C.S.C.G.C 2023 is open for entries

[uglifruit]

My QWERT fingering was this:

Rubber keyed spectrum at about 45 degrees, 'caps shift' closest to me.

Index/middle (right hand) Q/W
Index/middle/ring (left hand) E/R/T


All other approaches are wrong.

[firelord]

My QWERT fingering was this:
...
All other approaches are wrong.

Had the ZX +.
QWERT controls were the best because you could use one hand to play and you had the other hand free to eat/drink/juggle or do other stuff!
Also, the keys were easy to remember!
So many advantages!!!



For jBizzel : Arcade PSSST Walkthrough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtITXzyGzAc or you could try a remake (https://pisti72.itch.io/flower-protector)
I will upload the walktrough of the PSSST adventure when I find time

[Jbizzel]

Pssst and Cookie had very easy to use keyboard controls and many who have played them later became famous piano players (https://www.youtube.com/embed/A5e4yArMcuU)!

Cookie I have on tape. Yes, those controls. The reason I've never played it!!!!

[firelord]

@firelord looking forward to anything you enter. I may go back and revisit you earlier game if it's part of a set.

With my next game (of the trilogy) I will send an updated version of "RAoR PSSST" so you will need to play thatone...

[firelord]

I officially annouce the end of CSSCGC 2023!
No point on trying to send more games. The winner is already on the mailbox of this year host!

I mailed today the final part of the prequel trilogy (and I already mailed its first minor update) .
"The Real Adventures of Pacard-Manford"
If you lived in a dungeon in the last 50 years you will find the graphics very original.
It is a dungeon crawler game where the NPCs move randomly inside a mansion. It is this mansion that you must explore!
If you like drawing maps you will like this game a lot

You move inside the mansion using the usual directions - eg N,S,W,E.

[equinox]

Re Screwball Scramble (not sure why I posted this on the 2022 thread -- pissed again?):
viewtopic.php?p=119004#p119004

IT'S HAPPENING BOYS!


(Don't worry -- the gameplay will be crap -- even though I got a bit carried away with the artwork.)

[equinox]

I believe that every spectrum owner that haven't played Jet Pac , Pssst and Cookie should be publically whipped, filmed on video and uploaded in youtube! Pssst and Cookie had very easy to use keyboard controls and many who have played them later became famous piano players (https://www.youtube.com/embed/A5e4yArMcuU)!

Stupid QWERT keys are designed by programmers, for programmers, and are no good for users.
Just like Windows 10 UI is done by Marketing, for Marketing, and is no good for users.
However, playing games with Sinclair joystick 67890 on the keyboard is sweet and elite.

You also mentioned Chequered Flag, but don't forget Mastertronic's Formula One re-release which suggested attaching a roll of sticky tape to your keyboard and using it as a "steering wheel". A cost-saving bodge that even Sinclair would have sneered at (and he put that extra chip sticking out the back of the QL because it wouldn't fit inside).

[R-Tape]

(Don't worry -- the gameplay will be crap -- even though I got a bit carried away with the artwork.)

Screwball Scramble on the ZX Spectrum. That's a nostalgia sandwich sprinkled with hundreds & thousands and garnished with a rose carved from a carrot. Can we have a good and a crap version please?!

[R-Tape]

Index/middle (right hand) Q/W
Index/middle/ring (left hand) E/R/T

I tried a comparable maverick configuration on a bike once, and consequently fell off and dented a parked car. No thank you.

I might have hung a tin of paint on the bar too, but the point still stands.

[equinox]

Can we have a good and a crap version please?!

Not from me because I can't write any serious amount of Z80.
I'm planning to do it as compiled BASIC (I have a vague plan to make it very slightly better than pure UDG-bashing) with a sort of Dragon's Lair-ish, quick-time-event thing where you have to hit the keys in a certain sequence, or at the right time. (It's important to recall that we are controlling the maze and its buttons, and not the ball, as in the original -- so no easy QAOP here.)
Speaking of games where you control the environment and not the "subject": I wonder if the Speccy has had anything like the Amiga's Bill's Tomato Game... (tomato can't move, but you can trigger conveyor belts, electric fans, etc.)

[Jbizzel]

Re Screwball Scramble (not sure why I posted this on the 2022 thread -- pissed again?):
viewtopic.php?p=119004#p119004

IT'S HAPPENING BOYS!


(Don't worry -- the gameplay will be crap -- even though I got a bit carried away with the artwork.)

How did I miss this? It looks fricking awesome!

[Jbizzel]

new GAME reviewed!!

https://csscgc23.blogspot.com/2023/06/r ... xkerl.html

Your next in the queue @firelord

[Jbizzel]

Interested to hear if anyone played the original?

Sort of frogger in space!

[R-Tape]

Space Race is well and truly into passable type-in quality here. I'm surprised that the BASIC version isn't painfully slow, and the compiled version isn't ridiculously fast! I thought BASIC would struggle to shift that many stars (well, char$) and be vaguely playable.

Interested to hear if anyone played the original?

Nope, but I like it and now I want to see a faithful machine code port!

[TMD2003]

Good news, everyone! Well, good news for some. I am not dead, merely distracted by the necessity to get jobs done on the house that I've been procrastinating on for a year or more - and some of that was directly caused by preferring to write crap games for this competition.

With the debt to the roof over my head repaid, further good news. I was starting to think Rich Pelley's crap games article had vanished into the ether, but it's still on course. After six weeks of silence, he's back in contact with me and it's being finalised - some of the people involved took longer to track down than he'd planned on. As soon as I know a publication date, so will the rest of you, and those outside our shores should at least be able to read it on the Grauniad's website. It's a paper I haven't bought in about 20 years, but just this once, I'll make an exception.

The Next devteam is still confident the Issue 2 machines will be completed soon, and I might have to disappear again for a while to get more real-life jobs done because once it's arrived, that is all my spare time gone... though that spare time will most likely involve the production of more sub-Next-quality junk for this competition. I do think it should be "better" (i.e. less crap) than what I could do on a Spectrum, at the very least involving sprites and tiles and the overall effect of a faster Spectrum with no colour clash, so expect more LAYER 2 action when it arrives.

[Mpk]

Guardian article is up :
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/ ... s-possible

[firelord]

Guardian article is up :
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/ ... s-possible

The article is approved because it mentions the epic game "Blind Flight Simulator" which was the first* CGC game that was ported on another machine

*If it wasn't the first it was the second -or the third or fourth...

[TMD2003]

Does it have to be a different author who makes the ported version to qualify as such?

I looked up BFS and found that both the original and the port were from 2009 - but there's at least one multi-platform entry before that. More Tea Vicar - no, not Jonathan Cauldwell's side-scrolling shooter - started out as a ZX81, ZX80 and Z88 game (all entered at once, apparently...), and was then ported (if that's the right word) to the Jupiter Ace, then the Spectrum (yes, it was the fifth version to be released), then the QL... all by Gavin Callard, all in 2008. And then... James Smith made his UK101 emulator for the 48K or 128K Spectrum and Gav then made a final version of MTV for that near-unknown machine.

Hence, seven versions, though only one author. That certainly hasn't happened again.

This does remind me: @Jbizzel, sharpen up your QL skills if you need to. You did ask for a QL entry a month ago on page 28...

It's that time when I put the call out.
Anyone feeling the urge to mush?
Something for the QL perhaps??

...and it's the kind of thing that usually falls to me. It's something I started in late 2020 but lost in the dreaded hard drive trouble of January 2021, and it's about time I recreated it. It, too, will be a port, and of something I didn't write in the first place (and, given the condensed code of the original, might be more like a complete rewrite). So that's well over a thousand CSSCGC entries from all the way back to 1996 that could be the one to be translated to Sir Clive's black business box - and, unless anyone gets in there before me, will be only the ninth QL entry in 27 competitions.

I might make it for the Next as well, seeing as it involves ORANGE, and the Next can handle text that's mashed into a smaller space than a standard character cell...

Also...

I showed my 9yo son a C5
He thought it was the coolest thing ever. I could not believe his reaction. Lol
Then I told him the spectrum dude made it 40 years ago and lost all his money on it.
He simply couldn't believe it wouldn't be successful.

Had it launched 30 years later, the story might have been different...

FUN FACT for those of you who didn't know: Dave Lister's space bike in the pre-Kryten series of Red Dwarf was a stripped-down C5 with ridiculously enormous handlebars. I'd always suspected it was - the frame was the right shape and size.

[Jbizzel]

Well, I've finished my media rounds for the day.

There is a Canadian radio show running a piece on this comp tomorrow (I just did an interview with them). I find the link and share here.

The CGC23 inbox has blown up a bit today, now I'm quite behind. Please bear with me, new reviews out soon!

[firelord]

The CGC23 inbox has blown up a bit today, now I'm quite behind. Please bear with me, new reviews out soon!

I thought you were in your basement trying to help baron PACard MANford in his quest!

Since this is the toughest game I've send (featuring non-linear solution and random NPC movement) you can only finish it if you isolate yourself from the world for a few weeks and play it. I would suggest playing it inside a haunted mansion.



*Btw, if you have any issues send me a message.

[luny]

Gah! Because of the bloody joke comment by Firelord that the compo is closed, I got it into my head that it really is. I was reading that Groniad article about CSCGC and got or enthusiastic about not having entered anything this year and started thinking about what to enter. Then I 'remembered' something about it being to late.

I must be getting old, the old memories doing odd things etc. Anyway, lets jot down some ideas... (Banana for Nana's sake)

[Jbizzel]

I thought you were in your basement trying to help baron PACard MANford in his quest!

Since this is the toughest game I've send (featuring non-linear solution and random NPC movement) you can only finish it if you isolate yourself from the world for a few weeks and play it. I would suggest playing it inside a haunted mansion.



*Btw, if you have any issues send me a message.

Thank you, walk throughs are very welcome, although I'll only use it in emergencies!!

[Jbizzel]

Gah! Because of the bloody joke comment by Firelord that the compo is closed, I got it into my head that it really is. I was reading that Groniad article about CSCGC and got or enthusiastic about not having entered anything this year and started thinking about what to enter. Then I 'remembered' something about it being to late.

I must be getting old, the old memories doing odd things etc. Anyway, lets jot down some ideas... (Banana for Nana's sake)

Luny, we are halfway through. Still open, but I've had a few projects I have had to complete around the house, to keep Mrs bizzle sweet. That, and crazy work schedule has meant I've had to take a short pause. But the next review will be very soon. Please keep me coming!

[Jbizzel]

What are the crappiest games from the last 25 years?

What made you laugh the most and why??

[firelord]

Gah! Because of the bloody joke comment by Firelord that the compo is closed, ...

This was not a joke!
The game I posted is the undisputed winner of the contest! No need to continue the process...

Anyway if we have 6 months then a developer can sumbit 6*30 entries by the official end of the 2023 contest...
I have submitted so far more than 2*65534 games...