Christmas high score challenge?

[clebin]

Now, let's see. It's 22:12, I've never played Freddy Hardest before and I'm a little drunk. I feel a high score coming on...

[clebin]

Pfff....

[Jbizzel]

Well today marks the final third of the high score challenge.

I will put the numbers in to Excel at some point so we can see the rankings, not that it matters.

I enjoyed Freddie a lot and found it addictive with that just one more go kinda vibe.

The final game is Gilligan's Gold.

I am going to be terrible at this, as I can't get the gold into the wheelbarrow. Good luck everyone!

[Jbizzel]

It's all to play for....




The colours are supposed to be gold silver and bronze

[R-Tape]

Gilligan's has a nice jaunty tune, oldschool graphics that I'd hate BITD but love now, and it is HARD!

Standing just left of a £ and pressing action (no other key) seems to help picking up, standing at the right hand side of the wheelbarrow and pressing action helps with dropping off.

It's all to play for....

I was exactly 70,000 on Freddy btw, not 'ish' :–)

[Jbizzel]

Gilligan's has a nice jaunty tune, oldschool graphics that I'd hate BITD but love now, and it is HARD!

Standing just left of a £ and pressing action (no other key) seems to help picking up, standing at the right hand side of the wheelbarrow and pressing action helps with dropping off.



I was exactly 70,000 on Freddy btw, not 'ish' :–)

Sorry R Tape. You said:

" Hi-Score is a round 70,000."

So I translated that as 70000ish!

I can change it to 70k when I update it next.

Have fun

[R-Tape]

Another ace game. 33740 so far. Completing level 1 seemed within reach, but I've gone off the boil. And I've been playing Kempston—it's a cold day in hell when I'd consider using the Enter key for down, regardless of whether it's a rubber keys or not.

I see it's another game where you can cheese points by just walking around (I didn't do that natch).

" Hi-Score is a round 70,000."

Ah I wondered if that was it! I meant "a round 70,000" as in 'a nice round number' (not 'around')

[TMD2003]

I'm getting very strong Kong vibes from this one, in that it looks like it could, and should, have been so very, very much better than it is. Sometimes I wonder how Ocean managed to get as big as they did.

Instead, after a few emulated trial runs, I find myself constantly screaming at the screen "Pick up the gold! PICK UP THE GOLD! PICK IT UP, YOU UTTER..." ...and I'm cornered again. And I get hit because the computer-controlled bandits have no problem with the pixel-perfect alignment required to get off a ladder. And then there's the trucks.

I won't be troubling the frontrunners with this one.

[Jbizzel]

it could, and should, have been so very, very much better than it is. Sometimes I wonder how Ocean managed to get as big as they did.

Instead, after a few emulated trial runs, I find myself constantly screaming at the screen "Pick up the gold! PICK UP THE GOLD! PICK IT UP, YOU UTTER..." ...and I'm cornered again. And I get hit because the computer-controlled bandits have no problem with the pixel-perfect alignment required to get off a ladder. And then there's the trucks.

I won't be troubling the frontrunners with this one.

This. Exactly this.

This could have been a brilliant game, but it's just ridiculous.

[Jbizzel]

20130

I really want to like this, but it's just frustrating!!

[R-Tape]

There are bugs too, though thankfully very rare. I pickaxed one of the outlaws on the steps and it it splurged a lot of junk all over the screen and stalled the program.

I'm pretty much used to the appalling object detection. Face right, stand to the left of the £ with a slight overlap and press action. Dropping off, face right, stand to the RHS of the barrow with a decent overlap. 90% of the time, it works every time...

This is definitely one for a modern remake. It's probably quite hard to code well, but the biggest challenge would be how to improve on David Thorpe's loading screen!

[Alessandro]

I remember Gilligan's Gold from an old Load 'n' Run tape. Frustrating, irritating and buggy, I never had more than a few goes with it. I lost count of the times I was cornered by the outlaws without a chance to escape, when waiting for the lift for example. And why do outlaws do not get hit by mine carts, while you do?

Merry Xmas Santa was unknown to me, maybe I tried it back in 1998 or so during my first steps in Spectrum emulation, then quickly forgot it. I especially hate how you can die unfairly just because you have to reach a chimney on the edge of the screen and all of a sudden a snowball hits you. Lack of sprite masking also makes understanding what's going on difficult to say the least. It's even worse than the rendition of Jingle Bells playing between screens! And why does Santa turn into a Christmas tree when he dies?

Both games are as much fun as having an eye hit by a stray cork of Spumante. I don't think I will ever spend any more time with them.

[TMD2003]

Well...



That is, without a doubt, a strong candidate for the worst "collision" detection, ever. Jack And The Beanstalk is the other one, and we all know how horrific that is. Your sprite lines up with the bags of gold, or the pickaxes, or the pull-up position... press fire, and what's the chance that it'll actually have detected it? It depends on where you are on screen, which way you're facing, which frame your sprite is showing... WHERE'S THE CONSISTENCY? Where is it? So very many times I found myself hammering the fire button to get either nowhere, or pick up the gold, get no acknowledgement that I'd picked it up, so I keep on hitting the fire button and found I had picked it up, and I've put it down in a different place. And if I want to drop the gold into the barrow, half the time it'll miss and I've picked up the barrow instead.

And then, all this is before we get to the choice of "do you want to fall down this mineshaft, do you want to be run over by the truck from off the screen or do you want to be bashed by the bandit that you didn't see coming?" Or, "do you want to fall down the mineshaft, or wait for the lift in which time the bandit will catch up with you? EITHER WAY, YOU WILL DIE, YOU HAVE NO CHOICE!"

If I'd paid full price for this game back in the day, and because it's Ocean, no doubt it was full price - I'd have been screaming blue murder. Ditto Kong, but I bought that at a boot sale for 50p. And if I'd been a reviewer I'd have pulled no punches. Crash gave it 79%. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? And as for Sinclair Programs (I didn't know they did reviews...), they must have been inhaling firedamp because they printed the same review twice, in the same issue, and gave it 50% and 55% (which is still generous).

Crash did at least say it's a C64 conversion - dare I see if the Bread Bin's version was any better, or is that risking my hair?

EDIT: no, I don't think I'll bother...

Very unforgiving game, with lots of bugs and lousy collision-detection. It's a shame because the fundamentals of the gameplay are decent. Check the Amstrad CPC version to see how it should've been done.

[R-Tape]

Crash did at least say it's a C64 conversion - dare I see if the Bread Bin's version was any better, or is that risking my hair?

EDIT: no, I don't think I'll bother...

Lots of bugs and lousy collision detection? So if the brief was to reproduce the C64 version, then the speccy one has done that and then some! Yet another case where the Speccy wins the 8 bit war.

[R-Tape]

I maintain that a lot of the death traps can be avoided with the right strategy (and not using the native keys). Despite its many flaws, with that jaunty in-game beeper track, I'm struggling not to like this game.

Both games are as much fun as having an eye hit by a stray cork of Spumante. I don't think I will ever spend any more time with them.

Chortle!

Boss. The results of the focus group are in... you're not going to like it.

[clebin]

I like this game a lot. Yeah, all the stuff about the difficulty level, bugs and dodgy controls are true, but there's so much going on that I can't help but enjoy it. Way too many deaths are unavoidable, but like R-Tape says, there are also plenty of little strategies you learn to get out of tricky situations - where to place a pick-axe in case you need it, where to lead the enemies to drop a moneybag on their head, when ride to the mine-cart. Smashing stuff.

There is one thing that does spoil it for me though, and it's why I can't see my score going higher than this. When you get to 42,000 (I think) you get an extra life, which is a nice feeling. Moments later you realise that the enemies are now moving at twice the speed, easily outrunning you.

It's like Chuckie Egg if they said "on level 32 let's give the duck a rocket launcher". At that point a rock-hard game becomes nigh-on impossible.

[clebin]

This is definitely one for a modern remake. It's probably quite hard to code well, but the biggest challenge would be how to improve on David Thorpe's loading screen!

I was thinking the same thing myself. I dare say it would've been a better idea than Smudge and the bloody Moonees. I might give it a go in the New Year unless you fancy it yourself?

[Jbizzel]

I was thinking the same thing myself. I dare say it would've been a better idea than Smudge and the bloody Moonees. I might give it a go in the New Year unless you fancy it yourself?

tbh I reckon you could do a decent stab with MPAGD.

The dropping gold would be a sprite, then use putblock to replace it with a collectable 'brick'

Forget the carried gold bag as an attribute, make it part of the sprite design.

The main challenge might be the diagonal sections. But I think that's a bit of smoke and mirrors in Ocean's version

[sn3j]

Interesting read so far, keep it up. (The best part was the ranting about the collision detections. )

[clebin]

tbh I reckon you could do a decent stab with MPAGD.

The dropping gold would be a sprite, then use putblock to replace it with a collectable 'brick'

Forget the carried gold bag as an attribute, make it part of the sprite design.

The main challenge might be the diagonal sections. But I think that's a bit of smoke and mirrors in Ocean's version

I don't know much about MPAGD, but I'd be using z88dk to do it. I've been working on another project with z88dk for the past couple of months so I'm beginning to get a good workflow going.

Those slopes are quite useful as you can drop a moneybag on one and it rolls down, taking out the enemy. There's a few other nice little subtleties I've noticed which deserve to be in a better game. Leaving the wheelbarrow at the top of the ladder will block the way, not just for you but also for enemies. I'm sure that could be useful in some circumstances.

I was having a look at the original Bagman arcade for reference. The enemies in that move very slowly and just kind of aimlessly wander around without trying to chase you, so difficulty-wise it seems to be at the other extreme. Ideally, a remake would fall somewhere between the two.

[Jbizzel]

Well, do it in z88dk and compile a version for the Cambridge Z88

I found the map for reference, might be handy....

[Jbizzel]

quick mock up - closer to bagman

[clebin]

Looks very nice @Jbizzel! I'll start making a tilemap in Aseprite & Tiled.

[R-Tape]

I might give it a go in the New Year unless you fancy it yourself?

Nope all yours clebin. Great mockup @Jbizzel.

[uglifruit]

I'll get this is now, so I don't miss deadline, like I did with Freddy.



Yes I know it's a crap score. But I love this game.

I love that you're able to actually pick up gold whilst whizzing past on the trolley. The invulnerability whilst on said trolley. The baddies coming towards you when they have line of sight, so you can drop your gold on them. The precision needed to drop gold into the wheelbarrow (or move it). The hanging from the ceiling hoping that a trolley would come before the baddies. Jumping out of the trolley left or right, or - even better - onto a ladder.

It's brutal, and unfair. But GREAT fun.