that and that alone.

Gameplay: 75/90

This is where the game shines. There are three fun to use weapons, a decent
number of enemies, two bosses, a good difficulty level, and a nifty tight rope
engine. The basic engines are fine, I just wish that more levels were given to
make use of them.

Graphics: 60/70

Another place where the game does a pretty good job. Excellent player
animations, decent enemy animations, and nice backgrounds that have appropriate
use of color and perspective. The last area looks especially good. The ASCII art
effects are also very nifty, although the third level turning into a Rogue
imitation is a bit of a cop out (although still nice to look at just the same)

Technique: 48/60

I give this game credit for being completely playable start to finish. The only
problem is that it's not especially clear where the "finish" is (and I couldn't
actually beat the final boss because I was too low on health at that point).
Still, the engines are executed flawlessly, with good control and good
presentation in the text messages.

Story: 8/50

There's a blurb in the opening provided by Kom, who obviously had little idea of
what the story was supposed to be. He said something about having to save the
president from aliens, but this never actually comes into play in the game
proper. The main character makes some strange (and woefully self deprecating)
remarks at random objects in the starting area but other than that little is
said, much less anything of substance. It seems as if something interesting
could have been done but I think this intuition is simply more of in the way of
faint impressions that the game gives me

Sound: 22/30

The first piece is nice and jazzy and fits the atmosphere well. The second one
presents a chilling quality that is also quite fitting with the background and
level design. The problem is that after this point in the gameplay music is
dropped entirely. On the other hand, the sound effects (including ambient
footsteps) are so well done that I couldn't bear to give the game a lower score
than I did.

Total: 223/400

This game would have done much better if it had used the other topic, had it
done enough with the theme to avoid be disqualified anyway.


90556: Who the hell knows? ... by asiekierka
Theme unknown?

Total: 0/400

This is a ZZT game. I'm not even going to play it, much less judge it. Sorry
asiekierka, but this crap isn't going to fly. Enjoy your DQ. «3


91210: Odell Mermaid and the End of the World During the summer 2008 DoZ!, by
commodorejohn
Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the end of the world

Theme: 1/20

Gets a pity point for trying to incorporate the theme into the title. It really
doesn't matter because I'm sure it'll be given a big fat DQ.. sorry.

Gameplay: 1/120

commodorejohn claims that he wanted to have gameplay reminiscent of some game I
never heard of but instead delivers "basically just a movement engine." Somehow
my expectations weren't even met, because it literally is just a movement
engine, if "movement engine" means something that lets you.. move (and slowly at
that).

Graphics: 10/90

There's a gradient in the background and some character animations which are
said to be Commodore 64 style, that actually look pretty nice. Unfortunately
this level of content is not enough to get any more points than this. On the
bright side, 10 is higher than 1.

Technique: 1/80

Pity point given for wanting to do something that looks like it could have been
innovative. But the tiny amount that is there doesn't display a mastery of
coding.

Story: 0/50

Sorry, this one totally bottomed out.. there's no story at all, so you get no
points at all. No pity here. :\

Sound: 13/40

I was promised nifty music but was disappointed with what was provided. Although
obviously chip tune style I found the samples used rather garish and the
melodies uninteresting. Ehhh.. sorry, it's a rather unfortunate score for this
game's single biggest content factor, but I didn't like it at all.

Total: 26/400

Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get a respectful disqualification rather than being
beaten by SmartRutter, but is was this really worth submitting this just so you
could say that you did? I'm going to take a wild guess and say that SMZX totally
kicked your ass. Which is a good lesson to everyone - don't DoZ in SMZX. Unless
you're logicow. In which case you'll be doing a pixel precise game in normal MZX
mode anyway.


99348: Nuclear doom, by SmartRutter and Genrok
Summer 2008 DsDoZ and the end of the world

Theme: 7/20

This time, instead of the world ending while you were in the middle of DoZing it
ends and then some guy randomly makes you DoZ, for no reason. Bluhhhhhhhhhh.
Fortunately, even though the world is ending everything around you looks fine.

Gameplay: 20/120

Enter some houses and take their stuff without any no resistance, except for the
guy who shoots at you in really bad MZX style. Then a boss that's pretty much
the same thing except with lazerwalls. The gameplay here is just bad.

Graphics: 10/90

Almost default char set (just a few for computer, TV, and toilet), default
palette, no attempt at drawing pictures of anything. The graphics are very
reminiscent of some of the most mediocre games done in MZX. Try harder please.

Technique: 4/80

This game feels like it has been done a million times. I would have preferred if
it at least tried to do something interesting and failed miserably, rather than
do something absolutely bottom of the barrel. That is not deserving of any real
points for this category.

Story: 15/50

Some inane text about nuclear holocaust and a guy who is lying about being
behind it all just so he can get you to do random things for no reason. No
motives are clear throughout any of this.

Sound: 13/40

Probably ripped from random MZX games because it consists of really generic chip
tunes that don't fit well with how the game should probably be feeling (but
isn't anyway). And if I hear the FF1 battle music rendition one more time I'm
going to rip my eardrums out. Please at least use a mod of better sounding
battle music.

Total: 69/400

No offense, but this game wasn't any good at all. I hope the team had fun doing
it because otherwise I'd suggest doing some serious training in MZX before
competing again.