Summer 2012 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:wildweasel

Weasel SummerDsDoZ2012 sheet

Summer 2012 DsDoZ

Topics: Individuality (abstract) and Alternate History (concrete)

Hosted by KKairos; this judging sheet written by wildweasel on 7/7/2012

A Foreword, Yet Again

This DoZ might not have been quite as huge of a clusterfuck as some of them were, but there was a scary part just after the competition where people were uploading their entries to an FTP that wasn’t quite set up for us, or something. Only now, about half a day after the competition’s end, do I have the games to play and judge. That’s alright though, because for once, I’m not going to just blow through all of these in one day. (And from the sound of things, I’m still going to end up being the first judge to turn in results...but why do I care? It’s not a friggin’ contest. Well, it kind of is. Just not like that. *cough*)

#20027 - Wild Fire

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Unspecified, assuming Theme-Light.

This entry screams “Maxim” to me - the old-school arcade action, the flashy colored bullets, relatively smooth movement, and strict adherence to normal MZX graphical conventions. Let’s face it, the dude knows his arcade gameplay.

(template: theme-light)

Theme - 10/20

I gotta admit, World War II was pretty much exactly what I had in mind when I suggested the Alternate History topic to KKairos, but I really must be honest here, there is virtually nothing World War II to be seen aside from the story text, since all of the enemy fighters you’ll fight are far more sci-fi (but this is justified in the story text by saying the Japanese got them through unknown means...time portal may actually be the thing in play, here...)

Gameplay - 100/120

This game plays as a horizontal scrolling shooting game (or “hori-shmup” as certain forums might call it). Your “hybrid craft” can transform back and forth between jet mode and mecha mode at the press of a button, and launch a gigantic wall of missiles with the Bomb key. The overall feel of this one reminds me of the Sega Master System game, TransBot.

However, there is a slightly questionable move with the game design here. Every stage requires you to meet a score quota, or you are required to play the level over again. I’d say this is an unpleasant reminder of Cave’s games, but I actually haven’t played any of Cave’s games, so that is likely inaccurate...however, I still don’t really like it; I feel that if I managed to survive the level without dying, I should be allowed to progress regardless. It’s like being told by your commanding officer, “Well, you got through that enemy blockade without getting shot, but you only managed to kill three baddies, so we’re gonna make you go back there until you’ve killed more.”

But really, though, I don’t have any complaints about movement, shooting, and the general feel of gameplay. I just wish the score quota system weren’t in here. Perhaps you could have altered it so that the level just keeps going infinitely until you’ve scored enough points, and then the boss shows up?

Graphics - 65/90

No surprises from Maxim here - just solid character work and a palette that is not unkind to the eyes. I am particularly amused by the mecha characters, which are apparently supposed to be carrying guns, but it looks more to me like they’re just folding their arms.

Technique - 70/80

There is but one presentation issue I have with this, and that is that death just immediately redirects to Game Over instead of showing you exploding or something similar. It’s rather jarring and gives me very little chance to see what it was that killed me. Aside from that, programming work is fairly solid.

Story - 25/50

Alternate World War II is probably one of the most classic sub-genres of the alternate history mold. Everything from figuring out how to kill Hitler early, to making sure he survives another year, to what if the Manhattan Project didn’t exist, to what if Pearl Harbor never happened, etc. In this case, Japan is attacking the Eastern Front, and being Japan, they have jet planes that turn into mechs (how very Macross).

Sound - 25/40

A handful of Amiga-esque selections for music, and sound effects once again provided by a synthesizer, providing a classic Apogee shareware game feel.

#24966 - Hipster Quest

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Heavy

It’s not often, strangely, that a “retro” title patterns itself after the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which for those that weren’t British in the 1980’s, was an 8-bit home computer that was primarily known for essentially acting like a really old, lower-resolution version of MZX. There were a number of famous Spectrum games like Jet Set Willy...but that’s apparently not what was in mind when Hipster Quest was made.

Theme - 15/100

The “hipster credo” is basically “I liked ____ before it became mainstream”; if a given interest is not unique to the person, it is no longer cool. So I suppose “individuality” could be a decently fitting topic for this...it expresses individuality by sucking in a unique way.

Gameplay - 5/90

Virtually none. It’s one of those “touch everything!” games, but without the benefit that previous genre entries had, i.e. writing that was worth a crap. The game ends as suddenly as it begins, with a trite little message about how if you don’t feel victorious, you never will, or something like that.

Graphics - 5/70

While it does remind me of the ZX Spectrum, it does so more in a manner befitting of Don't Buy This, the infamous compilation of terrible games. The graphics are mostly black shapes on light backgrounds, and I fail to see any real artistic merit to it at all - it’s probably this awful on purpose.

Technique - 10/60

It didn’t crash. This is a rarity in that this is the only time which I would have been happier if it had.

Story - 5/50

Story? What story? Was that supposed to be a story? Still, it could have been worse; it could have been about ponies.

Sound - 0/30

I ordinarily award pity points here to games that go completely without sound, reasoning that I only award zeroes to games whose sound effects inflicted physical pain. This is one of those games. The ZX Spectrum loading noise really should never be heard again.

Total - 40/400

A mere ten percent score to the game that I am glad I was not wearing headphones for.

#30154 - PRESIDENT SKELETON

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Light

Theme - 1/20

Is there something historical here? All I see is a skeleton killing a robot to win the presidency...again...I guess. This would have gotten at least a few points if the author had even bothered to say like “IN THE YEAR 1984” or something like that...there’s only a bit of alternate, and no history, therefore this doesn’t get much at all.

Gameplay - 15/120

Typical built-in-style MZX action game, right down to the boss consisting mainly of GO RANDNB. Random explosions. Lasts less than a few minutes. I’ve spent more time writing this paragraph than I did playing the game, and that is really saying something.

Graphics - 25/90

While the actual game aspect is pretty terrible (being primarily made of default char set), the BMP images used for the story segments are not bad, so this at least gets some points for that. Sadly, a few cutscene images aren’t really enough to keep it up.

Technique - 10/80

The robots on the boss board are still visible. The BMP-to-MZX loading is really the only impressive bit here, and really, how many times have we seen that done already?

Story - 15/50

Robot is going to win the election. The only way you can prevent this is by killing him - which might be illegal, except skeletons don’t leave fingerprints. Beyond this initial concept, there’s some ham-tastic writing for the dialogue between Skeleton and Robot...that’s really it. Earns a few extra points for making probably the longest chain of “bone” jokes on one screen that I’ve ever seen.

Sound - 20/40

Chippy music for most of the game, and then the boss fight has Second Reality playing in the background...great song, yeah, but many, many others before you also thought the same, and it is now a cliché.

#49932 - Thanatos Insignia 2

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Light (revised due to pressure to read the goddamn readme file)

And I’m reasonably sure this one has Lancer involved...also, I’m pretty sure this is the first time that a Day of Zeux entry has been a sequel (if we had the anonymity rule in effect still, this would probably kill it, but thankfully we don’t).

Theme - 2/20

Lancer and Lachesis were hinting on IRC that the theme would become evident by the final boss. I never made it there. I suppose “individuality” could be justified in the RPG level-up system, in that every player has a unique character build, but if you ask me, that’s kind of stretching the definition.

Gameplay - 80/120

Really impressed with how this feels. It’s an action-RPG, emphasis on the action. The control layout seems to indicate that you can shoot in eight directions, but this isn’t really so much an aiming system as it is a way to influence the auto-aim, since your attacks will generally just fire off at the nearest enemy. I was slightly confused at first that both the melee and ranged attacks could be charged, but once I figured that out, I was slaughtering giant faces and tentacle things...and Tom. Yes, for some reason, the boss fights in this game are versus the “faces” of popular websites like MySpace and Wikipedia (though I must admit, dueling a money-grasping Jimbo Wales is somewhat cathartic).

A big complaint I have with this, though, falls to a rather common complaint with many DoZ entries, and that’s the length, or rather, how long it is. How does one make a DoZ entry that takes more than 15 minutes to complete? Answer: padding. The enemies have plenty of health, and the spawn rate goes through the roof after you beat Jimbo, making it just as much a fight to stay alive as it is to clear enough of a path to get through. I mean, as games go, this is better and more fun than a lot of DoZ entries I’ve played, but I really wish the enemies spawned a bit less often. One boon, I suppose, is that the screen is cleared of baddies when you level up, but later in the game this happens so rarely that I couldn’t count on it happening.

Another issue I have, and this is nearly the same one as with Maxim’s entry above, is that Game Over happens way too suddenly - no low-health warnings, no sounds, just screen cuts black and says Game Over. The chaos of the game really distracts me from the all-important task of actually watching my health, so I end up just suddenly dying for what feels like no reason at all. Thank you, at least, for not disabling save games. (why is that even allowed in MZX, by the way...)

Full disclosure: I didn’t finish this game. I can only take so much of this crazy enemy spawning and I keep dying quite a lot.

Graphics - 83/90

A muted color palette combined with some pretty nice scenery characters, a generally well-animated player character, and a handful of enemy sprites that at times are pretty weird. Enemies range from weird smiley things to bigger less-smiley things to spidercrabthings to tentacle monsters and eventually Tom from MySpace. No idea who the final boss is, because I didn’t make it that far.

Technique - 60/80

The other judges did report seeing enemies spawning in walls, but I hadn’t seen it myself. Maybe it only happens late-game. The team also apparently let a crippling bug with the final boss slip in, but since they put the fix (which was very easy to apply) into the Quick Fixes thread, I won’t be taking points for that. I just really think that they should have toned down the enemy spawning. I’m told the spawning system will actually stop the enemies spawning if the player kills enough without leaving their current 5x5 square, but I think this should have been raised to a 25x25 square, or possibly the size of the screen, because again, there are waaaay too many enemies spawning that are too hard to kill in a timely fashion.

Story - 10/50

I have no clue what this game is about. The bosses I fought both spouted out nonsensical dialogue before the battle. And from what I’ve heard, it probably isn’t much clearer by the end. But it could have been worse - they could have made the main character a Mary Sue self-insert. (Actually wait, I have no evidence that this isn’t what what they were going for! OH NOOOOO)

Sound - 25/40

Backed with some sort of orchestral score (my guess is it’s public domain classical music), the sound effects are meaty and work well for the game’s feel, though it’s hard to hear the music over the sound. The Flay glyph causes quite a cascade of sounds. I wonder if this would sound better or worse without MZX’s strange sound buffer limit in place...

#69245 - Final Kamikaze

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Theme - 10/20

Another alternate World War II, again involving the Japanese, except this time actually casting you as a Japanese pilot that intends to stop the first atomic bomb from being dropped. I suppose this one is more committed to its WW2 setting, though.

Gameplay - 15/120

This one’s only a step away from an old-school MZX-style shooter, except you can only shoot to the right. Also, why call it Final Kamikaze if you can’t actually, y’know, be a kamikaze? You can’t even summon the fabled Divine Wind that gives it its name. Default MZX bullets make it difficult to hit anything, since you’re more likely to destroy a bullet than a plane, thanks to the bulletspam. No on-screen health indicator means Game Over is just as sudden as anything else in this contest so far.

Graphics - 10/90

I think there are only maybe two custom characters in the set: the clouds, and the plane (the same character is used for both player and enemy planes, so the enemies appear to be flying backwards). But it still looks better than Hipster Quest.

Technique - 10/80

Programming’s pretty simplistic; there are probably only six robots on the board. One controls the player, two are random enemies, two of them are for the fake-scrolling, and the last checks the victory condition (i.e. if you’ve killed 25 planes to spawn the bomber yet). It seems bug-free, but it’s hard not to be, considering how simple it is.

Story - 10/50

You are the last Japanese fighter pilot. Stop Little Boy and Fat Man from being dropped on your country and turn the tide of the war. Pretty serious-sounding stuff, but aside from a couple of text blurbs, there’s not much here. Then again, I suppose it could have been worse...it could have involved Giant Robots.

Sound - 10/40

The sound is that one overused .44 Magnum sound that’s been in hundred of Doom mods back in 1996, and the music is really overdramatic and a bit irritating after a while. At least it wasn’t as bad as Hipster Quest.

#74588 - Spirit Quest

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Light

This one’s a full-on RPG (I never understood why people try to churn these out in 24 hours...) with a stats system similar to Final Fantasy 2 or the SaGa games, where you build stats by using the actions associated with them.

Theme - 15/20

Here, the author expresses individualism via purity; the villain treats living beings as his personal cattle (as one character puts it). The protagonist, Crohn, is the last “pure” being. The actual word “individuality” is tossed around quite a bit (get a thesaurus!), but of all the ways I’ve seen this topic expressed, this is probably one of the better ones. I’m just glad the author decided to pick the theme-light scoresheet.

Gameplay - 70/120

The RPG battle system is not complicated. You have three actions (technically four, but the fourth one just “confirms” whichever attack you’ve selected): attack with your weapon (a non-elemental physical attack), attack with your Spirit (elemental, useful to exploit weaknesses), and run from the battle (which makes the enemy just disappear on the spot - it’s important to run from battles on occasion, not just to not get your ass kicked but also to build your Speed rating).

There is an inherent flaw here, in that you can only build your Speed up by running from battles. Speed is a massively important stat, because if it’s too low, enemies will soon be able to score consecutive hits on you, up to the double-digits (one enemy hit me twelve times before I could react at all). Also, health is limited, since the only way to heal is by picking up flowers from the ground in the overworld map. This makes it more difficult than it needs to be, because you can’t really do much in the way of grinding (since there are only so many flowers around to pick up), and enemies will always respawn.

Graphics - 70/90

Actually reasonably impressive, even in the face of Temporal Insignia 2 up there. The spirits look kind of like oversized sperm, and I initially mistook the Firebirds for butterflies, but the environments at least don’t look terribly monotonous, and the important things stand apart nicely from the background.

Technique - 40/80

Had the game actually freeze on me in a dialogue after beating Jalvech. I’m pretty sure I applied the hotfixes correctly...there are other issues I found here, too. The Equip menu, while it does try to tell you you’re short on a certain stat to equip an item, lets the message pass by too quickly, making it difficult to figure out why I couldn’t equip the Shortsword I found in the first board. The game just seems horribly broken. I think this author should have spent more time on the bugs and less on the music.

Story - 30/50

While not terribly well expressed (the dialogue and general quality of writing needs some work), Spirit Quest’s story is unique and not extremely overbearing, nor is it unceremoniously shunted into the background. It’s not really that irritating, either.

Sound - 27/40

The music’s actually kind of alright, but really short, and there aren’t very many tracks. The sounds seem to be generally played through PC Speaker SFX, which makes them difficult to hear under the music. The “level up” sound seems thrown-together and not especially...level-uppy.

Total - 252/400

They really should have taken more time for bug-testing. This one really could have gone somewhere, were it not for the game breaking issues.

#74770 - Ununhexium

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Light

Theme - 10/20

Individuality expressed through being alone. The all-caps introduction message sure does make a point of this. And then there’s all the skeletons. What is it with all the skeletons in these games? Some cultural thing I haven’t picked up on? I...guess it works, but...

Gameplay - 65/120

A sort of lite-Rogue game with a mouse-aiming system. Your goal is to collect 30 squares of Ununhexium, which is radioactive and will slowly kill you if you carry too much. You can counteract that by collecting the green squares of Ununoctium every so often, which resets the radiation counter to zero and stops the poisoning effect. You kill skeletons by clicking on them twice. The mechanics are honestly simple enough that I didn’t have much trouble with this one; I do notice that the dungeon doesn’t get randomized, so there’s little point to continuing once you’ve completed it (unless you want to beat your score - the game helpfully keeps track of those, but in a separate MZX file for some reason). Since the game is inherently turn-based and the dungeon layout never changes, this is almost so easy it’s funny. The most difficult part of it was aiming at the skeletons, which is also laughably easy if they are stuck behind walls or pickup items.

Graphics - 55/90

Simple, effective, no-nonsense. Not as pretty as some of the others above, but no real complaints here either. The skeletons look better than the protagonist in PRESIDENT SKELETON (outside of the cutscenes, I mean).

Technique - 70/80

Really my only complaint here is that, were it not for the high score sheet saying I “survived”, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish winning from losing. Same music plays, game suddenly ends and asks me for my name.

Story - 12/50

Your crew is poisoned, and Ununhexium is the only antidote. Therefore, you must venture down into some dungeon to pick up dangerous amounts of it (that are arguably more lethal than the poison that’s killing your crew) and not get killed by skeletons. Could have been worse - could have been a Kingdom Hearts sequel.

Sound - 35/40

I like the old-school FM sound this has. Sound effects are all OPL2-derived and I rather like that. The music is also pretty cool, and the high scores music almost makes me want to play it again. Really could have used an alternative track for victory, though, to set it apart from losing.

Total - 247/400

Not bad, actually.

#80483 - DUI 20XX

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Theme - 86/100

Hitler apparently won the war (boy, isn’t that the point of reference for a lot of historical changes?), and it’s now 20XX and our protagonist is going to go back in time and Change Things. Which things will change is not made entirely clear, just that he’ll be “in charge” - though since Joe Protagonist is completely drunk at the time, his plans probably have little chance of actually working (let alone being executed, or even remembered in the morning). This team seems to have had the most fun with the theme, and the historical settings of 20XX, 1918, and...er, 2012, are distinctive enough from each other that the time travel bit doesn’t seem like it was shoehorned in at the last second to make it relevant to the topic.

Gameplay - 80/90

This is a surprisingly fun overhead racing game in the fine tradition of World Rally, Super Sprint, Great 1000 Miles Rally, and the like. While the car graphics only have eight rotations, the typical ASCII-resolution choppiness is remedied by a pair of directional indicators. The far, lighter-colored one indicates which direction you’re facing, while the near, dark-colored one indicates which direction you’re actually moving. The gas/brake pedals and steering are “analog” in the way a Super Nintendo racing game would have been analog, i.e. the longer you hold the key, the harder they’re pressed, so subtle steering requires button-mashing (not that this is a problem - it could have been much worse; it could have been Inmate2993’s clunky old driving-around-town engine!). The state of the steering and pedals is helpfully displayed on the screen along with a bar graph representing your speed, which came in really handy in the 2012 track.

The game offers three tracks in sequence, in which you are required to complete an increasing number of laps within a time limit or else need to repeat the track from the beginning. My one problem with this is that the map for the track is only displayed once, on the screen where you select your car - each course actually took me a number of retries while I actually figured out the layout of the track. I think that’s honestly more my fault, but I really wish there was an on-screen map during the race.

Graphics - 65/70

Actually quite well drawn! The track scenery is not boring, and there’s a really neat system in place where your car actually leaves skid marks when braking or driving off the road. The cars are really well drawn too, but if I have one major complaint (actually not so major, just a huge nitpick), it’s that selecting the different cars does not actually affect the color of your car during the race. Or perhaps that was planned but never implemented. If this feature were cut to make time for improving the physics, I do not blame the team for that decision.

Technique - 55/60

Outside of a small quick-fix that I had to apply after the fact (no points docked there, by the way - it was an easy fix!), this game is actually really competently coded and I don’t think I encountered any huge, game-breaking glitches. There was one rather amusing moment on the 20XX track where I accidentally wedged myself between two obstacles and crashed so many times that my car shot out at a speed well in excess of the car’s actual top speed. I think that’s hilarious enough that it might as well be a proper feature, even though the car is really hard to control (and in fact it took about three screens to brake to a halt from that). I do wonder if it was intentional that the lap times remain on screen for the cutscenes, and speaking of the cutscenes, I really wish I could speed through the dialogue!

Story - 22/50

Space Hitler’s moon regime really sucks, and it’s up to Joe Protagonist to go back to 1918 and get massively drunk. Then he hits 2012 and goes bar-hopping to collect a bunch of little umbrellas, and then back to 20XX to get home. And then, while drunk, he comes up with a Grand Scheme to take over the world - much like half the drunks I’ve met in real life. I really give this one points for being silly in a way that isn’t irritating.

Sound - 20/30

This one’s loaded with Sega music from classic arcade games like Outrun and After Burner II. I really like those soundtracks. But there’s a lot that’s missing here - I really wish this game had some sound effects, like engine noises, brakes squealing, fenders crumpling when I inevitably park myself up a tree. The Sega music does fill what would otherwise be a blank void, but it really needed some awesome car sounds!

#82246 - Argrablehuble

Topic: Alternate History

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Light

This one’s so unfinished that the only really playable bit is a sliding tile puzzle...

Theme - 5/20

The author jokingly claims that they had a better entry that was lost in an alternate history. The sliding tile puzzles (argh) are purported to restore the history, but once they’re all finished, the entry is still lost and the game is unfinished. =P

Gameplay - 30/120

I’m pretty terrible at sliding tile puzzles, especially 5x5 ones, but this one is at least not implemented badly. Arrow keys move the tiles, and you can press H to see what it’s supposed to look like when you’re done. Or you can do like I did and press S to skip it.

I just kinda wish there was more to this than the slider.

Graphics - 45/90

The puzzles are pretty much bitmap images converted to display in SMZX mode. There’s a ZZT-looking one, a photograph of a man on the moon, and a kind of ugly-looking screenshot from Ocarina of Time. There’s also a sketch in there that doesn’t look too bad, actually, but that’s just because that sort of thing seems to convert better. There’s also some tile graphics in the unfinished boards, but since those boards are unfinished, we don’t really see much more than a couple things.

Technique - 25/80

The sliding tile puzzle was implemented pretty cleanly, with a much-appreciated skip button, but this seems to be the victim of bad time management.

Story - 5/50

Not really much to see here. I can only really see what might have been - a slightly alright idea involving history having been erased, which could have been cool if it were actually implemented correctly. As it stands here, though, I’m just glad it wasn’t a campaign setting for F.A.T.A.L. (for the love of God, don’t look that up!).

Sound - 25/40

The music’s pretty cool, I suppose. Could have used swishy-clicky noises for the tile sliding though...

#83889 - Weltschmerz

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Theme-Heavy

Here is another unfinished one...

Theme - 10/100

There really isn’t much here that indicates towards the theme at all...not even direct name-dropping the theme. Though I suppose I’ll have to give some pity points here for the fact that at least this is pretty clearly made during the competition, and not just borrowing a previously (un)finished game and slipping in some topic references.

Gameplay - 10/90

There’s some walking around and touching things, then you have to mash Spacebar a bunch of times to pull a crate. Then you just walk to the right, touch some other stuff, and the game ends. I do appreciate the attempts at making a more in-depth story in these kinds of games, but seriously, you only have 24 hours to do everything, so you might as well spend some time making something playable. That said, I do hope the author takes the time to finish this outside the competition, because it might go somewhere.

Graphics - 55/70

Reasonably good character work, not a lot of animation aside from the scrolling train background. The selection of color seems to favor grey and a shade of dark red, which implies the author intended to make this bloody at some point. It does feel like there needed to be some more spit-and-polish in places, though, with some visual glitching happening when jumping train cars at the “end” of the game.

Technique - 25/60

While what’s here is not unstable code, I think there are some places where there could have been more clarity. When pulling the crate, all the game shows is “[SPACE] PULL CRATE” - the word SPACE changes colors when you press it. I at first thought I was supposed to hold Space and use the arrow keys to pull the crate, but apparently what the author wanted me to do was rapid-fire the Spacebar a lot. Do what console games do here, and have a little animated icon representing the space bar being pressed up and down repeatedly, so it’s more clear that you’re supposed to mash that thing for all you’re worth. But what docks the most points here is that this is another victim of poor time management. Spend less time on your epic storyline and more time actually making the game.

Story - 25/50

This author really seems to be focusing more on the story than anything else. You’re a rebel (or something) and you (and a friend?) apparently volunteered to destroy a train. But as you’re crossing the train to get to your objective, your character is apparently having second thoughts about whether it’ll be worth it, especially since everyone on board will die. Unfortunately, that’s where the story stops; again, I really hope this author takes time after the competition to finish this one up, because it could be an interesting story to play through.

Sound - 15/30

The music is halfway from other games; the “main” music is E1M5 from Doom, and the actually quite tense orchestral bit during the crate-pulling sequence is from Indigo Prophecy. Good pick there, but I think maybe they should have picked something a bit less obvious than Doom music (though at least that’s one of the better tracks!). Not really any sound effects except for a couple of event scenes.

#85538 - KEN: A Matter of Individuality

Topic: Individuality

Scoresheet: Assumed Theme-Heavy

Theme - 18/100

The theme is named in the game’s title. The bare framework of the story does seem to indicate that the protagonist is trying to get out of the shadow of his older siblings, but this never actually happens in the game because, yep, it’s unfinished. I wonder how it is that the last three entries are all unfinished.

Gameplay - 10/90

The entire game consists of touching things and waiting for the ssslllooowww text lines to go past. I ended up setting MZX’s speed to 3 for the game because I’m an impatient bastard. Oh, and lo and behold, only the first board got done, and barely at that. But hell...at least this wasn’t Hipster Quest! (Oh dear.)

Graphics - 3/70

ZZT-derived ASCII graphics and one of the ghastliest color palettes I think I’ve seen this whole competition (excepting Hipster Quest...). All the colors seem to get lost in each other, which is not a good thing if you want the player to notice things. However, I give it pity points for - once again - not being Hipster Quest.

Technique - 10/60

This is really elementary programming work here. How long has this guy been making MZX games? Also, in order for the “To Be Continued” screen to actually show up, I had to go into the editor and rename the board; since it was in the Quick Fixes thread, that won’t be docking it any points...not that there’s much to dock from. I was able to interrupt some sequences (like picking up the stuff out of Ken’s drawer) by bringing up the in-game menu and trying to sell my 0 Credits, which meant touching the drawer again. These kind of situations really could have used a text box instead of the message row and a LockPlayer command.

Story - 5/50

Ken goes on a journey of self-discovery. There’s so little to work with here that, in all honesty, it’s no wonder this game’s author fell asleep. =P (note: I am joking here, so Zappman, please do not lynch me.) However, it is loads better than James Patterson’s “Maximum Ride.”

Sound - 15/30

How many times have I heard halucin8.mod in my career as an MZX community member? Answer: too damn many. Thankfully, it only plays on the title screen - there is a quota here of one .mod file for each board, and the one on the main board is generally inoffensive but otherwise kind of unremarkable. I imagine that, had I had the chance, I probably would have listened to the track in question back in the early 90’s back when Dad downloaded them from BBS lines.

The Standings

Team	Title	Total Score
80483	DUI 20XX	328
20027	Wild Fire	295
49932	Thanatos Insignia 2	260
74588	Spirit Quest	252
74770	Ununhexium	247
83889	Weltschmerz	140
82246	Argrablehuble	135
30154	PRESIDENT SKELETON	86
69245	Final Kamikaze	65
85538	KEN: A Matter of Individuality	61
24966	Hipster Quest	40