Rock, Paper, Scissors ZX80 1K edition - Shaun Bebbington

In the proud tradition of "Professional Conkers Simulator" and "Kiss Chase 2: The Revenge.", it's another re-imagining of a classic school-yard past-time; the strategic and cerebral extravaganza that is "Rock, Paper, Scissors."


In real-life, this is a game of interpreting body-language and facial expressions as you try to bluff and counter-bluff each other into picking the least desirable figure based on the one you're planning to play. Shaun's implementation manages to eschew such frivolous sociological factors and go back to the roots of the game - random guessing with no actual skill or thought required.


The game does exactly what you'd expect of such a title - you and the ZX80 pick one of the three options (trusting that the ZX80 doesn't actually wait to pick until after you've revealed your move) and then you either win, lose or draw based on the combination of the two figures. So it provides all the fun of playing the game, without any of that tiresome human interaction.

Loading:LOAD, then RUN (although be careful, since I was lead to believe that running with scissors was dangerous.)
Controls:
Rock:R
Paper:P
Scissors:S

Rock, Paper, ScissorsZX80 1k
RPS.o.zip (460B)
Rating
16.33%

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Bresenham - Anders Carlsson

There have been some strange topics for games submitted to this competition over the years; from breeding budgerigars to making toast, but I can safely say that this is the first one to be based entirely around a line-drawing algorithm.


The object of the game is to guess how many of fifty randomly plotted points will be intersected by each of ten randomly drawn lines, based on a few scant hints as to the general direction and magnitude of the line. Anders rather optimistically suggests that this could be turned into a gambling activity - so he clearly knows the proclivities of his target audience.


The presentation is nice enough, the colours are well chosen and the audio is mercifully absent. In order to keep the crapness at an acceptable level, not only does the game have no loading screen, no title screen - Anders hasn't even bothered to name the program, let alone make it auto-run.


From the premise, it sounds like it could be only slightly more exciting than an O-Level maths lesson (in fact it is very reminiscent of those "educational" type-ins from Sinclair Programs that kids used to con their parents into thinking they hadn't wasted £125 on a games machine), although there's actually a certain amount of skill involved; and it is mildly entertaining.

Loading:LOAD "", then RUN
Controls:
Enter guess:Number keys

BresenhamZX Spectrum
Bresenham.tap.zip (838B)
Rating
30.61%

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West Bankito - Ivan Basic

Challenge Entry "When I'm 64 (Pixels)"

We now have the first entry for the challenge to fit all the gameplay into an 8 × 8 pixel area, which is this offering from Ivan Basic.

The game appears to be based on West Bank which I must admit I've never played before; so in the interests of promoting fake news I plan on giving Ivan the credit for many of the gameplay innovations which are no doubt taken from the original game.


The premise (such as it is) is something between a Wild-West bank robbery gone wrong and the firearms training British police were given in the 1960s. Apparently some unknown entity is willing to give you a job if you make more than $10,000 and survive for one week (similar to the contract of employment for supply teachers in inner-city comprehensives).


The title screen/instructions are suitably cryptic, but basically boil down to telling you which things to shoot, which things not to shoot and which things to sometimes shoot and sometimes not to shoot.

Onto the game itself, where you're presented with a suitably Wild-West bank counter and security grill with a variety of wobbling icons appearing through the serving-hatch; and you have a split second to decide whether to shoot or not - being rewarded with money, death or being fired as appropriate.


The game graphics are nicely drawn while at the same time being almost unrecognisable as the objects they represent (for some reason, this bank appears to store its money in Findus Crispy Pancakes instead of bags; and a suprising number of chess pieces are stored on the counter) which is just the right approach for a crap game. The surrounding graphics and effects set a suitably period specific tone (even down to redefining the "$" symbol). Audio-wise, rather than going with the clichéd "white noise as gunfire" sound effects, Ivan has opted for more of a "of course I don't need a fuse, this rusty nail will do perfectly" electrical droning noise.

Once you get past the initial confusion of working out what to shoot and what not to, the game starts to get quite addictive; I genuinely found myself saying "just one more go, I made it to Thursday last time, I bet I can finish the week".

Loading:LOAD ""
Controls:
ShootAny key

West BankitoSpectrum 16/48K only
WestBankito.tap.zip(2.37k)
Rating
61.22%

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