DsDOZ 2014 Q1

CJA's Judging Sheet

Quick Jump

Introduction

Well, I'm glad nobody just had 'killing random crazy people' as their Insanity theme tie-in. Still, though, I'm playing hard with theme this time. If your game wasn't absolutely dyed, laced, injected, iced, and sprinkled with your choice of Time Travel or Insanity, it's not going to get a 100. In fact, nobody got a 100! Woohoo!

The definition of gameplay in the DoZ scoresheet is sorely lacking, so I'm going to have to define a standard right now to use here. My idea of gameplay is essentially the sum of the answers to the following questions: "Did I enjoy the game?" "Do I think others would enjoy the game?"

Technique, as well, is a sort of odd category; basically, it's the measurement of how impressed I am with the game's use of Robotic. Robotic hasn't changed very much, but expectations of an aging community have certainly raised the bar. Sometimes I think that this category is unfair. Just like no audio is better than bad audio, no programming is better than bad programming. However, it is possible to impress me with Robotic. And it's also possible to impress me with a selective lack of Robotic. Both of these happened.

So without further ado, get ready to hop in the trashcan—adventure awaits!

07729: They Called Me Mad

Topic: Insanity • Class: Theme-Light

07729's title screen with team logo

Overview

Synopsis. "They Called Me Mad" is a quirky game with some quite rough edges, but is surprisingly fun and addictive.

Plot Summary. You play as the fresh clone of a rich, eccentric middle-aged man with early onset dementia, which is beginning to clutch his mind more and more. He wants you to prove you can be him by beating him. If you fail, he'll have to make another clone, this time upgraded with the money collected from the previous life. Near the end of the game, his dementia finally catches up with him and he implores you to kill him.

Cinema in 07729 - The man whom you're a clone of is breaking down.

Theme (Light): 10/20.

The opening cinema and the cinemas between levels shine some light on what this game has to do with insanity. However, without these cinemas, the game could possibly have been retrofitted onto another topic, or even been confused for the other topic, Time Travel. Essentially, this is the metric that I use for judging theme-light games' Theme score. This game does have a lot to do with insanity, and it provides an explanation for many game mechanics.

Extra Note. At first I was sort of aghast at the fact that anyone would do a theme-light scoresheet. Strategically it's harder to score higher. However, after having played the game, I think the team is better off having picked this one.

Gameplay (Light): 78/120.

The game is fun on a large, zoomed-out scale, but actually closely looking at the various mechanics easily reveals a pretty rough experience. Let me explain: The overall gameplay in this is pretty fun. Essentially, you are rewarded for dying, because although you are moved back to the start, it gives you an opportunity to upgrade your player. After getting several upgrades in each level, I found myself often skipping past enemies trying to get to the next level. More important than what happens when you die is what you can do when you're alive.

First, the movement is very jagged. At max movement speed, you seem to move at a good clip except every few steps the player will wait an extra cycle. I assume this is just an artifact of integer division, but still, it's very distracting and annoying. In a game where I want to run away from enemies lot, stuff like this probably matters.

Actually killing the enemies, though, is another thing altogether. Your first weapon is a rock, which you throw pretty badly. Enemies are quite irritating to kill at the start when you aren't upgraded. They take 3 shots to kill (breaking CJA's Rule of RPGs #1), nearly a second of delay between shots, and a very annoying amount of inaccuracy; your rocks often fly wide of even the largest targets. So your first option is to run away and collect coins. After that, once you have upgraded your rocks to be marginally useful, you can take out enemies. Though, still, at that point, my first instinct was still to run through the level and collect items.

Most of the enemies have very annoying AI; they'll run towards you and stand on you to kill you, and often take a very large chunk of your health with them. It's impossible to counterattack while they are colliding with you and dealing damage; your only options are to run away, run and throw rocks, or use Charge to plow through everything. The cannons, however, had quite cool AI, and their shots were fun to dodge and they were interesting to kill. It's a bit of bullet hell experience where you have to keep moving and find creative ways to kill them.

The game mentions that enemies are worth a lot of coins, however, so killing them is quite necessary to get some money. Enemies give you something like 50 coins, which is 10 small coin pickups, so sometimes it's worth killing an exposed enemy. If you feel you are decently upgraded, though, you can just go ahead and run past every enemy. The game in this phase plays more like a danmaku shooter than a top-down; it's about dashing to collect health and avoiding enemies and their fire. Huge chests contain massive collections of coins and fill your health, so if you know where the chests are and get lucky, you can probably beat the level the first time, especially levels 2 and 3.

The unlockable Charge weapon basically turns your player into a giant tornado of death, running through levels killing enemies like a bullet train. It's very fun to use, but this also reinforced my desire to just speedrun the whole level. Once Charge is acquired it's very easy to simply streamroll through the levels without dying and flatten the final boss with it.

In the later areas, I would've liked to see some enemy variety. Something to make the player stop and actually shoot would have increased the depth of the game. Enemies weak to some attacks but resistant to others also may have worked well.

All in all, the game is quite easy, as once you are upgraded with the right stuff, enemies can't damage you as fast as you can run and collect health potions. A more challenging way to play, if you'd like, would be to try to beat the game without dying. Yes, it's possible, and you even get 2 or 3 chances to upgrade, too.

In summary, you got the macro right, but the micro just doesn't make for a pleasing base experience. Macro-mechanics make the player want to keep playing, but micro-mechanics keep the player from wanting to stop.

Graphics (Light): 45/90.

This is where the decision to go theme-light may have hit the hardest. The graphics in this game are, essentially, bright, searing pure RGB colors on top of muted backgrounds. I found it hard to see the walls because my eyes were often focused on the neon colorations, and the contrast difference between walls and floors is so low compared to these bright colors that it actually became a bit of a nuisance.

Other than that, the graphics are decent, but not great. The players, enemies and the (comically drawn) final boss are rendered in pure colors. Altogether it was a very "ZX Spectrum" experience, without a lot of charm. Sorry, but these graphics just didn't really do it for me. If this was an appeal to old arcade games, I guess I didn't "get it." Oh well.

Oh yeah — I did love the portrait of Moneybags, though.

Technique (Light): 48/80.

This may be the first time a complete sprite-based game entry receives such a low Technique score. Most of this is not due to bad coding, but due to bad foresight or intentions. The way I see it, cutting out sophisticated code that does not improve the game is often a hard decision to make during a DoZ, and this entry might have benefitted from doing things "the simple way" in a couple areas.

As far as the Technique score goes, we have some basic cinemas and menus, and the game. Controlling and allocating a large amount of entities on each board was probably done by mixing sprites and hard-coded overlay items, which is cool. Sometimes the ghosts of these items would appear on the board, though, and be non-interactive.

We also have a good projectile system, sprite-based players and enemies. Unfortunately, though, the movement at any speed is jerky and stuttery (as described above in Gameplay). Enemy AI is also quite basic: either stand still and shoot in a pattern, or run at the player in an attempt to damage him, or go up and down. This small variety is worth something, but the ultimate simplicity and what these AIs bring to the game is not very good.

There was a reason I wanted to lay out my need for Technique to include some discretion (see the intro). "No programming is better than bad programming." Some of the things in this game, I felt, would have been better off at a lower tech level with more interactivity. 1x1 enemies, for example, that were smarter or more fun to destroy would be better than large sprite enemies. A starting attack that's more satisfying (like maybe a weak melee weapon) would have been much better than a rock that always falls wide of its target. Essentially, focusing on what would create a slick, polished game system, rather than focusing on the upgradeability of the player, may have done this team some good.

I know that the team that made 07792 is capable of doing ground-breaking things in MZX. However, you need to step back and get the basics proper, and don't be afraid to fall back to 1x1. If something is fun, don't change it. If something is not fun, do what you can to make it better. I want to see gameplay that focuses on the feeling of the end result, not just trying to surmount the code that builds it.

Story (Light): 30/50.

The story in this game is quite weak, but it works well for the format and for the type of game. It isn't the best--there are some gaping holes. For example, if the guy is rich, why do I have to collect my own money? Sure, I get it, he's insane. But the whole premise of the game also relies on him being insane and just making ridiculously convoluted interiors. I feel like this game's story did what it needed to do, support the game's adherence to the theme, but it didn't really do much more for me. There were no strong stories in this DoZ to compare this up against, but still, I think that the story could have used something. At least an epilogue, maybe? Oh wait, technically there is one...

07729's ending, text which reads: 'I guess You can inherit a monster and weapon infested estate now... ...and eventually go nuts...'

Sound (Light): 30/40.

The sound effects are all PC speaker blips. Not bad, but it's a bit strange for an upgrade game. It does go well with the 'Spectrum ZX' motif, though, so I can't say it doesn't fit or isn't stylistic. The music is all classic-sounding MODs, which are all pretty great. I'm sure the other judges won't be as happy with old MODs as I am, but I liked them pretty well.

Total: 241/400.

19538: i0N-DWN

Topic: Insanity • Class: Theme-Heavy

19538's title screen

Overview

Synopsis. "i0N-DWN" is a deathly short, but astoundingly atmospheric ... experience.

Plot Summary. For one member of a spaceship's crew, things go downhill fast in the middle of a sleepless night.

Theme: 8/100.

Well, there were snatches of insanity going about, I suppose? There were some atmospheric and dialogue hints towards the theme. I'm being quite tough on Theme this time around, though, so unfortunately, what this game had to offer was very little compared to what's expected of a theme-heavy game.

Gameplay: 13/90.

A few points here, perhaps. Most of the game was cinematic with a couple "go find the thing to continue the cinematic" parts. Nothing in this game was very alluring gameplay-wise, except for maybe the minute or so of inventory-adventuring the game offers you. There's very little in this game to give Gameplay points for.

Graphics: 35/70.

Hey, the graphics are good! Good job again, I just wish they were used more. What's here is really good-looking and perfect, so what the heck, I'll judge it how it is. The grey coloration makes things pop, and the tightly-packed graphical style just works really well with what's there. An ultimate lack of variety (due to, of course, the length of the game) is the reason for the point deduction in this category.

19538: Some dialogue. 'Do you want to reset Terminal? [YES] [NO]'

Technique 24/60.

Alright, not bad. I see sprites and sprite-like structures; your dialogue engine is easy to deal with and doesn't make me want to rage. The Robotic here is very simple but it's this simplicity that would have allowed this game to do well if it were longer. Again, I say: not a lot of code whatsoever (due to game length), so not a lot of points.

Story: 12/50.

The story so far: Unable to get back to sleep, Hero McAntlers decides to get up and check his mail. Unfortunately his computer seems to be on the fritz. After trying to reset it, a bleeding guard comes in and, after a quick ear-violating sound effect, he becomes a spatter of blood. Looks like -something- is out there. Klaxons sound, the end.

19538: The mouse guard tells the protagonist to grab a weapon and not die.

Well, not much here at all, and what's here is fairly generic science fiction action movie stuff. But hey, I've seen worse, and I would have loved to see what was in store with the Insanity theme, but alas, due to game length, there was not enough story to plot.

Sound: 30/40!

Heyyy! Here's somewhere I can give points to. A great example of the iconic "no audio is better than bad audio" clause in the DoZ score explanations », the game did great with no music. The thing that redeemed it was the excellent atmospheric sound effects. Without a doubt these things were hand-curated to go with this game, and an excellent attention to detail was taken in selecting them. The glitch sound effects were very offensive to my ears for some reason, though. (And that's saying something—I really ought to be used to them as much as I listen to chiptunes.) Anyway good work with the sound effects. I think that you would make an excellent compliment to a dynamic-duo team as the sound person!

Total: 122/400.

Note. I consider a "game that's even worth playing" to be over 100 points. So congratulations, ya made that bar this time. I strongly suggest that you seek out people in this community to form a team with. We'd love to work with you on your projects. Your graphics and sound skills would be a great addition to a team of "code monkeys by day, game makers by night" sort of folk that we have 'round here in abundance. A few months from now, I implore you to do a little networking around #mzx on Slashnet, and the DMZX forums. I know I'd love working with someone with this rare attention to detail that I so lack. Sorry if this was too personal. I think that you could really kick ass on a team!

29427: Subspace Janitor

Topic: Time Travel • Class: Theme-Heavy

29427's title screen

Overview

Synopsis. "Subspace Janitor" is a simple but long and intriguing puzzle game combining new features with old MZX standbys.

Plot Summary. You play as Jenkins, a Subspace Janitor who scrubs time paradoxes for a living. Guided by his employers' system "OMNI", he has to travel from place to place destroying paradoxes. But strange things are known to happen in subspace...

Theme: 85/100.

In the game, when you touch a portal, you are warped back to the start. Essentially this could be seen as time travel. There are also many other elements of the puzzles themselves that point at time travel, such as the clones (which die if their parents die). Not to mention the fact that you are travelling through space-time to destroy time paradoxes. The game is steeped in the theme of time travel.

Past these bare mechanics, though, something is missing. The story and gameplay definitely deals with the mechanical aspect of time travel, but some more influence would have done the game good. For example, you travel to a time 'corresponding to early Earth history.' It would've been totally nifty to, say, include some random facts about the creation of the Earth or about history or something?

At one point time does split apart and you get a version of OMNI that doesn't recognize you, and that's a pretty cool time travel trope (one of my favorites). But to me it just seemed like the theme was applied to the mechanics in an overbearing way, but not to the story. It felt like a very "theme-light" interpretation of the theme to me.

29427: One of the first levels.

Gameplay: 77/90.

Wow! This MZX puzzler combines new mechanics and classic puzzle elements in such an awesome way. There are so many things sprinkled in here to do: Little Square Things-style clone movement management; transporter mazes; sokoban-style box puzzles; dodging bullets... The levels have a great variety due to the vast array of elements present in the game.

Not only are the levels varied, but they're many: there are 64 levels, and each level can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 15 minutes. On average though, each level is quite easy to figure out, especially after you've failed a couple times. This game didn't really allow the player to be stuck for too long. It's sort of a magical thing to have a puzzle game that makes you feel this good for overcoming challenges but actually isn't as hard as it looks.

Some of the old standbys and new features alike make this game a bit strange to play. The teleporter mazes aren't used everywhere, but they become a bit of a drag after a while, and my eyes got a bit tired of having to scan across the whole board. (Of course, few people will beat this game in one sitting, I imagine.)

Graphics: 53/70.

The graphics in this game are quite minimal but very effective. There's not a lot more to say. I'll say some more about how exactly the effects are produced in the Technique section, which is really awesome. Other than that, a lot of defaults, halfchars and ASCII chars are used along with some minor char editing. It really just works well for what it is, a very classic MZX fueled game.

Technique 39/60.

Whoa! Did you know the background animations in this game were actually just Lava with different chars? The 'purple fields of destruction' are just Fire, too! Stuff like this is brilliant, and we don't see a lot of it in MZX anymore.

The Robotic that's used is very scarce and minimal, but it's used very well. Not a lot of code is wasted unnecessarily here. While it's not as sophisticated as the other entries, it plays very well with MZX's defaults. Unfortunately the metric for this category does involve a bit of sophistication. The player is a Robot, a sort of archaic practice which is something I haven't seen in a while. All said, there just isn't very much going on with advanced Robotic in this entry.

The things that really blew my mind were the use of forgotten simple elements in ways that we would normally just 'soft code' nowadays. I have to pad this score because the game subverted the need to use tons of Robotic by doing such crafty things with what MZX already has. A lot of games were very 'smart' this time around, but this one was quite a bit more 'clever.'

Story: 25/50.

The game's story is fleshed out in the dialogue between levels. Essentially, Jenkins finds himself in increasing amounts of peril as time warps, bends and falls apart around him. His goal is to get back to reality, obviously, and he's aided somewhat by his employer's trusty robot OMNI. The dialogue makes a good break and often provides comic relief from time to time.

29427: The punchline. A slightly phallic-looking level.
29427: The joke. 'Jenkins, what does this look like?'

I would have loved a more concrete beginning or ending. The sporadic dialogue sort of leaves me wanting more.

Sound: 40/40!

I can't tell whether the music for this game was created originally or not, but it's very excellent and fitting. It's a nice poppy electronic sound that fit nicely with the theme and mood.

The occasional use of sound effects adds a lot of atmosphere as well.

Total: 319/400.

79428: no True(n)

Topic: Insanity • Class: Theme-Heavy

79428's title screen

Overview

Synopsis. "no True(n)" is a long sword-based action game with Mega Man and "Metroidvania" stylings.

Plot Summary. You play as Amelia, awakened in an unfamiliar world, unaware of what you should do, who you are, and even why you should care. As you defeat bosses that you come to realize are mere illusions and conjurations, all the while talking to familiar voice, you get closer and closer to the sanctum of whatever has trapped you here.

Theme: 60/100.

I personally had a hard time connecting this theme to the game. Amelia does wake up with no thought, recollection or even care, and has to fight to get it back. I thought that the three themed areas (Empathy, Consciousness, and Knowledge) were the three 'keys' to escaping her insanity, perhaps; or maybe the Voice in her head was the insanity, though that proved to be false. Lisbeth was most likely insane, but that's just one part of the story.

The theme of insanity does pervade the game in ways that would clear a theme-light game, but oddly, I didn't see any real tie-ins to insanity. I didn't really "get it." I was searching for them as I played the game. I thought to myself, "Perhaps this is all Amelia's mind; Carol's voice is merely an echo of what Amelia's going through in real life, and each echo presents a unique problem to her, which manifests as one of these three areas. When she overcomes this 'trial' she gets more powerful in each respect." But the game seemed to suggest that the plot was much more concrete than that: this was clearly a different world; it was created, but after all is said and done, real. "But, does this throw into question what is real?" Things like these are the things I would think, as I desperately grasped to find the theme.

I feel like perhaps I missed the forest for the trees here: this game does not really need to be all about the protagonist or antagonist being insane, it needs to have a theme of insanity; in other words, insanity needs to be a recurring thing that shapes the game, not necessarily a lump sum that is dispensed through the story and experienced first-hand by the protagonist. Insanity in this game is not a theme, nor is it engrained in the story; it's merely a tool used to exposit more of the story and give the game a sort of common thread (frayed as it is). Essentially, the foes in the game do not represent struggles or troubles on part of the protagonist, nor do the runes represent knowledge or experience or overcoming fears and psychological problems; this is merely a world created with things in it that tangentially point to insanity. The only true source of insanity in this game is the Voice, but still, this is a very concrete interpretation of the theme in a game that could have easily represented the abstract implications of what insanity means.

Or maybe it's what you make of it. Maybe this is, after all, Amelia's mind. That satisfies me. I don't know if it will satisfy the Theme score very well, though.

79428: The rune screen.

Gameplay: 81/90!

This was pretty much typical [authors redacted] perfection. The game is a nonlinear Metroid style thing where you can go where you choose (if you have the right upgrades). Basically, you are free to go where you want, and the game does a good job to keep you from getting in over your head. The bosses are defeated in Mega Man style fashion; you go through the level, get the upgrades and kill the boss to progress. Then of course, you unlock the final level.

The upgrades consist of 64 runes that you collect. You have two swords (which you can swing simultaneously; see first image), and you can load three runes onto each sword. As some effects are active and some are passive, it's a no-brainer to stack a bunch of power on one sword and have another for passives; but the fact that they allow the player to figure that out for themselves makes it a valid way to insert a bit of strategy into an otherwise very slashy game.

The difficulty in this game was well-balanced for the first half. It satisfies CJA's Rule of RPGs #1 and it's very satisfying to slay enemies. It's a no-brainer picking which weapons to use, as well, which is a good idea; no memorization of enemies is required. After the first couple dungeons, though, your sword becomes ridiculously powerful and you can gain massive reserves of health; this growth mostly outpaces the increasingly tough enemies you face. So by this point, fighting all of the bosses at once is fairly easy and the final boss is a piece of cake. This nagging "anti-boss" is the minus 1 point to Gameplay that you see (that might have been more if I didn't looooove my games to be easy)! Otherwise, Perfect Score, p. much.

Again, I'd like to emphasize that if I didn't enjoy games being easy, I wouldn't have given a perfect Gameplay score.

Graphics: 65/70

The graphics are great! The effects are amazing. When you damage an enemy, its char becomes increasingly mottled with static, until you kill it completely. The player and enemies are decently sized sprites, the GUI bar is beautiful, the title screen and endings are decent too, and the rune select screen is pretty. Really, most of this game is gorgeous. It pulls off what are essentially monochromatic color schemes very well.

There's a downside to monochromatism, which is that there could have been a bit more variety in the colorations of the levels. The blue floor in the Knowledge area was a bit searing, but other than that, colors were chosen fairly well, and nothing is offensive, so it's not much of a problem.

79428: Swinging two swords.

Technique 59/60.

I honestly don't know what to write here. The game has its own scripting system and relies on external files extensively. These aren't necessarily good things by themselves, but they allow the game to be so pretty, replayable, continuous and straight-up fun. The sword system is probably the best yet, from the graphical effects to the runic augmentation system. Though there were some bugs, the game was completely beatable on its own. There can be nothing less than a Perfect Score for this game's technique, minus a point for minor bug trouble.

Story: 35/50.

Hooray! Finally, somewhere I can pry into this game. Okay, so what is exactly up with Carol and Amelia? Why is Carol just barking random facts at Amelia the whole game? Eventually their relationship deepens and they start to remember their previous lives, and it turns out they're girlfriends. Then their random fact barking turns into a collective effort to try and figure out what the heck is going on.

Alright, so the actual cave itself. When I started the game I figured I was in someone's (the protagonist's) mind. Essentially, the whole game cast me in a shadow of doubt until the end where it decided to lay on me the fact that I had to kill a giant floating eye which was God, who had created this world and trapped the three two girls in it.

There is also an overtone of some sort of Illuminati New World Order style "interconnection" of large and small patterns, of phenomena of different magnitudes being somehow linked—and that culminates into a very sci-fi explanation of the magic runes when Eye-God spills it about the symbols being some sort of magical physical anomaly in this world. That was pretty cool, I suppose.

A lot of the dialogue that randomly appears seems to flesh out Carol as a sort of know-it-all and Amelia as mostly a confused protagonist that can't get her head straight. There are some funny lines, though... Or at least they were funny to me:

Some dialogue; Carol ranting about birds, flight patterns and physics.
Some dialogue; Amelia: 'Oh my god, I hate birds.'

Don't we all... Wait, who is it that's always going on about birds again...?

All in all, the story was just "something to read" between hitting things with swords, but it sort of worked and tried very well to develop into something by the end of the game.

Sound: 25/40.

The music for the game, though from an unknown source, is well chosen. It has an air of mystery about it. It can get a bit repetitive, though, since the game takes at least 40 minutes to complete the first time.

The real offender here is the sound effects, which are VERY loud and become incredibly grating--especially the 'Frozen' and 'Enemy Death' sound effects, which are comical historic stock sound effects. They play very loud and very often, making it a good idea to turn down (or turn off) sound effects in the game.

Total: 325/400.

80525: Texts From the Future

Topic: Time Travel • Class: Theme-Heavy

80525's title screen

Overview

Synopsis. "Texts From the Future" is an unfortunately short nostalgic adventure-inventory game.

Plot Summary. You play as mini-mart owner Nick Baker who one day receives a text from himself. Following it, he jumps in a trash can to travel through time. He runs on an item-swapping adventure through time to fix things that time-travelling evil aliens have messed up.

Theme: 85/100.

Of course, this game clearly centers around time travel. The story, the mechanics, even the "slightly parallel" music tracks hint to this. I just wish it was used more. For example, solving paradoxes or doing things in the past should have affected the present and the future. There could have been a lot more cool stuff done with the inventory aspect as well and time-based inventory puzzles are the coolest. Mostly the trashcan seems to act as a transporter between three places, not between three times; it's rare that the times really interact. More integration of the theme would have equaled a 100.

Dialogue with a trashcan in 80525: 'You hop in the trashcan. Adventure awaits!'
“You hop in the trashcan. Adventure awaits!”

Gameplay: 30/90.

Here's where I'm taking off most of my points for game length. The game was far too short, despite the gameplay being fun and smooth. Gameplay is, of course, defined as the 'fun factor,' the 'meat and potatoes,' and there just wasn't enough to be satisfied.

There was also a bit of a problem with difficulty. The game was too easy. I'm a rube with no sort of puzzle-sense whatsoever, so the fact that I could find my way around and know where everything goes is a bit of a tell.

The player's speed was a bit slow, as well, but that is probably fine for a game of this pace.

Graphics: 70/70!

YOWZA. These Graphics Are HOT. 'Nuff said. Your choice of palettes is excellent, the game's characters are beautifully drawn and evoke a feeling of nostalgia. Even your simple minimal title screens are excellently done. There's nothing to change and it couldn't have been done better. Perfect Score. I want to see more of this.

Technique 40/60.

"What Robotic you had here worked well, but I'm going to have to take off points just for the sheer fact that there wasn't much to program." If this sounds familiar, welcome to Shortgamesville -- population: you. Look, everything worked perfectly, but because I'd think most of this game exists as Robotic, any sort of penalties to the length of the game apply here as well. Perhaps try to get in some more time to work on the meat game somehow... its length was disappointing, and the systems you had could have went towards a longer game.

You used a lot of good practices here too, such as the external files containing the bulk of the data. A couple things, though; there were a couple dialogue bugs (go to the innkeeper and [Look] at him), and perhaps the Use/Talk, Item and Look could have been merged into a single function.

Story: 20/50.

One more area where I deduct points for length—this time not arbitrarily, but because the story is never really resolved in a satisfying way. You are sent to stop aliens that are meddling with time... but you really have no idea who they are. You also get your alien flower from behind some random door, which triggers the final NPC to appear who ends the game. Mostly, the game leaves a lot of questions to be answered, and it's hard to write that up as a complete story. Who are the aliens? Where's this flower come from? You do find out why the aliens are messing with you. But then why don't they just kill everyone!?

Oh wait, that IS explained:

Premise of 80525's story. 'I don't get it--why don't they just [...] kill all these people [...]?'
Premise of 80525's story. 'They're very thorough, but they're not very bright.'

Sound: 40/40!

Wow, this music is really good. Clearly, it was original music made for the game. The title theme is very mysterious and fitting. The three eras also have their own musical theme, and they are different but have a very parallel feeling, which really helped the feel and the Theme of the game too! The sounds are also fittingly short and sweet, with some simple sfxr beeps for stuff. Very good job with the soundtrack. Perfect Score.

Total: 285/400.

Final Tally

Rank Team Game Theme GPlay Graph Tech. Story Sound TOTAL
★ 1st 79428 no True(n) 60 81 65 59 35 25 325
  2nd 29427 Subspace Janitor 85 77 53 39 25 40 319
  3rd 80525 Texts From the Future 85 30 70 40 20 40 285
  4th 07729 They Called Me Mad 10 78 45 48 30 30 241
  5th 19538 i0N-DWN 8 13 35 24 12 30 122
☹ DQ 35487 Jared 52: Quantum Hell


Stacked bar graph of scores

Plaintext version

#   Team  Game Title               Theme    Gameplay  Graphics  Technique  Story     Sound     Total
1   79428 no True(n)                 60        81        65        59        35        25       325
2   29427 Subspace Janitor           85        77        53        39        25        40       319
3   80525 Texts From the Future      85        30        70        40        20        40       285
4   07729 They Called Me Mad         10        78        45        48        30        30       241
5   19538 i0N-DWN                     8        13        35        24        12        30       122
DQ  35487 Jared 52: Quantum Hell

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Closing Statement

Thank you for participating in this DoZ!

Of course, the real reason everyone wanted these scores was for the content of the reviews and not for the numbers themselves. ...right? Either way, this is a DoZ I should have participated in. The problem is that I was currently working on a project of my own that involves time travel heavily and I feel like this project and my DoZ entry would have cannibalized each other.

I would like to see more varied teams next time; something new would be very welcome. Everyone has their standby team builds, like Val and I back when she used MegaZeux, but the first time I branched out and worked with Ashley and G I remember having a blast and nearly winning too. I would especially like to see i0N-DWN's author(s) work with someone such as They Call Me Mad's author(s). Some people have an incredible artistic sense that limits their capacity to create games with a sense of perfectionism. And some have the ability to make a game that is well-coded and rigid but lacking in style and ideas. True DoZ perfection, from a team composition point of view, is a mixture of new and old ideas. You need the experimental, visionary bohemians and the experienced, time-worn programmers alike. Put those two together and you each have the perfect solution for what keeps the other from making a perfect game.

Enough is enough, right? Hopefully next time we'll have more entries, as summer is a substantially less busy time and there's less excuse for "the real world" to get in the way. See you in the summer!

♥, CJA

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