The Anchovy Coast - Anders Carlsson
Challenge Entry "Such an Auntie-Climax"
Another entry in the "Such an Auntie-Climax" challenge, this game is
(very) loosely inspired by an episode of the documentary series "The
Italian Way". Fortunately since Anders states he has never seen the
programme in question - he's based it solely on the summary in the Radio
Times; ensuring that the tie-in to the source material is as tenuous
as possible (always a good sign in a CSSCGC entry). As a result, Anders
has managed to produce possibly the first (and hopefully the last)
fishing/lemon harvesting/tourism/rebellion-quenching simulator for the
ZX Spectrum.
Graphically, the coast-line is rendered in a reassuringly chunky manner;
although judging by the choice of colours it would appear that the
Costa Amalfitana was experiencing an unexpected cold-spell during the
time period of the game. This particular stretch of the Italian coast
also seems to be the home of a particularly large variety of mutant
lemon; where a single fruit could easily sink a large fishing vessel.
Sound is thankfully absent - which seems like a missed opportunity,
since a grating and off-key rendition of Italian folk music would have
been the perfect crapness cherry on an otherwise decidedly un-crap cake.
The rules and gameplay are too involved to explain in detail here,
fortunately Anders has provided a detailed set of instructions -
unfortunately this reduces the crapness score of the game significantly;
since being baffled by a game that's far too complex to understand is
one of the defining elements of the genre. Briefly, the object of the
game is to finish the game with a profit over your original 500 million
Lira investment, through a variety of economic activities, such as
picking lemons; fishing for anchovies and er, arranging discos. Suffice
to say, it plays like an esoteric combination of Taipan, The Oregon
Trail and one of The Sims Expansion Packs; by combining trading,
survival and party planning.
The game is surprisingly enjoyable, and it's one of the few entries that
I'll continue playing after reviewing it, since I suspect it really
needs more time devoted to playing to get the most out of it. There's
clearly been a lot of thought and planning put into this game - in fact
it's of a higher quality than the typical "edutainment" games that were
wheeled out (often literally) in 1980's schools in a vain attempt to
make the socio-economic plight of southern Europe seem interesting to 12
year-olds.
Loading:LOAD ""
Controls:
Select Actions: | 1-4
|
Move Fishing Boat North: | Q
|
Move Fishing Boat South: | A
|
Move Fishing Boat East: | P
|
Move Fishing Boat West: | O
|
Select Next Fishing Boat: | N
|
<< Back to Games
Odds and Evens Classic - Huw Davies
Next up, Huw Davies has provided this tiny (it's possibly the first file I've ever encountered which actually gets bigger
when compressed) entry to the competition; which in the words of the
author is targeted at those individuals who are "intimidated by the
intellectual elitism and strategic complexity of rock-paper-scissors",
which I can only assume also encompasses the group of people who "think
that ZX80 is a type of engine-oil"; "spend a lot of time trapped in
revolving doors" and "don't know how to install or run an emulator on
their computer"; so Huw has immediately restricted his target audience
to a very small sub-section of society.
The game itself is an electronic re-imagining of the classic finger-based game
Odds and Evens
where each round, players hold up either one or two fingers; and
depending on the total of all the fingers presented, the "odd" or "even"
player wins the round. As such, there is very little more to say about
the game - you pick a number, the ZX80 picks a number and you either win
or lose the round; not a byte has been wasted on such frivolities as
title screens, fancy graphics or a round limiter.
Interestingly, in addition to his official "Classic version" entry, Huw
has also submitted a "Super Deluxe Pro" version which adds such high-end
features as on screen-instructions and scoring. Which demonstrates that
the crapness in the Classic version was entirely deliberate and not a
result of incompetence or ineptitude.
Loading:LOAD
Controls:
Choose 1: | 1
|
Choose 2: | 2
|
Crash program: | Any non-numeric character
|
<< Back to Games