Summer 2009 Dualstream Day of Zeux Judging Sheets:KKairos
# GAME NAME GAM GRA TEC STR SND THM TOT 1. Reconquista+Escalation 101 62 71 31 34 12 311 2. Welty Wickleson: Harbinger of Truth 57 55 44 41 22 83 302 3. Risa 87 54 50 33 30 8 272 4. News First 59 29 30 44 21 89 272 5. Paranoid Heavens 85 55 56 28 28 13 265 6. Achtung! 92 58 68 15 24 6 263 7. Automobile Conspiracy 53 29 48 29 27 66 262 8. California Rookie 84 57 30 31 19 20 241 9. Jack Flaps: News Reporter 50 65 53 12 12 12 204 10. REVENGE OF THE TOASTER 74 30 42 8 20 6 180 11. Night's Journey 51 53 51 9 8 8 180 12. Untitled, Unfinished 40 24 32 13 10 6 125
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS / REFLECTION
I definitely learned a lot by judging, about reviewing games and about my own taste in what makes them good and bad and whatnot. Perhaps most difficult were those times I really wanted to be able to score a game higher than I could; most notable in this competition was noodl's "California Rookie" which would have done quite better on my scale if it had not been riddled with gamestopping bugs; it might have done even one or two places better than it did. But yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the games in this competition, and most of the ones that I didn't thoroughly enjoy had lots of potential. So, uh, good job, MZX community, or something. So this was a pretty cool experience. I heavily enjoyed my first DoZ judging. Hopefully it won't be my last, but I can safely say two things: (1) I will never take DoZ judges for granted ever again and (2) I'm pretty relieved that the next Day of Zeux has me teamed with someone rather than judging the games. I was very pleased overall with the quality of games in this DoZ, as it made my first time easier. I was also very surprised with my ability to get all the games played and rated quickly, and I bet if you're a contestant and you're reading this at the end of the week you're happy that Wervyn instituted that rule about not taking 3 years to judge the contest. So enjoy this nifty breakdown of my scores, first the table (by overall ranking by points), and then by topic, after that sorted by game number.
- KKairos
Paranoia
GAME: #10037, Automobile Conspiracy
TEAM: Riding With Hitler (Greasemonkey) paranoia/heavy
53 / 90 : Gameplay
Gameplay consisted mainly of running around and reading the main character's paranoid thoughts; there was a decent-length side-scrolling sequence, however, which bumps this up in terms of there being more of a game mechanic. There wasn't really much gameplay to speak of, but what of it there was was certainly alright.
39 / 70 : Graphics
These were in large part silly and often blocky, though not undetailed. Not great, but okay. But I definitely give it some credit for the details here and there and the effort that went into making non-generic blocks and many detailed tiles. There's also credit given here for the showy opening sequence.
48 / 60 : Technique
The game gets some more credit here for its opening; the technique in the rest of the game is mostly whatever is required for a few cutscenes and the jumper engine. But the jumper engine did require a decent amount of robotic and obviously had lots of effort put into it, so it gets the game some more points.
29 / 50 : Story
A man who believes the world is out to get him loses his car, and has a ride on which people keep giving him reasons to be more and more paranoid. It's a fun and comedic ride that ties well to theme.
27 / 30 : Sound
Enjoyed the music here. It's not a 30/30 because it didn't necessarily contribute ultra-well to the game's atmosphere, but was far from being the worst choice.
66 / 100 : Theme
I put this above 50-50 because it does a fairly decent job considering the theme; the fact that the man appears paranoid for no other reason than to fit the theme and occasionally move the plot along is more than compensated by the fact that his paranoia serves as consistent comic relief.
262 / 400 : Total
There was some charm in this one. It didn't appeal too much to me at first, but the sidescrolling segment turned out okay, and I enjoyed its sense of humor, so I found it decently enjoyable overall.
Game: #13697, REVENGE OF THE TOASTER
Team: logicow (logicow) paranoia/light
74 / 120 : Gameplay
What's THERE is actually pretty nice. When I scored this, I pretended I was playing the game on a processor that could handle it, so this got higher marks. I did actually find it somewhat enjoyable despite the fact that it ran like crap on my machine; however, level design hurt it and made it even slower. For reference, I played the first two levels.
30 / 90 : Graphics
Graphics get the job done, but I could've done with more than two-color levels with all the other stuff that was going on. They're there, and technically impressive, but visually fairly awful in spite of being technically impressive.
42 / 80 : Technique
Logicow gets 42 points for technique, for making a pixel-perfect multidirectional shooter in halfchar in MZX. He gets no more than 42 because said shooter runs like crap on my machine. There is no excuse for a MegaZeux game with as few events happening as this to run like crap on my machine. My PC isn't old, and it's not a gaming PC either. But MegaZeux is not a gaming-PC program, and should not be made to be one. As I said re: gameplay, when I scored this, I pretended I was playing the game on a processor that could handle it, so gameplay got higher marks, and the lack of discretion that went into planning how the game might run on a normal person's computer gets docked here.
8 / 50 : Story
There is none. There are random musings, but there's no scenario or character to speak of, at least...not much. The closest thing to a story is the conversation between author and player, for which this game gets an eight.
20 / 40 : Sound
I actually enjoyed some of the music muchly. Other pieces I did not enjoy. Something about the dance-ish track that played worked with the shooter motif.
6 / 20 : Theme
Two or three of the musings given hint at paranoia, or seem to be trying to instill it in the player, but the effort just isn't there. I'm really torn as to whether to give this even a five, much less a six, but in this case I guess my tornness works out in logi's favor.
180 / 400 : Total
I definitely didn't have the most fun playing this, though the fact that it held some charm for me despite running like crap does say something for it. It's good proof that sometimes games are way too ambitious for their own good.
Game: #35285, Paranoid Heavens
Team: Will he actually submit an entry!? Find out SOON!(Goshi) paranoia / heavy
85 / 120 : Gameplay
Gameplay was alright; I enjoyed the hack and slash / traditional MZX dungeon-crawling but I wished the enemies had been easier to hit, or the bullet frequency higher. Having the choice to disarm traps or not was also pretty cool, as was having the ability to start random fights and finish them. I wish there'd been more to this one content-wise, I really do. Unskippable dialogue detracts from the experience, especially when the player is given too much time for too little text.
55 / 90 : Graphics
There's a certain charm in Goshi's three-shades-plus-red-for-effect setup here! But I really wish that the graphics had been further fleshed out or the sprites taken more care on. I also got the sensation early on that I was killing DORFS, but that's neither here nor there.
56 / 80 : Technique
The game seems to have been programmed alright. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the fighting system but it gets the job done. The game's one visual effect seems like it was not a big deal to do, but that doesn't mean it was badly programmed. There's a gamestopping bug somewhere I believe, but I don't recall where.
28 / 50 : Story
I could kind of see where it might've been going, but I would've needed more to score this higher. A promising start, though!
28 / 40 : Sound
I liked the tracks that were used in the playable areas of the game. They fit the feel of the game fairly well. But without much context there's little way to tell how good music would've been otherwise, ergo, the middle-of-the-road score. (Sidenote: I did listen to the included music to get a feel for what would've been, and it seems to match the feel of what was playable.)
13 / 20 : Theme
It's kind of cool how paranoia was going to be a game mechanic rather than merely a story mechanic. Examining code I can see how paranoia counters play a part, and testplaying later boss battles reveals paranoia definitely figures into story as well. Unfortunately, there's not much in the way of content gameplay-wise or plot-wise, which limits how played out the theme can be. But what's there has promise.
265 / 400 : Total
This game definitely had potential, even if graphics were a little lacking. But I found what I played at least somewhat enjoyable, and Goshi obviously put a fair amount of effort into things here.
GAME: #41817, Reconquista+Escalation
TEAM: JAPANESE CHARACTERS (Lancer-X) paranoia/light
101 / 120 : Gameplay
A shooter-ish gameplay is present here in the 'main' game, by which I mean the mode in which you'll spend most of your time, with a targeted system for hitting enemies who fire at you in a somewhat hard-to-dodge fashion. The 'secondary' game is a strategy piece in which you fight off enemies in a turn-based way and try to conserve and regain energy. The main mode is by far the most exciting. The very long and sometimes confusing design of levels hurt gameplay a little bit, but not too terribly much.
62 / 90 : Graphics
Graphics are very simple. There is a noticeable amount of graphical effects (especially on the title screen and in cinemas, not to mention blood vision), but I'm putting most of the credit for that towards technique. What's there in terms of graphics otherwise (player, backgrounds, etc.) creates its own neat aesthetic.
71 / 80 : Technique
Solid. The only thing that's hurting this category is the "doors to nowhere" phenomenon, which I did encounter once or twice and which would have been much more annoying had I not been saving every twenty steps. Visual effects obviously took a decent amount of robotic, and it shows.
31 / 50 : Story
The actual scenario of the game, as set forth by Lancer's text-file, works fairly well. I found it unfortunately to be just a little too mysterious in presentation for it to really have made much sense, if any, in-game.
34 / 40 : Sound
Sounds is good. Occasionally a track goes on a little too long, but that's my only real complaint. Sound effects were un-obnoxious.
12 / 20 : Theme
Blood vision tied paranoia to gameplay quite nicely and naturally. But so far as I can tell most of the other ties are in the game's plot, which did not present quite as much in terms of the message getting across.
311 / 400 : Total
It was a fun ride in terms of gameplay, even though I had no idea what the heck was happening in the story for most of the game. Definitely played on my paranoia, as in "paranoia that I'll forget to bloodvision this room and get mauled by an annoying and invisible enemy."
GAME: #52370, Night's Journey [30% penalty]
TEAM: Redemption (mzxrules) paranoia/light
51 / 120 : Gameplay
What's there is a decently-programmed piece of jumper engine. There's very little in the way of actual level content; this makes the gameplay sort of hard to judge. But as-is it's one of those thigns that's much more potential than realized.
53 / 90 : Graphics
Graphics are mostly outlines of the level in terms of background, and basic sprites in terms of sprites. What's there is well-drawn, but there really isn't much of it. (There is also a nifty-looking cutscene, but again, what's there graphically isn't much.
51 / 80 : Technique
Stuff that's there appears at least somewhat well-programmed, and it would have to be; there are some silly glitchlike things here and there, unfortunately, which keeps this from getting near a really good score.
9 / 50 : Story
I could see one developing, but it never quite did.
8 / 40 : Sound
8 points for nothing, which is better than awful!
8 / 20 : Theme
The character appears to be dreaming or something. I'm going to count that as an "I could see where this was going" sort of thing.
180 / 400 : total (no penalty)
123 / 400 : total (with penalty) A decent game. It's a real shame this one didn't get fleshed out further; it could've been a contender in this contest, I think.
Game: #52516, Risa
Team: Sparkling Bishojou Super Mecha Soldiers in "Let's Make Another Lame Metroid Ripoff" (kuroneko) paranoia/light
87 / 120 : Gameplay
Kuroneko has here laid out a quite promising platformer in which choices you make influence the weapons you get. Unfortunately in my experience level design compromised how awesome it was. There are many points at which your best chance for survival is simply to run right and hope you time your jumps correctly. That might appeal to some, but I might have appreciated fewer irritating ways to die.
54 / 90 : Graphics
Graphics are definitely good here, I would say, insofar as they are here. The fact that they are missing for levels two and three hurts the game some; Kuroneko's sprites and weapons, however, are more than passable.
60 / 80 : Technique
My only big gripe is that there are no hard saves in this game: quitting the .mzx file at any time will result in an overwrite of the auto.sav and the loss of all of your progress. This isn't that big of an issue, but in conjunction with the aforementioned irritating levels it left me more frustrated when I realized I could not take a break and play a different game. Weapons also (especially the first one) been slower. Aside from that everything appears fairly well-programmed; there were one or two hit-detection issues but the weapons I had (blade, bow, hammer) worked alright. There were also a couple of graphical glitches.
33 / 50 : Story
The story seems fairly original. I thought overall it was a decent scenario and the story was at least somewhat well-told, so this is the grade it gets!
30 / 40 : Sound
The tracks Kuro wrote for this work fairly well. I don't really know what to say aside from that. Lack of sound effects didn't particularly hurt the experience.
8 / 20 : Theme
As a theme paranoia shows up once or twice in the plot, at the very beginning in the prelude and again at the game's climax. Unfortunately, so far as I can see, there isn't much hint of it in the in-between. But there's definitely enough here to pass.
272 / 400 : Total
Obviously I wasn't the biggest fan of the level design in this game, but many other things were indeed there in it, and it shows.
Game: #90622, Achtung
Team: Team MAX FORCE (maxim) paranoia/light
92 / 120 : Gameplay
Solid arena-shooter gameplay. Easily my favorite maxim game to date. Powerups are nice, the guns are awesome and a mode with 'continues' accomodates gamers like myself who, to say the least, are not quite so hardcore. Also, I personally had a little trouble navigating precisely.
58 / 90 : Graphics
I tip this over half because the enemies and main character are well-drawn. Effects certainly don't hurt either, but as with Reconquista most of that's been rolled into technique. Background is somewhat lacking, but it does the job well enough and the game does develop its own legitimate aesthetic.
68 / 80 : Technique
Various effects and whoziwhatsits litter the playing field; mostly it's a seizurefest of effects, but it does the job, and aside from a slightly-difficult to control player there's very little to complain about on a technical level.
15 / 50 : Story
There's a story. You're kind of paranoid about the aliens that you're fighting. The story is told about as well as it would be in any similar arcade game from there on out.
24 / 40 : Sound
Sound was used to pretty good effect. Very arcadey. Maxim's music did its part, and occasionally wasn't tops, but was normally solid.
6 / 20 : Theme
This passes on theme; it's enough for the character to be slightly paranoid. But unfortunately it makes no further appearance in the gameplay or story, really.
263 / 400 : Total
Achtung is probably the best maxim shooter to date, and that's saying something. I heavily enjoyed this one.
Game: #98505, Untitled, Unfinished
Team: No Idea paranoia/light
40 / 120 : Gameplay
What was there was promising, but it consisted of all of one board of real gameplay.
24 / 90 : Graphics
What was there was okay. Dug the effect at the end of the first cutscene.
32 / 80 : Technique
Points for the cutscenes timing to the player's steps; that was actually pretty cool. Aside from that, I can't give many points in this category, especially since the player steps right out of its cell and into a blank board.
13 / 50 : Story
I could see some potential, and it definitely tied itself to the theme. Unfortunately there's not enough of it there for me to know how I feel about the scenario or the storytelling.
10/ 40 : Sound
There was no real sound here aside from a random effect that seemed to coincide with an enemy death and made me laugh a little. There were also default MZX sounds. That in combination with 'no sound is good sound' is enough for me to give this a 10/40 rather than a 0/40.
6 / 20 : Theme
I'm giving this the minimum passing grade. It's hard to see how theme would or would not have been developed; but I definitely saw potential in the story for this, and as such, as far as I'm concerned, it gets a passing grade.
125 / 400 : Total
Potentially awesome game stifled, as many DoZ projects are, by the time constraints of being in a DoZ or perhaps some unrelated real-life catastrophe.
GAME: #98991, Welty Wickleson, Harbinger of Truth
TEAM: Probably Won't Submit (Quasar, Tixus) paranoia/heavy
57 / 90 : Gameplay
This game's core mechanic is essentially a "sneak" minigame in which your goal is to inform (or misinform as the case may be) as many people as possible of various conspiracies against them. It's not terribly exciting and at points is glitchy, but it does well enough for what it is. The last level seemed a little disproportionately frustrating.
55 / 70 : Graphics
The graphics are fairly good. They might appear, in the broad sense, blocky, but they're brought up muchly by the great attention that's given to the little details and textures.
44 / 60 : Technique
As mentioned, there's some glitchiness; but there's also some neat visual tricks and generally good programming, which nets this a solidly "above average" score in technique, overall.
41 / 50 : Story
Original scenario, and the way the story is told is quite entertaining; the character almost seems more delusional than outright paranoid, but the two seem tied together in the world of this game and often in reality, and the bits of dialogue reveal things about our character nicely.
22 / 30 : Sound
Sound felt like it fit, here. There was no sound on stage two, which struck me oddly and hurts things a little for consistency.
83 / 100 : Theme
Again in some ways I felt like the character was more delusional than paranoid. But I've got no doubt that paranoid is what the writers were going for, so I'm giving it to them in large part.
302 / 400 : Total
Good solid comedy game here. The writing and graphics carry this one more than gameplay, but that isn't too bad either. A good and solid effort.
NEWS REPORTERS:
Game: #40125, News First
Team: Team Runnin'-On-Empty (wildweasel) news reporters/heavy
59 / 90 : Gameplay
Gameplay is done in a quasi-choose-your-own adventure style; you are told to choose to report the news in your own order and in your own time. It's definitely entertaining, and it's kind of fun to see the different ways you can get fired or succeed. Unfortunately it doesn't make for much of a "game" as opposed to an interactive choose your own adventure book.
29 / 70 : Graphics
I'm not sure I really saw any. Okay, that was harsh, but it's definitely all about the text in this game. What was there was alright, though: the interface and what 'characters' we do see are at least decent to look at.
30 / 60 : Technique
There's absolutely nothing wrong with weasel's technique here. It just isn't the best; one gets the sense that what was accomplished with many boards might have been more easily accomplished with loads of MZMs, but in all honesty, the game appears to be bug-free and, methods aside, well-programmed.
44 / 50 : Story
A man's first day on the job as a newscaster. Fits the theme, and weasel's comedic storytelling really helps this score. The scenario itself is not terribly original, but the way in which it's played out (especially in story branches) really helps.
21 / 30 : Sound
Above standard fare! The tracks used fit the game's mood well and the sound effects don't add too much but certainly do not detract.
89 / 100 : Theme
It's definitely about news reporters, at least in the broader sense, and almost all gameplay (until the end) is centered around that theme. This gets a solid 89 for being drenched in its theme.
272 / 400 : Total
Wildweasel proves the kind of scoresheet-gaming that can be done with the pick-your-scoresheet system. It's a pretty good move on his part to go with this topic and that scoresheet, as the "theme" and "story" categories definitely carried this game.
Game: #92782, Jack Flaps, News Reporter
Team: Ironic Team Name (CJA, Kom and Malwyn) news reporters / light
50 / 120 : Gameplay
What was there is promising. It scores so low only for lack of content, but it looked sure to be a decently fun reporting romp full of cool minigames.
65 / 90 : Graphics
These are pretty awesome and cartoony graphics. I have nothing really to complain about here, except that, well, there wasn't more in terms of content. But what's there is quite good.
53 / 80 : Technique
Seems to do okay in the technique department. Not too much is required for what's here. I didn't fully understand the stamping minigame the first time, but that might've been me, and controls in that seemed a tad too finicky. The cone-dodging game was fine as was, so far as I can tell, the walking engine.
12 / 50 : Story
You get a twelve because I at least have an idea where this was going. But not really much else, because there's no other real indication.
12 / 40 : Sound
The sound that's here is a nice jazzy track. But again, that's all there is.
12 / 20 : Theme
You were definitely on track, guys.
204 / 400 : Total
I enjoyed what I played of this; I found it pretty much all-around appealing. But there just isn't enough of it finished...
Game: #89341, California Rookie
Team: Team Laser Explosion (noodl) news reporters / light
84 / 120 : Gameplay
The gameplay here was actually somewhat enjoyable; it's just an information-gathering adventure. But there are lots of little things you can do, like examine potted plants or doors. I much appreciated the option to skip certain scenes, especially on playthrough number two.
57 / 90 : Graphics
The author definitely put some effort into his graphics, here. They carry a certain amount of awesome, but are often a little bland and basic. But the effort put into sprites (particularly the protagonist) and random household objects is noticeable. Also, the main character appears to be doing a pelvic thrust when he moves left or right.
30 / 80 : Technique
Noticeable gamestopper bugs: You shouldn't try and skip any text in the opening sequence, you can't get all the info you need for the car crash story, and the main news building eventually became (for me anyway) unaccessible, which may have had to do with the fact that that board was tied to the area-selection board by a traditional MZX exit, and by moving left or right on that board one could easily create this blockage. Internet research can only be accessed once, for all intents and purposes (a graphical glitch makes it really hard to catch in time to read anytime after that.) Also, the end-board and credits-board both fail to fade in. Other than these things, the game appears to be neatly programmed, but these are quite a lot of things; hence the low score.
31 / 50 : Story
A news reporter determined to save his reputation and job goes out to get different pieces of juicy information with which to write his stuff. Enjoyable story for a fairly stock scenario. Not ultra-well-written, but not badly written either.
19 / 40 : Sound
Music works well enough. It feels maybe a little bit -too- epic in places, and by places I mean almost everywhere. Sound, what there is, was more annoying than not; the sound mostly consisted of a standard MZX push sound whenever the character moves on board one. It may have been technical error that this sound did not occur on other boards, but I'll count it to noodl's credit.
20 / 20 : Theme
Nails the theme, head-on. Everything in this game centers on the guy being a news reporter.
241 / 400 : Total
I enjoyed this one much more than I expected to. Hats off to noodl for surpassing my expectations. I wish he'd thought it through enough to game the scoresheet system and take the theme-heavy sheet, as it would have put him ahead at least one or two places in my scores.