Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheets:pyro1588
Alrighty, here are my judging results for the Summer 2009 DsDoZ! First off, a brief word from our sponsors. John and I have competed over several DoZs and have yet to churn out a winning entry. Please don't take my comments as hypocritical cynicism; I know that I happen to suck pretty bad at DoZs. Overall, I've tried my best to offer constructive and hopefully witty criticism. If anyone wants further elaboration on any of the games, I'd be happy to oblige and do my best. Oh, and Asie? Don't ever do that again. So without further ado, here are the results!
----------------Ranking---------------- 1. Reconquista Escalation 358 2. Welty Wickleson 317 3. Achtung! 288 4. RISA 275 5. NewsFirst! 253 6. Paranoid Heavens 222 7. Automobile Conspiracy 204 8. California Rookie 158 9. Jack Flaps 134 10. Night's Journey 84.7 (after penalty) 11. Untitled, unfinished 61 DQed. Revenge of the Toaster 218
10037: Automobile Conspiracy
In Automobile Conspiracy, you play a paranoid man who is trying to figure out the conspiracy behind the theft of his automobile. Pretty straightforward, huh?
Theme 63/100
You play a paranoid man whose car has been stolen. He is incredibly paranoid about the theft. He makes paranoid comments and thinks paranoid thoughts to himself throughout the game. Yesirree, this is ONE PARANOID PROTAGONIST! Still, the team backed it up with all the paranoid dialogue, so they get a fair number of points here.
Gameplay 48/90
It's an MZX adventure game. You run around and touch things. After a cutscene, it suddenly decides to be a sidescrolling shooter where you can fire very slowly and you die if you get hit once. Oh, and you pick up a couple of keys. There's not much here and I'm afraid the sidescrolling bit is rather annoying. It's much easier to jump past all the enemies than to actually try to fight them. Oh well, I've played much worse and this isn't all that bad.
Graphics 35/70
Smilies set on some nice backgrounds. There are a few touches (like the car outline,) but overall this is pretty simple stuff. It's straightforward and it works, so there's nothing wrong with it; it's just not that phenomenal. Oh, and the title screen was really nice and colorful, but after Achtung!, colorful isn't always a great thing. Still, it WAS a nice title screen.
Technique 22/60
The best part engine-wise is the gun. It's got a slow firing rate and a nifty gauge to show you when it's ready to fire again. Then, when you pick up a second and third gun, it adds more gauges. This is cool and would be a nice engine to build a non-sidescrolling game around. Unfortunately, the insta-death enemies kinda dull everything down.
Story 22/50
Your car is stolen and... you need to go recover it. Along the way you get hit by a car and then escape from the hospital. Then you get stuck in a meeting and... Really, there's not much here. It seems like the team made this up as they went along and, while it isn't appallingly bad, it's not that good. Cute? Yes. Good? Not really.
Sound 14/30
There's music, and a fair bit of it. Some of the chipsound stuff is nicer and some of the other stuff isn't. I won't say all of it fits terribly well, but the main town theme and the sidescrolling music work pretty well. I get the feeling that someone went and just downloaded a handful of songs from modarchive and slapped them in at the last minute. I still have to give a fair number of points for variety.
Final thoughts
The biggest thing this game has going for it is the fact that it's complete. Other than that, there's not really a lot that's terribly compelling in this entry. It's just rather... bland, and I'm having trouble coming up with anything else to say about it, so instead I'll make a Michael Jackson joke. You all know why he died, right? His heart just couldn't Beat It!
Total: 204/400
13697: Revenge of the Toaster
Revenge of the Toaster is Logicow's traditional completely-precedent-breaking entry. There's been some, um... controversy? about this particular entry. I won't recap all that here, but I do want to give it an honest scoring.
Theme 0/20
There's no paranoia at all. It's mentioned a couple of times but, when you have no story, you have no dialogue to integrate a theme into. When your gameplay is what it is here, you have no way of working paranoia in anyway.
Gameplay 93/120
I did actually like the gameplay here. After I discovered that I had forgotten to overclock my CPU, I made a quick BIOS fix and got this thing up to a playable framerate (no joke.) There are a variety of weapons to choose from. You pilot... a couple of triangles? You pilot around a small maze of walls that you only halfway collide with. Your goal is to shoot... another pair of triangles? Anyway, shoot them until they explode. Don't run into the other triangles. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Logi's engine is triangle-based or something.
There's worse gameplay to be had in DoZ games, but the controls here really seemed awkward. I had difficulty getting my ship to go where I wanted it to go and it made navigating the levels a little difficult. Still, it works and it's fairly fun, and it gets interesting when they start shooting back.
Graphics 16/90
The toaster on the title screen is nice. Everything else is represented in low-resolution pixel art. It's not that the engine is unimpressive; it's that the graphics it's used to display aren't exactly awe-inspiring. Yes, triangles are done nicely. No, that's not awesome in and of itself.
Technique 70/80
Logicow poured a fair bit of effort into this one. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it other than to say that you should really just play it. What's that? You still want a brief description? Okay fine. It seems to display your ship, walls and enemies as shapes that can be freely rotated. This could probably have been exploited a bit more (for instance, turning the level instead of the ship,) but it's still impressive to see. Props for having multiple weapons that function uniquely.
Story 6/50
Again, Logi didn't try for a story here. There's nothing wrong with that; it's just that I can't give points to something that isn't there. Well, okay fine, a few pity points for not having an abominable story. There are little bits of text that show at the beginning of each level, but they don't constitute a story at all. Oh well. If you don't want to write one, you don't have to.
Sound 33/40
I actually liked the music here. I thought it fit fairly well and was a good use of OGG. I also liked the sound effects, sparse as they were. It would've been nice to have weapon sound effects, but the weapons themselves performed so well that I see no problem overlooking their silence. Good job on this category.
Final thoughts
I'm almost sad to see this get DQed because there IS a game here, it DOES have solid (if CPU-intensive) gameplay and it IS basically bug-free. Again, I'm not going to chronicle the whole debate here, but I will say this: Logi, I like your DoZ games and I'd hate to see you leave over this. Good job overall.
Total: 218/400
35285: Paranoid Heavens
Paranoid Heavens is Goshi's entry. It tells the story of Sven, an amateur exorcist whose goal is to defeat an evil magician and seal her summoning circle to stop her from summoning monsters.
Theme 14/20
Goshi's entry does try for theme points in spite of choosing the lite scoresheet. There's talk of Sven's paranoia, but where it really would've come in is in the gameplay mechanic that just failed to materialize. I was looking forward to seeing how I could balance it and I liked the whole Dark Corners of the Earth-style endgame when your paranoia becomes too much. Oh well, I guess we'll always have a game or two with great potential that just fails to come together.
Gameplay 72/120
The gameplay in PH is a nice twist on classic MZX gameplay. You fire MZX bullets at a combination of builtins and robots. Your firing rate is fairly limited, which puts more of an emphasis on moving around in fights. The robot enemies range from not very bright to fairly smart and have some nifty moves they can pull off in combat. It's really a shame that the boss fights are only accessible via the editor. Oh, and there are spells, and by spells I mean a single healing spell. MP doesn't seem to recharge except at levelup.
Graphics 54/90
I feel odd giving a game with simplistic graphics a score like this, but I really like the visual style of this entry. It's primarily black-and-white single-char stuff. It sounds like an easy-out for palette choices, but it really accents the red flashes when you're hurt or you kill an enemy. I would've liked to see this used to greater effect, but that would require there be more game to use it in.
Technique 27/80
As I said before, the majority of combat in this game is courtesy of fairly simple enemies. There are, however, a handful of nifty boss fights. Yes, they utilize builtin bullets and whatnot, but there are also a few nicely-programmed special attacks that spice things up. There's also a decent menu system and status bar. Other than that, save-on-sensor is about as complex as this game gets.
Story 38/50
The game is ambitious with its story right from the getgo. It lays the groundwork for a story of purpose, good vs evil, friendships, betrayals and all the stuff great tales are made of. Unfortunately, it's then left in bits and pieces, most of which are accessible only via editor. Again, I was looking forward to seeing the story unfold and watching Sven learn whatever truth there was behind whatever evil he was fighting. Oh well.
Sound 17/40
The game borrows music from The Dark Spire. To be specific, it borrows 9 songs in the form of ripped OGGs that fade out and start over. Remember folks, OGG looping is coming in 2.83 and boy oh boy will it be welcome! Oh, and you only hear 2 of the songs in the existing gameplay. Again, I see potential here but it just never materialized.
Final thoughts:
As I said, I really liked where this game was going. It had the setup for a good story and some bland-but-solid gameplay to back it up. Throw some more music in there and top it off with a minimalistic graphics style that was pretty nifty and you'd have a pretty awesome entry! I can only assume that time caught up with poor Goshi and that's why he had to submit an incomplete game. Better luck next time!
Total: 222/400
40125: NewsFirst!
NewsFirst! is Weasel's entry under the theme of News Reporters. In it you play... *drumroll* A NEWS REPORTER! Yup, we've got ourselves a nice little text adventure where you play a wet-behind-the-ears reporter doing his first segment.
Theme 95/100
I don't see how you can get much more theme-saturated than this. Maybe if the game were longer and included more news segments. Still, this game fits the bill almost perfectly and gets almost all the points for theme.
Gameplay 35/90
It's a text adventure. You're given descriptions of your situation and a list of options to choose from. There's nothing new here; it's a tried-and-true system that's put to good use. I can't really give too many points here because it's so simple. Granted, the hilarious writing warrants several playthroughs to see all possible options, but even this will only take 10 minutes. The game is criminally short, and while that works with titles like Portal, the replay value here is significantly less.
Graphics 39/70
There are a couple of backdrops used in this game with a few different things plopped in. There's the empty desk, there's the desk with 1 reporter, the desk with 2 reporters, the desk with 2 reporters where one is holding something... you get the idea. Even with the second entire backdrop that comes with the big plot twist, I can't give out many points here. I liked what there was, but again, there just wasn't enough.
Technique 24/60
Again, this is a text adventure. There's nothing engine-heavy about it. There's not even a parser; just a list of choices. It DOES earn points by putting it together competently without any bugs, but you can only give so many points when the entirety of the game engine is a set of boards and robots whose most complex line is "teleport player."
Story 44/50
I really liked the story here. Yes, it was short, but the writing was great! Most of the screens are laugh-worthy, and those that fall short still earn a smile and a chuckle. The game still runs into the problem of only being 5 minutes long (3 if you're a speed reader.) I'd like to see more of what we have here. Weasel, go make a full-length adventure game!
Sound 16/30
A handful of songs with a couple of sound effects are all there is to be heard here. As with the rest of the game, they fit quite well and serve to back up the fun-if-lacking visuals and great writing. I hate to sound like a broken record, but there's just not enough. Sure, the songs that are there are nice and not too repetitive, but we hear what, 4 of them?
Final thoughts:
Just like Goshi's game, I really liked what we had here. I think that Weasel should team up with Lancer, Exo and Quasar and make a big long action/adventure/RPG game. Lancer is in charge of gameplay and general programming stuff, Exo does everything RPG, Quasar is on graphics of course and Weasel writes everything. EVERYTHING. The story, the dialogue, the comedic interlude from a cynical British narrator, everything. It'd be like the MZX version of the Chrono Trigger dreamteam!
Total: 253/400
41817: Reconquista Escalation
Reconquista Escalation... can you say "Lancer?" This game is a technical marvel for a 24-hour DoZ, and it still manages to maintain some pretty nifty gameplay and an intriguing story.
Theme 14/20
The game has an intro that talks about the ability to see danger and whether it's understandable or just paranoia. Your character has a history of paranoia that has lead him to where he is in life now and as you understand his paranoid past, you begin to understand him as a character. I'd like to give more points here, but the paranoia is in cutscene text only and doesn't really enter into gameplay at all. I guess it feels like the game isn't so much built around paranoia as it is built around an amnesiac past that paranoia factored into.
Gameplay 110/120
The gameplay is amazing. You explore a huge sepia-tone maze, attacking monsters that rush at you with a set of fun and interesting weapons. The game has auto-targeting so all you have to do is get close and fire. This makes it easier to kill baddies, but the auto-targeting can get confused and target enemies around a corner that you can't actually hit in favor of an enemy further away that you CAN actually hit. A minor annoyance, but it can bite when you're in a hairy situation. You get 3 weapons and can use all of them at the same time. You face a handful of baddy types who range from "not bad" to "very painful." Oh, and some of them are invisible. You'll be standing there trying to map out the level and suddenly you'll start taking damage. At that point you have to flip on your Blood Vision and start shooting back. The gameplay can be a bit repetitive, but it's hard to fault it much just because it's so good to begin with. Also there's another type of level called Escalation. These levels are turn-based and you have to fight off a huge wave of baddies before you run out of energy. They're a nice break from the Reconquista levels but they're a bit on the easy side. Still, the gameplay here is nothing short of awesome.
Graphics 76/90
The vast majority is single- and double-char stuff. It's solid but not tremendously revolutionary. The set pieces, however, are. Heck, just look at the title screen. It's got a handful of effects that I can't even imagine programming in 24 hours. The cutscenes have some great stuff in them as well. I kind of wanted to write these off as just simple set pieces, but then I have to remember the awesome energy meter in Escalation levels. Granted, the majority of in-game graphics are extremely repetitive and the palette has two modes (sepia and red,) but overall I think that the graphics here are a significant accomplishment for a one-man army in 24 hours.
Technique 75/80
It's hard to hold any points back here because of the multiple engines that are implemented here. There's the main gameplay with the weapons and the autotargetting. There's the level creation from an external file (which makes judging a little annoying because testing is difficult. There's the solid dialogue engine. There's the completely unrelated Escalation gameplay mode. There's just so much that's been done here that I have difficulty finding much to complain about. But hey, I wouldn't be a judge if I couldn't find SOMETHING to whine about, so let's talk about bugs. They're not very common, but they are there. Autotargetting has a tendency to target the wrong enemy. I don't want to attack the near guy around the corner who can't hit me; I want to shoot the guy further down the hall who's hurling hellfire and devastation at me. Even after applying the patch, I managed to find myself a door that led nowhere but an error message. Granted, the game is still a monument of excellent programming, but even great monuments get pigeon poop on them, right? Okay, maybe that metaphor was dumb, but my point is that nothing is perfect, even Lancer games.
Story 48/50
We all thought that Lancer played visual novels to satisfy some odd fetish involving large eyes and bizarre fonts. It turns out that he was really TRAINING! That's right! He was training himself to write complex, in-depth stories with unexpected and unpredictable twists that leave you going "ohhhhh, NOW I see!" First off, don't read the readme file until you've beaten the game. The game tells you all you need to know about gameplay, so just save the exposition for the game so that it can get the pacing right. This is a great story of paranoia, hate, love, hurt and healing. It's told pretty much through long blocks of text, but still, it's worth playing the game for. Yes, it's even worth playing level 5 for. I guess I could've seen a little more done with the characters, but I think that's what the unimplemented Voices were for. Oh well, what's there is still great!
Sound 35/40
There's a good selection of music here and a handful of sound effects that do their job remarkably well. The game could use a little more variety as far as music styles go, but the songs back the levels quite well. Personally, I can't WAIT for looping OGGs, but until then, well-handled fades will work. Some of the sound effects sound like they've been upsampled from 8kHz or less, which seems odd considering the quality of the music. Oh well, the sound is solid and works well overall.
Final thoughts
To be perfectly honest, the gameplay got on my nerves after awhile, but that's really a matter of personal preference. It was sufficiently challenging without being TOO difficult. The game's strongest point is its story, and it tells it well. This is an entry worth playing for the plot alone, but the gameplay definitely won't bore you between cutscenes. Overall, this is an excellent entry and I won't be surprised if it takes first. Great job!
Total: 358/400
52370: Night's Journey
Night's Journey has a brief intro that sets up what could have been a nifty romp in a nightmarish dreamworld. It's a shame to see it woefully incomplete. And with a 30% penalty for late submission, I'm afraid there's not too much to be said for it.
Theme 4/20
The intro kinda sets up the story of a kid whose dreams become nightmares. Text on the first board indicates that we're now inside his nightmare. Other than that, I'm afraid, there's not much else to indicate paranoia or fear or... anything.
Gameplay 32/120
We've got ourselves a sprite-based jumper engine with a couple of tricks. We've got enemies of two classic varieties: moving and emplaced. Both can be destroyed, but they take different attacks to do them in. The moving enemies can be taken out with a projectile (a dream cloud, maybe?) that is fired horizontally. The emplaced enemies can be taken out with a thwomp-style block (dream block?) that is dropped a certain distance from your character in whichever direction he's facing. Your guy flashes when he takes damage, but there's no health system. Oh, and there's a nifty elevator thing. I'm tempted to give it more points but I have to remember that, spiffy as some of the ideas are (deployable thwomps, for instance,) there's really no game here. Just the beginnings of an interesting engine.
Graphics 33/90
I kinda like what there is. There's a cute little line art intro, but that's just one small scene. There's some blocky text, player graphics, enemy graphics, weapon graphics (which are all the same evil face pasted on different shapes) and the number 5. Props go to the number 5, which is the most out-of-place and surreal part of this nightmarish adventure. Enemy graphics aren't bad, but again, there's just not much to see. I have the feeling that most of the effort went into the creation of these. This is a good reminder that, if you're going to have awesome graphics, you should have a separate team member devoted solely to those.
Technique 42/80
I think that, given the state of completion, this score is a bit generous. Engine-wise, not much of what we see hasn't been done before. It's a standard MZX sprite-based sidescroller. You can walk, jump and attack. Again, the attacks are interesting and I would've liked to see how they played out, but there's nothing solid here to justify a higher score.
Story 5/50
Pity points for setting a story up. I liked the atmosphere we were setting and little things like the toothy sad expression your player wears show that the author was prepared to maintain that atmosphere. It's really too bad that everything is dumped so early on.
Sound 5/40
Pity points for no sound. As always people, no sound is better than bad sound (see entry 4833 for proof of theorem.) With some sufficiently dark music, we could've had ourselves one heck of a scary ride.
Final thoughts:
This is another game that was going somewhere I liked. It looks like the author got a little too caught up in making what graphics and engine there were perfect and didn't spend much time on making an actual game that utilized them. Remember people, if you're going to be ambitious, make sure you've got a team to back it up. It's better to not overshoot and turn in something short-but-complete (see entry 40125) than to spend have only a basic engine and a few nice graphics to show off. Better luck next time guys!
Total: 121/400 After penalty: 84.7/400
52517: RISA
RISA tells the story of two siblings and their paranoid mother. After her death, the little sister grows tired of her paranoid existence with her big brother in their house. She goes out to find three stones that will grant her a single wish. The game follows her through a story of growth, trust, betrayal and hope.
Theme 15/20
As always, it's a bit harder to make a game stick with a general theme. I give points because the story does center around paranoia and mistrust of people. In the end, some of the paranoia is justified and some is not. Unfortunately, outside of lip service in cutscenes, it's completely ignored in gameplay. I would've liked to see an interesting paranoia-centered game mechanic. Still, you can't fault what's there.
Gameplay 88/120
This one definitely has some gameplay to it! It's a sidescroller with 3 weapons and enemies to use them on. You jump around a series of platforms and avoid falling to your death while hordes of minions amble, run, jump and fly towards you. You get to slash, shoot and smash your way through them or, alternatively, just avoid them by jumping. There's not a lot to fighting, but I can't fault what there is because it works well and is basically bug-free. There are multiple enemies, each with their own specific attack pattern. There's a fair bit to play with here and I recommend looking through all the levels. It's too bad the boss fights didn't make it in. I'd love to see how they would've been handled.
Graphics 58/90
The game definitely has graphics. It has 2-frame player graphics, 2-frame enemy graphics and some passable backgrounds. Oh, and it has portraits of the characters in the cutscenes. Again, I can't fault what it has, but I wish there were more. The little things like character portraits are really nifty and it would've been awesome if there had been a bigger cast.
Technique 63/80
This game has a solid jumper and functional weapons, not to mention enemies that do what they're supposed to. It's occasionally hampered by the bat that gets stuck against a wall, but it stays together overall. Bosses would have been cool, but I'm glad to see everything it has working well. Bonus points for a mallet weapon.
Story 41/50
The story is definitely the most complete part. It spins a yarn of two children raised by a paranoid, neglectful mother who one day hung herself. The children have lived in the house ever since, fearful to go out into the world their mother warned them of. Still, the story of three magic stones that can grant a wish entices the younger sibling Risa into a quest that leads her out of her home, to a temple, and through 3 difficult trials in an attempt to rescue their mother from death. If you do nothing else, read the story! Oh and bonus points for the Zelda ref.
Sound 10/40
I can't give it much more than this. It has a handful of songs that I honestly found repetitive and grating. Though sound effects could have broken up the music a bit, there are none to be found. Yes, it had music. No, it wasn't particularly awesome. Sorry guys.
Final thoughts:
This is definitely a story-driven game and it does best in that category. However, the fairly solid gameplay from a one-man team backed up by graphics that generally do the job well help to set this game apart as an example of what a single person can do in a DoZ. Good job!
Total: 275/400
89341: California Rookie
California Rookie is about a rookie reporter trying to find 3 big stories to break and make his career.
Theme 13/20
Well, you play a news reporter who is trying to find news to report. I guess you can't really go wrong there. Unfortunately, you're basically a reporter in name only. You don't do any reporting. You don't have any news segments. You just run around trying to find "information." Even when you take a picture, you don't get to see your cool news reporter camera. The game just says you took a picture. I'd like to give it more points but the lack of anything more than dialogue indicating your reportorhood cuts this category short. Also it's a shame you forgot to mention which scoresheet, because you would've done much better with the theme-heavy one.
Gameplay 55/120
It's a standard mzx adventure. You walk around, interact with objects by touching them and try to solve really basic puzzles. REALLY basic. As in, "go to the bank to research the bank story" and "find the white object in the green background." About the most intense this gets is when you're looking for one book in the library and there are 64 choices. I personally went into the editor and did the "find robots" trick to locate the one I was after, but if you prefer trial and error, it's about the most engrossing part of the game. Oh, and the handful of bugs that make the game uncompletable don't help. When your game takes 5 minutes to complete, you can afford to playtest through completely one time before submitting.
Graphics 39/90
The game gets close to half points for having a nice backdrop on the intro and an actual title screen. I'd prefer that time put into gameplay, but hey, the backdrop was nice. Other than that, you have a 2-frame walking animation and an animated flag that's actually pretty nifty. The rest is filled in with a couple of custom chars and a bunch of dots, letters and pound signs (#, for those who were expecting the currency symbol.) Not much else to be seen here, I'm afraid.
Technique 24/80
There's a walking animation and an information statistics screen that represents a number as a series of squares. And... that's basically it. There's very little here that exceeds "teleport player" in complexity. I was hoping for a story-writing mechanic or perhaps the ability to gather different bits of information to influence a pre-written article (i.e. Hitman: Blood Money.) And you definitely lose a few points for having bugs that prevent you from completing the game or even using your computer more than once. Again, when your game is this short, you have the time to test it completely at least one time.
Story 13/50
You're a reporter. There's a bankrupt bank. A bus has crashed. Sugar. Yeah, there's almost no story here, and this is especially egregious when you look at the "stories" that are making your career something of note. The last story consists entirely of "sugar helps against stress." With so little content other than the handful of graphical touches, I can't understand where all the time was spent on this game. I really expected it to have gone into writing (a la NewsFirst!) This category is especially disappointing. Remember, the story is ALWAYS the second-most-important part of a game, right behind gameplay!
Sound 14/40
There's music. From modarchive. And none of it fits terribly well. Granted, none of it fits abysmally bad, but that alone isn't enough to score more than half points. Oh, and your character's feet make noise while walking in his office but as soon as he passes the magical barrier of his office door, his shoes instantly become silent! I was hoping this would play out in a whackily-unexpected-but-really-awesome stealth mechanic where you get to sneak up on scenes and report as things happen while remaining concealed, but no such luck. Oh yeah, a couple bonus points for using the play command well.
Final thoughts
The game seems woefully incomplete. I hoped for another entry like NewsFirst! that had some snappy dialogue and a handful of interesting stories. After all, what is television news if not a bunch of people talking about something and trying to make it interesting? I'd suggest spending a little more time writing next time and a little less time on little graphical touches. Yes, they're nice, but they're not the immediate focus of the game, especially when they only last a couple screens in.
Total: 158/400
90622: Achtung!
Achtung! is a fast-paced sprite-based shooter where you are pitted against hordes of demons in a huge, colorful brawl.
Theme 7/20
You are set up as a paranoid character who knows about the demons that everyone else denies. This is about as deep as it goes. It's pretty obvious from level 1 that a) the demons are in fact quite real or b) your character is demented enough to not only imagine himself fighting them, but also to die when they kill him. Given the graphics, I'm tempted to go with b here =P
Gameplay 105/120
It's a shmup of epic proportions, at least for MZX. You control a single-char player shooting at swarms of single- and multi-char enemies. You can shoot independently of the direction you're facing. In layman's terms, you can circle-strafe. This lets you avoid enemies fairly effectively while still being able to return fire. You get multiple powerups, mostly weapons, that help you do a better job of killing everything that moves. Really, the game sports simple-but-effective gameplay that's really quite fun. The levels range from well-designed to pretty poor. Cover should be arranged so that it can be used effectively, not just so that it gets in the way of movement (I'm looking at the first level, specifically.) Oh, and upgrades should have been 2x2 AT LEAST. This would have made them much easier to snatch on the run.
Graphics 62/90
GAAHHHH! MY EYES! Okay, the obvious thing here is the blinding splash of violent colors that assault your retinas the moment you reach the first level. I'll be honest; I didn't really care for the constant colors all the way through, but they DID make the game stand out from other blander, less huefully-potent games. Where the game does well with graphics are the multi-char enemies and the weapons. There aren't too many multi-char enemies, but the ones there are do look creative and evil. The weapons primarily create more seizure-inducing flashes of color, but they do so in discernable patterns that make the weapons fairly easy to aim. Yeah, the colors are really the focal point of the visual design.
Technique 67/80
The game boasts an impressive engine that lets you kill everything in various fun and entertaining ways. The enemies are stupid but that's what they're supposed to be when there are dozens of them onscreen at a time. The weapons are great! They have different firing patterns that make it fun and easy to kill everything! In all seriousness, a little documentation would have been nice. There were times where I seemed to just suddenly emit an explosion that damaged enemies. I'd like to know why this happened and how to unleash it. Also the screen DOES get awfully cluttered at times and it gets difficult to keep track of where you are onscreen, especially because enemies also shoot bright colorful explosions of palette. Still, I like this take on killing everything and I appreciate a solid and bug-free implementation of it.
Story 19/50
Sorry guys. Most games fall short in at least one category, and this is where this game takes a hit. The story sets up that you're paranoid about demons and no one else believes you. You then go to kill all the demons. After this, the game consists entirely of killing all the demons. Heck, I don't even know if they're all demons or not. That angry-looking autobot in the final level may have just gotten lost on his way to the new Transformers movie and then everything was fine until I started shooting. Regardless, the game doesn't really need much of a story and you know what? That's okay with me! I just can't give it too many points for having so little exposition.
Sound 28/40
There's not much music here, but what there is is passable. Please though, if you're going to waste space by using OGG, waste ENOUGH space to not have horrible background noise in your music. Perhaps I'm wrong and the constant hiss isn't the result of bad compression, but seriously, bump the quality up a bit. The sound effects, on the other hand, are excellent. The weapons have great sounds to them, even if they are stolen straight from the Atari 2600. So yes, you lose a couple points for bad compression, but overall you score fairly well here.
Final thoughts
This game could have stood a little more balancing. There should have been more multi-char guys and fewer single-char guys because the small ones are harder to hit and therefore harder to kill and more likely to kill you. As I already pointed out, cover was difficult to use in several levels. Some of the weapons could have lasted a bit longer. Health should regenerate or be restorable some how, though this is somewhat negated by optional continues. The polished touches on this game like diagonal movement help to sooth the sore spot from the difficulty and hey, I can't knock many points off just because I happen to suck at shmups. Overall, this is a GREAT entry in terms of bug-free programming and gameplay.
Total: 288/400
92782: Jack Flaps
Jack Flaps is a news reporter who takes on the reporting world by stamping papers, avoiding traffic cones and... walking around that room in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. you reach by wishing for mankind to be controlled?
Theme 5/20
Yes, you're a news reporter. No, you don't report any news. No, you don't even see any news. You just ARE a news reporter, dammitall! So, because there's no news and no reporting, not many points are scored in this category.
Gameplay 42/120
There's very little gameplay here. There are a couple of minigames and then, just as the actual game looks to be getting started, it ends. You're stuck walking around an empty board. So let's talk about the minigames instead, shall we? The first involves stamping papers. It's a point-and-click minigame where you drag papers onto your desk, drag a stamp over and stamping it three times, and then dragging the paper into the outbox. Rinse, lather, repeat. There's not much to be said other than it uses the mouse. And sprites. The second minigame involves driving and dodging road cones. If you don't manage to avoid them, the screen fades out and... nothing. Oh, and you can't move forward or backwards, just up and down. So really, it's like R-Type without the shooting or enemies or the moving around. Actually, it's like the race in Battletoads without any jumping. The final part is just a walking engine. Too bad, I was hoping for some news reporting here.
Graphics 48/90
As with several entries so far, what graphics the game had weren't bad. The rubber stamp is PARTICULARLY compelling. I liked the way the car bounced up and down as it rattled down the road. I guess the parallaxing background was nice. And the walking animation was actually pretty cool and Jack looked like a nice fellow straight out of... actually he kinda looks like Luke Skywalker. Especially his hair. Oh, and he wears a suit that's almost the same color as Darth's. Had there been more graphics, there would be more points here, but there's really not much.
Technique 20/80
Unfortunately, sprites have now officially been around forever and you no longer get points just for having them and using them in a non-borked manner. Yes, there's a sprite-based walking engine. Yes, there's a sprite-based car that moves up and dow-wait, WHAT!? The car isn't sprite-based! Okay, I guess that's an effective way of implementing it. Anyway, the game uses sprites in a technically-good way but doesn't use them to actually DO anything with gameplay. About the only interesting thing here is the click-and-drag stuff, and even that wears out quickly enough to where the game only makes you do it 3 times.
Story 11/50
We're given a smidgen of exposition at the opening and... that's it. Nothing more. I was hoping that Jack would go out and discover some awesome news stories, defeat enemies with his bare hands and hair, and then break the news with a handful of wisecracks and a knowing smile to the viewers at home. Really, what points you get are there for having any exposition at all. Oh, and 1 bonus point for having a character named "Jack Flaps" =)
Sound 8/40
One song and stamping sound effects. That's it. Granted, the one song is nice and conveys the mood extremely well. Really though, it's not too much to ask for a separate driving song. Stamping sound effects are... short. We're talking about 3 files under a second apiece. Again, I'm sorry but there's just not much here to judge.
Final thoughts
There are several other games that I'd love to see finished because I liked where they were going. This game never even really got going. Like I said, you get 2 minigames and that's it. No story, no setup, nothing. There's just nothing here to judge.
Total: 134/400
98505: Untitled, unfinished
Untitled, Unfinished tells the story of someone I can only assume is a robot or cyborg or something created by the evil voice from Hitman 1 to go... obey the evil voice. And that's all it does.
Theme 3/20
There's one mention of a voice being paranoid. The rest is all implied, I guess. I can see how you're supposed to be a paranoid.. whatever-you-are, but really, there's nothing to set that up other than the fact that you decide to escape. Then there's the stealth section. Don't get me wrong; I love stealth, and stealth gameplay is usually rife with paranoia. Still, I can't give many points simply because there's no dialogue after the intro to indicate any paranoia or, really, any emotions at all.
Gameplay 15/120
If you leave the prison in the proper direction, you'll wind up outside the playable area of the first level. If you poke around in the editor, you'll find a simple Metal Gear-style stealth engine where, as long as you stay out of the Retinitis pigmentosa-afflicted guards' direct line of sight, you avoid detection. You can take cover behind the chunks of wall that the enemy carelessly left lying around their misshapen hallways. I kinda see where this was going, but it doesn't even come close to getting there. There's one board of actual gameplay and then a note explaining the unfinished state of things. Too bad; I've always been a fan of stealth gameplay and I'd love to see some in a DoZ.
Graphics 15/90
There's a really nifty fade in the intro, but that's about it. The rest is smilies and 3-color walls. Granted, there's nothing inherently WRONG with smileys; one of my favorite MZX games is Castle of Zeux and it made GREAT use of smileys! It's just that when you have nothing more than smileys, there's nothing more to give points to. Even CoZ had those nifty glowing pots with the worm in the bottom.
Technique 14/40
There IS a workable stealth engine in here. It'd be great to see it put to use with some bigger levels that consist of more than a hallway and barriers. I don't like when a game consists ENTIRELY of setpieces, but having one or two awesome visual pieces in your game definitely doesn't hurt. Anyway, I guess my point here is that yes, it had a start on a good engine here but it failed to do anything with it. Oh, and it doesn't help to have board edges that don't match up. If I walk north to another board, I shouldn't wind up outside the playable area.
Story 8/50
There really isn't much story here. You're an android/cyborg/programmed person who decides to escape and embark on a quest to become human. Or something like that. Your creators hope that you won't rebel and assure each other that it's impossible for you to rebel. Being the contradictory chap you are, you decide that the only acceptable comedic option here is to, of course, rebel. You proceed to break out of your cell by getting angry enough to will your cell door open. This would have been an awesome game mechanic, but sadly, it only happens once. Anyway, what little there is could be a good groundwork, but nothing ever comes of it.
Sound 6/40
Pity points for no music and 1 point for the single sound effect. With sound, you can't go wrong borrowing from classics and the alert sound from MGS did an excellent job of telling me that I had been spotted. That is, it did the few times it successfully played.
Final thoughts
As I said before, I really like stealth gameplay done right. I'd love to see some more in MZX games, but it'd be quite the challenge to implement solidly. Still, I'm glad someone is trying and I'd love to see more done with the idea.
Total: 61/400
98991: Welty Wickleson
Welty Wickleson knows the truth. He knows about the government, the people in power, what they know and what they want you to THINK you know. Welty knows, and it's his job to tell everyone about it!
Theme 96/100
Yeah, it's hard to get more paranoid than Welty. When he's not exposing margarine for the lactose-based scam it is, he's enlightening the public about the evils of lightning and the founding father who unleashed it. Without spoiling everything, I want to say that this definitely strikes me as one of the best theme-heavy games of this competition. It's saturated with paranoia from beginning to end.
Gameplay 54/90
Sadly, there's not as much here as I'd like to see. In a nutshell, it's your job to open the eyes of those around you to what exactly the establishment is doing and why they want you to think otherwise. In MZX speak, you run talk to some people and run away from others. Granted, you can hide behind barriers and enemies won't see you. I can't seem to figure out exactly what the enemies can see and what they can't, but at least you can hide! If you're spotted, you have to run far away (hiding doesn't seem to work.) Unfortunately, this is very difficult in the smaller boards. Still, I like the enemy detection engine.
Graphics 57/70
Actually the graphics are pretty nice. In-game isn't the best I've ever seen, but for single-char MZX stuff, it's pretty darned nice. Palettes match the settings well and there are plenty of nice little touches like the shelves of different items in the store and the shadows of counters and whatnot. The full-screen shot of Welty's face is nice. Oh, and the stars are another nice touch. Overall, there's a lot of attention to detail here.
Technique 44/60
As I mentioned up in gameplay, the enemy detection and sneaking parts are great! It's solid and seems to work consistently. Escaping isn't always as simple as it should be, but the whole goal of sneaking is to not get seen in the first place. There's also a nice dialogue engine that does a good job of putting text onscreen in non-standard boxes. On the downside, that's basically all the game had to offer engine-wise. What's there works quite well, but there's not a whole bunch of it.
Story 50/50
I love good writing and this is something Welty has in excess! It's hard to pick a favorite story for this competition, but this game probably ties with Weasel's entry for "stories that made me grin the whole time." The concept of playing as a conspiracy theorist is a PERFECT application of the topic and I'm glad to see that the author was able to back this up with good writing. Welty has three major conspiracies that he discovers and he has to tell at least half a dozen different people with unique dialogue about each one. My favorites were the dog and the other conspiracy theorist. Great job here, guys =)
Sound 16/30
The game has 4 songs, all of which fit quite well. It's just a shame that they drop out when you load your game or get caught. I really did like the music and I thought it fit quite well. It was really disappointing when it disappeared and failed to reappear. I'm not sure if mod * shares any blame here, but the music definitely loses some points for going AWOL. Still, great selections =)
Final thoughts
This is definitely a great entry for the writing alone. Play this one through and take the time to read the dialogue. Perhaps this author should team up with Weasel for that dreamteam entry I talked about earlier =) Above all, this game really pays attention to little things. Little touches ranging from the food shelves to the car that backed into the wall just scream "POLISH!" The team seems to have spent time polishing it up and it shines for this.
Total: 317/400
FINAL final thoughts
I've mentioned on the forums that I'm actually quite impressed with the set of games we've gotten out of this competition. Considering the lineup, I was worried that we wouldn't have nearly as much to work with, but we got a full 11 submissions in, at least 8 of which are definitely worth playing through. Thanks for putting up with my judging and I'd love some feedback. Thanks to Wervyn and Terryn for helping me out with this judging thing that I'm so new to. Again, great job everyone! (Except Koji and Asie)
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