What's the SHORTEST Speccy game ever?

[StanVanman]

Been watching a few walkthroughs on YouTube recently, and was struck by how many games - even big AAA titles - can be finished in under 10 minutes.

(I thought of this after seeing an article today called "20 Indie Games That You Could Beat in the Time It Would Take You to Watch That Hbomberguy Video", and being hugely disappointed that it meant you could finish EACH of them in under 4 hours, not ALL of them.)

Sacred Armour Of Antiriad: 9m 10s.



Ghosts'n'Goblins: 5m 10s.



Legend Of Kage: 3m 40s.

[Einar Saukas]

Bugaboo: 19s

[Morkin]

Bugaboo: 19s

Coincidentally also the LONGEST Speccy game, took me 30+ years.

[blucey]

I've done this thread before I think and from memory Jack and the Beanstalk is what made me start it.

Although it takes your life to master it, I figure the game is beatable in three mins.

[Lee Bee]

My mind was blown to see the original Dizzy game completed in just 11:36! He uses some clever tricks to trim the time down

[blucey]

Ah yes, I posted it on the old forum - https://worldofspectrum.org/forums/discussion/51687/

Bugaboo definitely the winner!

[SteveSmith]

I vaguely remember seeing a solution to Heavy on the Magick which completed the game really quickly.

[Einar Saukas]

Perhaps we could have a tag in ZXDB called "Short game (completable in under 3 minutes)"

[Lee Bee]

It would be nice to have a tag in ZXDB called "Short game (completable in under 3 minutes)"

But then, a 4-minute game is still short. A better field would just be the shortest known completion time, then you could search for however long or short you wanted.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I've always been impressed how short was Atic Atac to be finished, just 6 minutes:

[MtM]

Styx?

[bluespikey]

I've done this thread before I think and from memory Jack and the Beanstalk is what made me start it.

Although it takes your life to master it, I figure the game is beatable in three mins.

All the author's games were short once you figured them out (It just seemed like long torture until then). Monty Is Innocent can be done in 2 minutes.

[blucey]

But then, a 4-minute game is still short. A better field would just be the shortest known completion time, then you could search for however long or short you wanted.

A lot more work though. Figuring out the shortest completion times for every game and then recording that info.

3 mins is deffo too short but under 10 would be a good metric.

[sn3j]

Mines of Moria can be completed in 45 seconds:

Spoiler

There is no RANDOMIZE before the game starts - so the maze always looks the same on the first go.

[PeteProdge]

I wrote this ages ago on comp.sys.sinclair as some kind of pisstake in a thread about game difficulty.

Code: Select all

10 PRINT "Press any key to win this game"
20 PAUSE 0
30 PRINT "Well done, you have won."

...and then pretended it's the hardest game ever. Others joined in, in mock-agreement.

[Lee Bee]

A lot more work though. Figuring out the shortest completion times for every game and then recording that info.

Surely it's just the same amount of work as figuring out if a game can be completed in under x minutes?

[SteveSmith]

Why don't we just have a speedrun competition for each game?

[Turrican]

Phantis and Game Over are very short also.

[animaal]

Rambo can be done in about 4 mins

[Einar Saukas]

Fuga de Peniche (all 6 levels): 13s

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4 ... de_Peniche

[Ralf]

Well, let me say something obvious that everyone is too shy to say.

In theory you can complete many of these games really fast but in practice you won't.
You will die many times and have to repeat. You will have to learn the maze, learn the rules etc.

Old games were running on systems with limited memory so couldn't have a lot of content like modern games.
So they had to be difficult by modern standards to give players enough hours of gameplay.

[Lee Bee]

SQIJ is a pretty short game. Here's a re-post of my complete game map:

[Einar Saukas]

3 mins is deffo too short but under 10 would be a good metric.

I'm guessing only about a dozen Speccy games are completable in under 3 minutes. It would be easy to compile this list.

However there are probably a thousand Speccy games completable in under 10 min. Identifying most of them would be a nearly impossible task. Any volunteers?

[Einar Saukas]

Why don't we just have a speedrun competition for each game?

It would be nice to have a site dedicated to Speccy speedruns, providing a score table and RZX files for each game.

If anyone creates a site like this, please let me know so I can add these links to ZXDB.

[Einar Saukas]

I've always been impressed how short was Atic Atac to be finished, just 6 minutes:

Atic Atac: 2m 20s