This year we had a couple of outstanding games, a few decentish games, and then a whole busload of failures and gags. Here are Duvel's scores for all of them. (Special thanks to CJA for being a dude and giving me a template)
MEGAZEUX
Ha, ha. hahahaha. HAHHAHAHAHAHL:JFS:LDK. No seriously this is a version of MZX 2.83 for DOS. This has nothing to do with immortality.
I'm actually willing to give you something on this one since apparently the exe actually WORKS (coruppted config.txt aside). Not that it will help you.
The fact that it opens up and you can see shit is GREAT! The fact that there aren't actually any graphics provided besides the main graphics is bad. Also there's that irritating mouse cursor.
0_o and Good Job to you. You have backported a port. It's like DosDoom, except useless.
This is the story of a sad sad DoZ.
Sound doesn't work, so you don't get any sound cookies.
Disqualified for being not an MZX game (though I guess technically it is MZX). Thanks Mr_Alert.
Game by Grease Monkey
Immortality is represented in the game, but barely. The title and the bit of exposition before each level is the extent of its presence. However, I have to give bonus points for actually using both topics like I asked :).
The game is a simple real time strategy game with a mouse interface. Left click and drag to select, right click on ground to move and right click on enemies to shoot. Two types of units were available for all factions (and there were a few factions): grenadiers and regular troopers armed with rifles. There were lots of irritances, though. The AI for the unit formation was horrible, so most of the time I would click on an enemy for my squad to attack and they'd line up single file in front of him like he was an ATM, taking shots like crazy. The code for the grenades would often leave unexploded grenades just lying around, not doing anything. Also, I couldn't figure out terrain at first, because it all looked the same, so I ran into mounds of dirt or mountains or something for a while. There are no ways to heal troops or get any more after the ones you have die; it's just Game Over, and it can be easy to see that screen. It's not a horrible effort but it's still a rough game.
Contrast is very lacking in this game. The units for each faction are all the same character, but at the least have wildly different colors to keep them separate. What's not contrasting is the terrain; as stated above I couldn't make out what was what, and where I could actually walk. The terrain was all the same character, which is a horrible lazy job. The unit characters were nice, however, and the menu and title screen were both well designed, which makes up slightly for the rest.
I'm glad someone decided to be a bit original, and this is a pretty neat idea overall. The intro was rather witty, too, and there was even a helpful "How To Play" menu option. Unfortunately I have to deduct quite a bit for the unpolished nature of the maps and the engine, as well as the shortness of the game.
This game doesn't really focus on story, so the story that's there fits fine. There's some silly community-referencing dialogue about something with CJA and Wervyn and nanomachines of Lancer for immortality, but honestly you won't care to remember the details. I just remember the line about a man, another man, some other men, a few ex-men, and everyone else in the community. Not terribly deep or satisfying but worth enough chuckles for the points.
The music fit the non-serious atmosphere during the story stuff, and had an upbeat vibe for the combat. For the most part the sounds were good, but some of the attack sounds were very irritatingly unimpressive, causing some point docking.
Congrats, you are literally the only person to get this grade.
Engine and art by Madbrain
I really hate that this has to be DQed. There's just nothing to actually talk about theme-wise, though; the title alone isn't going to get you any points.
The game is missing sort of the entire rest of the game. You can pick one of the two drawn characters and play around with them in an unfinished fighting game engine. You can't turn around but you can move backwards and forwards. Each character uses the punch and kick buttons, and they both have 3 special moves. You don't have anything else you can do besides look at what could have been.
I can't give much in the way of a full score, because there are a lot of graphics missing. There's no stage at all, there's no hud details like a life bar (even if they wouldn't work anyway), and the color scheme is pretty much blue. However, the characters that are in the game are VERY well detailed and colored, so that boosts the score up quite a bit. The animations aren't quite so great, though.
I like to see new ideas, and a fighting game is a fairly bold one for a DoZ. Since he got character movement and attack operation done I'm rather impressed, even if he probably should have not bothered due to time constraints. Of course, it WAS still a rather foolish choice, as shown by the lack of an actual game.
There is no story, except the story of Madbrain's DoZ attempt.
The one song that's included isn't too bad, a nice heartpumping thing. However, it's the only audio in the entire game. And it loops constantly.
Pretty engine that looks like it could have been great but no dice.
Game by KKairos, aka thinks he's in a BKZX.
Oh dear. This game really should use the theme-light sheet, but KKairos so graciously forgot to actually put that on the game. Well, you play as a dragonthing trying to become immortal, and you do this by continually eating people to sustain your immortallness. I think that's worth a full 20 points. Oh wait, it's the theme-heavy sheet? 25 points.
I would love this game if it were in a BKZX. Unfortunately it's not, and we have higher standards here. It's like one of those defense games, except dumber because you don't even have much control over it. Just choose what upgrade you get when! In real time! But the categories for the upgrades make no sense, overall. I'm just pushing shit randomly. Oh, and the enemies all walk in a straight line. At the very least it's not too bugged, but it sure couldn't hold my interest long. I don't even know what wave I played to, I was so bored.
I'm using an irrational number for irrationally bad graphics. The title board is probably the best of the bunch, and it's practically empty. The first board is awful; you can walk around all over it, and it's just this ugly brown with a poor picture of a monster in a castle. I can't even tell what sort of monster he is. White text is overlayed on top of this. The gameplay board has all the stats just thrown up into a corner but the layout isn't too bad, what with the required-to-tap keys being highlighted. The characterset and palette are both original, though; the enemies are literally just grey smilies that march mindlessly on toward your strange red claw thingy that has a timed hit or something? The monster is the worst part, because I have no idea what he is. Also traffic around the claw thing gets clogged and looks awful.
If I could give negative points I would. KKairos you should have used this time for sleep or something :/.
Despite the rest of the game sucking the story was thought out a little bit more. You're a monster of some sort, and you've got this idea to become immortal by constantly feeding yourself via an open heart, but the heart slowly kills you (I guess because of the power of true love?). I just got an image of a fat person eating pizza to become immortal like this, but it's still a decent idea (the monster one, not the fat person one).
The one song in the game isn't too bad, but it's played constantly and is the only sound in the game. At least you probably won't play this game for too long.
>:(
Game by Logicow, who is not doing pixel perfect engine for once.
I must say that I'm glad someone in the theme-heavy department got a decent score in theme. The entire goal of the game centers around the immortality of King Yu; you've got to kill him, see, but it's kinda hard if he's immortal. Also he's weary because of the shit his kingdom has gone through. In fact, his entire kingdom is a bunch of skeletons, a herbalist, a necromancer, and whoever that guy in the shop is. Hence the suicidal thoughts. It's a good use of the theme, not terribly original but well executed.
Whee, I really liked this, actually. It plays like an oldschool Caverns-style Zeux game. You don't have a gun, though; you get a sword from the king, you get a TESLA GUN in the crypts, a bow and arrow in the gardens, and bombs from the shop. It's really Zelda like in that aspect, though you have immediate access to all of them as opposed to switching to them in a menu. The combat is actually rather good, though it can get very tough. The best way I could see to get through the game was to grind a bit for cash early and get tons of tesla ammo and the shield. The sword isn't terribly useful later on but it's your first weapon, and not bad. The bombs aren't regular Zeux/ZZT style bombs; you throw them, and they can't hurt you, thank god. The radius is actually circular, too, and it's wider. The bow is easily the best weapon in the game, as it can mow down an entire line of just about any enemy, and is indispensible during the boss fights. The tesla gun is sort of like the Knights of the Old Republic style Force Lightning: giant electric storm of death for several people, or skeletons in this case. The bosses are tough to make up for the powerful weaponry. The Necromancer in particular I had quite a hard time with, due to his habit of latching onto you and stealing like 20 hp. My biggest complaint is that it's a little less in-depth outside of the bosses; you can quickly cruise through most of the areas, and have little reason to return outside of going to the boss (except for one particular area with a bunch of respawning skeletons that you can use to grind coins). Also, I think the game was a little too hard on some parts, again the bosses. All things considered it was oldschool fun. Just remember to save.
The graphics for this game are disappointing compared to the gameplay. Logi interestingly chose to use the default ASCII charset instead of making his own, as well as the default palette. While I believe he used them creatively and extremely well, I feel that the game doesn't really fit well with the style he chose. At the very least he could have chosen to use the default MZX charset instead, because the game plays much more like a MegaZeux game than a ZZT game. Outside of that, the first section of the castle is rather bare compared to the other sections. I wouldn't mind seeing this remade with a different set of graphics.
This game is rather solid all around. There are only a few minor bugs that irk me: if you play with a speed of like 5 (which I did because I'm not great at Zeux stuff) you'll notice that there's a delay in the update of the bottom status stuff sometimes, and the coins broke custom floor a lot (which happens, I mean it's builtins). The major thing was difficulty, but it wasn't difficult enough to disuade me from playing.
The story was decent, though simple. King Yu is immortal by royal order and now he wants to die because his people are all dead (from a volcano, that apparently his big tower survived just fine, and they couldn't get in because? bit of a plot hole there). To kill him you have to kill his herbalist and his necromancer who are using their respective skills to keep him alive. After that he runs away? and then you kill him. A lot of the mood comes from little comment boxes that you can touch optionally, and they'll provide bits of backstory or tidbits about the level. I wasn't amazed but I enjoyed it well enough.
I think the sound was mostly spot on here. He used Castlevania style music for the walking around music, and a host of pc speaker sounds for the effects. The boss music disappointed me; I enjoyed fighting the herbalist and hearing the forest maze music from Super Mario RPG, but then hearing it for all the rest of the bosses jarred the mood. I think a global boss music could have worked fine if it weren't that one specifically. Also, there's no real game over music; it just uses the music you were hearing before you died. More Castlevania style music should go there, clearly.
Good show, Logi.
Game by asgromo/kom
There's an interesting plot that has major references to the immortality of the only other character besides the player. Also, for a while you're nigh immortal due to superpowers (though near the end when there are super hordes and your weapon is less usable that changes quite a bit).
The game plays like a platformer-shooter, but there are significant unique aspects to it. The first is your attack ability: an 8 way shooting system which improves as you kill more enemies. You get infinite ammo and it autofires more and more as you kill more enemies. Unfortunately after a point the calculations for how many bullets to show on screen at once start to bog down the game. By the time I finished it was practically a frame advance mode. The other unique aspect is the randomly generated dungeons. All 4 levels are generated from a set of pieces; I'm not entirely sure whether each level is winnable but I was able to make it through the game and beat it. There's a slight bug with this, however: there are sometimes unescapable pits, and some of the jumps required can be quite tough with the game's jumping engine. The controls felt decently solid, but it took me a while to figure out how to shoot as there's nothing in the game to tell me how. While the game starts out rather easy (especially after killing a few enemies and getting a proper autofire gun) it quickly becomes difficult as more and more monsters will generate in the halls. Level 4 literally filled each corridor from top to bottom with monsters. Luckily by that time you will have your matrix gun (because it slows you down via bug) and can actually handle them decently well. Also, your health regenerates, so as long as you can clear out a small space you can recover. The game gets kudos from me for having a full game which took me about 1-2 hours to complete (though I took a bad turn on the last level and had to backtrack quite a ways).
The graphics weren't terribly detailed but they were certainly manageable. The color scheme was appropriate and reasonable and the character designs were okay though indistinct. My biggest complaint is that on level 3, the enemies had the same color as the background walls, making them VERY hard to see. My favorite thing, however, was the awesome way the enemies exploded into confetti. When you start mowing down entire hordes you see lots of that to great effect.
While I'm impressed by the great engine and the well thought out dialogue and story, I'm not impressed by some of the bugs, which can be very distracting.
The dialogue is a little strange at times but I highly enjoyed it. The full story tells that of some sort of god creature that makes a robot guy go to the center of the earth to do something. It's better than it sounds. Quite in-depth for a game of this sort that's clearly gameplay driven.
I felt this game made amazing use of soundtrack to set the mood, and the sound effects were well used. The story music was a sort of soft contemplative song, and the level tracks (one for each) were upbeat. Definitely one of the best games music wise this DoZ.
kooky buggy fun
Butts lol
Hey there are 255 nanorobotz on the title board!
This is an unfinished game, but unlike Madbrain's or commodorejohn's there's not actually anything resembling a game yet. This is like a set of incomplete game resources as opposed to Madbrain's early alpha or john's tile engine. The title board has a sprite player engine with an npc, which freezes you after you touch him. When you hit play, you go to what appears to be a world map that you can look at a bit, but it's something that is better done in the editor. Nothing at all to see here.
Default pallette, single color title screen, and on the world map the same character is used for grass and water. Also, there's no beach between the two. The characters he has posted on the title screen actually look pretty neat, except they're kind pointless without anything else.
There's not a finished product. There's not even anything usable. No.
What's a story?
NONE. Actually I'm going to give this game a few points for sound just because that means no irritating looping mod.
so very sad and so very dumb
Video by some Japanese people
There is a dog head wut.
I hear watching tv is a common activity in Japan. I wonder if they would watch tv from MZX one day?
OOH LOOK SHINY
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (metroid prime)
Does someone else speak Japanese? I don't speak Japanese.
0_o
There is a comic villain to the occident, a twinkie to the person who gets it. (Disqualified for being a judge game and for using external artwork)
Still better than Indiana Jones 4
This game should not use the Theme-Heavy sheet; it's clearly not that invested in the immortality topic. However, at least it's a clearly used topic. The first artifact the player obtains is the Orb of Immortality, which actually does give him immortality. For all the levels after that, you are immortal, and that's pretty much the only way you could reasonably get through them. The ending addresses what happens after you've done everything you could want to do when you're immortal: sheer boredom. Still, I think it's far too basically used to deserve much more than what I'm giving it. If this were Theme-Light, I'd give him full points. Unfortunately, it's not.
One look at the title will tell you the style of this game. The ZZT smiley seems out of place for the clearly MegaZeux built-in style of gameplay, complete with lava and ice and water pushing stuff. At first there's a small host of traps you carefully navigate to get to the end, and the Orb of Immortality; after you get it, though, it's mostly a matter of waltzing your way to the end. The levels used are based on some very generic one color/element schemes: a grey level, golden level, blue/water level, cyan/ice level, and red/lava leve.The hardest part was the water level, where there was a whirlpool made of builtin water that you had to escape. The ice level was also irritating, because you have to get into some one character corridors, which can get tough. Other than that, it was all far far too easy. At least there was a "full" game, even if it took 15 minutes at best. The oldschool style is nice, but it's worthless with the immortality aspect.
It's all built-in characters, but strangely it half works. The game sorely needed some proper characters for the walls and zappers, though. The use of the ZZT style smiley is completely out of place, in my opinion; the gameplay was clearly more Zeux than ZZT, and thus the game should have used the MZX smiley. The one color levels were boring to look at, however; a little more variation would have helped a lot, and perhaps some non-default colors, too.
I like a completed game very much, and there weren't any major bugs. I didn't like how the firespitting sharks in the last level kept hitting me while the dialogue was playing, though. I'm rather not impressed with the overall quality, unfortunately, as there is little effort on the gameplay side at all.
The story is rather silly. Indiana Smiley gets the Orb of Immortality in the first level, and the first thing he does with his new power is go after all the ancient artifacts IN THE WORLD! After he succeeds he's bored to tears. The dialogue is simple but silly, though I wish there had been an actual textbox or something instead of a basic dialogue box. Despite not being wholly unique, it's a nice, lighthearted tale.
There's actually only two tracks in this game, but they're reused in a clever way to make them not repetitive: the level music is slowed down or sped up depending on the level, making it sound different enough to not frustrate you. There's a different song for the ending, and it does well enough. The other sounds were built-in pc speaker effects, so not very impressive even if it goes with the vibe. Still, the overall effect isn't bad at all.
Hey at least you got somewhere, unlike half the other entries.
Game by karaoke boys and the alcoholic drinks
No need for a scoresheet, this one wins automatically via AMAZING. (disqualified for being a SuperZZT game and a judge's game)
Began by commodorejohn, never completed
An incomplete game with no actual content :(. There's nothing related to much of anything here, really.
You can walk around the unfinished RPG tilescape; if you wander the right direction you can come upon a single NPC, who you can press Z to talk to and X to close the talk dialogue. There's also some pseudo houses/castles/whatever you might call them. There's just nothing in them.
The engine john created allows for much more detailed tiles in exchange for horribly small viewport size. You can only see a few tiles at a time in all directions. The main character has some iffy walking animations, if you can make them out view the weird detail. Also, it's monochrome. It's just lacking a lot, but what's there is pretty neat.
It's incomplete, but there's a lot more sitting around than most of the other incomplete games. There's walls missing on the right side, though. And of course, there's not actually any CONTENT.
commodorejohn runs out of time in the DoZ. The end.
The one music track wasn't too bad, and the one sound effect (when you talk to the guy) was appropriate enough even if it was pc speaker.
Remember, kids: don't try to make an RPG engine for the DoZ!
or How Asiekierka Stole the Day of Zeux
Hello. I am going to show you why this game is completely unrelated to the topic.
I understand that there was a game planned, but I guess this game crossed over from a bizarro universe where we do MZX video competitions where Lancer wins every year instead of Logi and Madbrain.
Believe it or not the video engine isn't too bad. I can actually make out shit, and from what I understand asie wrote it during the DoZ. Too bad the video was made of dumb shit.
Real classy, asie.
DO THE MARIO.
NEVER GONNA okay yeah it was pretty irritating audio. Also lol Microsoft Sam.
Yes, Asie, you get disqualified for using outside artwork. Don't submit MegaZeux Poop to a competition, please :(((((.
^_^
It's a wonderful theme! (you're immortal lol)
You play games, they have gameplay, but do you read books that have bookread? (wait there's gameplay?)
FEDORAS and STICK FIGURES (actually it's just defaults and a dumb gradient with a title of text)
THIS GAME IS HORRIBLE now send me a bunch of hatemail as you hate me (fo realz, no effort)
I AM BEING UNBELIEVABLY UNSUBTLE (more loling required)
(seriously I have no idea what to do with this game dear god)