CCCC OOOO RRRRR OOOO N N AAAA CCCC AAAA PPPPP EEEEEE RRRRR SSSS C C O O R R O O NN N A A C C A A P P E R R S C O O R R O O N N N A A C A A P P EEEEE R R SSSS C O O RRRRR O O N N N AAAAAA C AAAAAA PPPPP E RRRRR S C C O O R R O O N NN A A C C A A P E R R S S CCCC OOOO R R OOOO N N A A CCCC A A P EEEEEE R R SSSS ================================================================== == CORONA CAPERS - for 128K Spectrum / +2 / +2A / +3 == == Written by Jim Waterman, 29 March - 8 April 2020 == == (while we were all under Coronavirus-related house arrest) == == for comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2020 == ================================================================== LOAD and RUN ------------ There shouldn't be any problems here. Use the 128K/+2 .TZX file on those models, and the +2A/+3 .TZX file on a +2A (or a +3 with a broken disc drive). The former version has been tested until I'm thoroughly sick of seeing it, and the latter didn't need too many tweaks, and the difference is to do with the way the RAM disc is handled (i.e. LOAD/SAVE ! versus LOAD/SAVE "M:"). The +3 disc version should load everything automatically but puts in a "Press Enter" prompt where there would otherwise have been a "Start/Stop the tape". Background ---------- Blazin' Bryce Di'Anninson is a man of many talents. Barely out of school, he won the gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics in the crossbow shooting event, then spent the next four years studying geography at the University of Aldershot, graduating with a 2:1. He didn't get a 1st class degree as he spent too much time with his first band, Mr. Strong, rather than studying crop rotation in rural Paraguay - but his golden tonsils did not go unnoticed by the big boys in the music industry. In 1980, the upcoming Essex NWOBHM band, Rusty Hag, fired their erratic frontman, Derek Walcott - and who should suddenly find himself recruited? Bryce toured the world again and again with Rusty Hag, making 16 albums over the last 40 years, which made him a multi-millionaire. Some of his fortune he spent on flying lessons, to the point that he can now fly just about anything with wings - glider, turbo-prop, jet - probably even a Space Shuttle if he tried. He's also written a couple of novels about the life and idle times of generic upper-class toff Lord Humphrey Witherington-Smithers, and turned his hand to brewing, winning awards for his London Underground themed Bakerloo Line Best Bitter, Docklands Light Ale and Northern Line Treacle Toffee Stout. Rusty Hag were all set to go on tour in early 2020, kicking off a new decade in which the entire band would turn 70 but were still going strong. Suddenly, disaster struck! The outbreak of the highly contagious Coronavirus in China soon started spreading to the rest of the world, and global panic ensued. As the semi-official Leader Of The Free World™, God-Emperor Donald Trump searched for literally minutes to find the hero of the day. The Secretary of State was playing a tape of Bryce's experimental 1994 solo album, "Trouser Typhoons", and Trump asked "hey, who's the dude with the YUGE voice?". As the Secretary of State explained everything Bryce was capable of, other than four decades of screaming heavy metal, Trump decided he was the right man for the job. Bryce accepted the challenge and was whisked off to Hong Kong, where he was lent a Learjet 70/75 to fly around China, in a quest to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, aid research into its biological machinations, track down the source of the outbreak, and eliminate it forever. After all, is there anything Blazin' Bryce Di'Anninson can't do? God-Emperor Trump has total faith in this one man to save the Free World™. The Game(s) ----------- Corona Capers is, at its core, a compilation of several mini-games which all tie into this storyline, however tenuously. All of them are utterly unoriginal, generic, and only very briefly thought through - but this is the CSSCGC after all, so what more did you want? Professional-looking compilations of lots of minigames bodged together under one overarching theme are best left to the experts (see Jonathan Cauldwell's Utter Tripe for a fine example). Those of us who only ever learned BASIC are stuck with... this. You play the role of Blazin' Bryce Di'Anninson, which should have been obvious right from the start. Guide him on his quest, and whatever you do, don't get him killed, because suffering from the effects of Coronavirus will be a walk in the park compared to having to face millions upon millions of Rusty Hag's fans. The band is practically a religion at this point, their fans are notoriously zealous and news of the iconic voice of their favourite band being permanently silenced is unlikely to be well received! There are four stages, the first of which will be visited multiple times. MAP STAGE: Before tackling any outbreaks of Coronavirus, you will be presented with a map of China and a target destination to fly to. You have to input the coordinates (row, then column) of your intended city, which will be shown as highlighted dots. There are 50 possible destinations from Hong Kong, some of which are much further away than others - China is YUGE, remember - and you have enough Tiger Tokens for 10,000 litres of fuel. It is possible to fly to the furthest reaches of China and still make it home with this amount, though it'll be marginal, so don't go frittering away your fuel visiting the wrong city - you'll have to try again until you either find the correct destination, or run out of fuel... and believe me, you don't want to do that. You are also advised to steer clear of landing outside the marked cities, because rural China is short on airstrips, other countries are unlikely to be very welcoming, and the embrace of the endless ocean is best tackled in a boat, not a plane. BAT SOUP STAGE: Arriving in your first city, you will find a prestigious restaurant is dealing - very badly - with a large number of bats. These are known to be vectors for Coronavirus, so it is imperative that they are dealt with swiftly, and the local pest control has been no help. The head chef is particularly tetchy because the bats have invaded his kitchen, and the last thing he wants is for them to become an unwilling ingredient in his finest noodle soup. So, you get out your crossbow, and you must defend the kitchen. As a former Olympic champion, this should be a breeze, right? You have to shoot 10 bats, and you only have 16 bolts with which to do it. Whatever you do, don't let any bats fall into the soup, because any that are infected are going to spread the virus to the entire city, the restaurant's reputation will be destroyed, and the head chef is already in a nuclear fury... Note: as it's April, and nobody has been buying Easter eggs in the recent stockpiling frenzy, I've dropped one into this stage. Can you find it without hitting the BREAK key and examining the listing? RNA STAGE: If you defeat the bats in the kitchen, you must fly to a second destination where you will find a genetics laboratory requiring your help. They are trying to sequence the RNA of Coronavirus, in an attempt to find some way of jamming it and preventing it from reproducing. Your scientific background isn't particularly brilliant, but you are considered to be a genius - a "Mastermind", if you like - and you will be assigned four blocks of six bases to research. You'll have to start with complete guesswork, but what you've got right will be revealed soon enough. A word of warning, though: don't take too long, as the incapacitated virus won't stay weakened forever. Also, some of the researchers in the lab are a tad short on co-ordination - that's Asperger's Syndrome for you (no, really, it is - check Dr. Tony Attwood's authoritative tome on the subject) - and they might, if you're unlucky, accidentally knock over your work, and you'll have to put it all back together again. For this, you have a 6 x 4 grid of cells that the individual bases fit into, and the only way to move them around is to rotate a block of four of them at a time. BOSS STAGE: With the RNA sequenced, you will fly to your final destination - Wuhan. Here, you will face off against the source of the virus: CORONA-CHAN! Do not be seduced by her kawaiiness (or whatever the Chinese equivalent of that is); this is a dangerous femme fatale you are dealing with, and she could slay you in an instant. But she has one weakness: the source of her power is the bottle of Corona lager she carries around with her! Furthermore, she is rumoured to be severely allergic to the ingredients in traditional English ales - it's something to do with the hops, apparently. And, like all good members of English NWOBHM bands, you've flown in enough beer to keep a tour rider well stocked for several months, and better still, it's your very own Northern Line Treacle Toffee Stout. Sensing the danger, Corona-chan has blocked your path with a devious invisible maze. You must make your way through the maze - somehow! - picking up crates of stout along the way, then dispose of the lager, and replace it with your stout. This will create an anti-virus, spreading peace and healing throughout China, and then the world - and with a bit of luck, it will finish off Corona-chan once and for all. If you should succeed in your quest, you will need to make a hasty escape back to Hong Kong, where you will have to spend some time in quarantine, but once that's over, God-Emperor Trump will see to it that you are very well rewarded. ACHTUNG! -------- This program is, as should be (or should become) fairly obvious, utterly unsuitable for what the Chinese call "baizuo" - those who are constantly searching for something "problematic" to be outraged by, and virtue-signal about it all over the social media platforms of their choice. The type of professionally-offended "journalists" for such "media" outlets as Vox, Buzzfeed, NowThis, Gawker and the like, are particularly notorious examples. This is a cult that needs to die, and die quickly. And when it finally does, maybe some of these "baizuo" will stop their incessant screeching and their witch-hunts and take the advice on board that they should "learn to code". They might even do something useful, such as... write a crap game! In C, maybe, or Python, or even ZX80 BASIC, but even that might be beyond quite a few of them. If you are not one of these people, or one of their brainwashed followers, then "CONGRATURATION! YOU SUCSESS!" (as they say in Stop The Express) on being a functional human being. Those who are not here to take offence might even find this game educational, in a way. You'll learn about Chinese geography, the essential difference between RNA and DNA, and maybe even something about regional culinary specialities. And yes, I am well aware that I have played fast and loose with a lot of the facts, not just that Hong Kong isn't on the friendliest terms with China at the moment, not just that a random plague of bats could suddenly infect a thriving city, not just that viruses barely even count as alive and won't spontaneously "wake up" and jump out of a Petri dish, and so on and so forth. This is supposed to be a CRAP game! Inspiration ----------- A.K.A. "bits and pieces that were shamelessly, though not always obviously, ripped off from other sources with minimal credit". Intro: - Iron Maiden for the music: "Virus" is one of their (very few) clangers... but it's appropriate here! Also, the character of Blazin' Bryce Di'Anninson may or may not be Bruce Dickinson with all his various skills given a tweak and his name blended with Iron Maiden's two other singers who actually recorded with the band. - Corona-chan from knowyourmeme.com - the original image was an anonymous poster on /pol/ - zh.wikipedia.org for the text of Corona-chan's speech bubble (which is the start of the entry on COVID-19, heavily mangled to fit an 8-pixel character space!) Map stage: - A map of China I found somewhere on the internet with all the cities marked on it - Mapwork (Sinclair Programs, July 1983 issue) for a vague concept behind the map stage - Mr. Wong's Loopy Laundry (Artic, 1984) - for the "stereotypical Chinese riff" (now with 128 BASIC PLAY commands!) - The Fall of Rome (ASP, 1984), for "repeatedly DRAW a line OVER 1 to show travelling" - Autoshite.com for the variable name "pez", not exactly visible in the game - ZX Spectrum +2 manual for the "M" sound effects (two of which were slightly altered) Bat soup stage: - Alien Destroyer (Sinclair Research, 1984) and Transylvanian Tower (Richard Shepherd Software, 1982) for the bat movement and graphics style - Carmageddon (Sales Curve Interactive, 1997 - Windows) for "NICE SHOT, SIR" RNA stage: - Encyclopaedia Galactica (Jonathan Cauldwell, 2012) has a similar (if much better programmed!) decode-the-DNA minigame - Bulls and Cows (Sinclair User, July 1982) - a ZX80 Mastermind program, at least allowed some understanding of how it worked - Red Dwarf (obviously!) for the "round" jingle. This is sort of science fiction after all! - 15 Puzzle (Sinclair Programs, Jan/Feb 1983 issue) for a similar version of those crap sliding jigsaws, though mine's a lot easier... and that's only because I junked the original 5 x 5 sliding grid that was a lot closer to 15 Puzzle, and released that separately as "DNA Dilemma", a truly crap game that at least prevents waste. Corona-chan stage: - Page 98 of the June/July issue of ZX Computing (David Elphick's Spectrum Plotter) - turn the page sideways for the layout of the INVISIBLE MAZE OF DOOM! - Iron Maiden again - this time "The Trooper", when you pick up a crate of stout (I wonder why?) - Final Fantasy VI (Square, 1994 - SNES) for the victory fanfare - The Ludoids (Bug-Byte version, 1985, not the eight-part 16/48 Tape Magazine original) for Corona-chan's last words Death sequences: - zh.wikipedia.org, again - source of the Chinese characters for "death" - Rise Of The Triad (Apogee, 1994 - DOS) for the "Infidel!" ending Victory sequence: - NPC meme / "Orange Man Bad" from 4chan / knowyourmeme.com / everywhere on the internet that isn't directly targeted by the warning in the intro - "Hair Force One" from Viz, by the same artist as the Drunken Bakers (Lee Healey) - and it's actually funny, as opposed to the majority of the "comedy" about God-Emperor Trump that's more partisan than Partisan Belgrade fans wielding Partisan spears - Family Feud (the original US version - at least I think it's from this source) for the "epic fail" sound - Gargoyle's Quest (Capcom, 1990 - Game Boy) for the Awesome Victory Fanfare (that I've been using as a "text message received" alert since 2006 or there abouts) - Star-Spangled Banner sheet music: https://www.8notes.com/scores/28879.asp - Stars and Stripes Forever sheet music: https://www.free-scores.com/download-sheet-music.php?pdf=2422# - The Washington Post sheet music: https://www.free-scores.com/download-sheet-music.php?pdf=10050# - New York, New York sheet music: https://sheetmusic-free.com/download/9005/ - Liberty Bell March sheet music: https://www.free-scores.com/download-sheet-music.php?pdf=2421# (yes, that is the theme tune from Monty Python's Flying Circus... and Iron Maiden have been known to use "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" at the end of their gigs...!) - And of course, Iron Maiden's "Virus" again, although I've made some cuts to the "end sixty-four", as Kerrap! called it at the time of its release. The line-up of Rusty Hag: - "Blazin'" Bryce Di'Anninson = Bruce Dickinson + Blaze Bayley + Paul Di'Anno (with apologies to Paul Day, not so many to Dennis Wilcock) - Simon "Hammer" Hargreaves = Steve Harris + his beloved West Ham United + Paul Hargreaves (author of some brilliantly colourful Spectrum graphics back in the day - see Tantalus and Glass for proof) - Murray "8-Bit" O'Sullivan = Dave Murray + Dave Sullivan (played guitar for Iron Maiden in 1976) + The 8-Bit Guy, whose real name is David Murray - Andrew "Baz" Jones = Adrian Smith + a friend of mine whose name is actually Andrew Barry Jones (I changed Smith to Jones first, thought Andrew was close to Adrian, then realised what I'd done) - "Manic" Terry Gerrard = Janick Gers + Terry Rance + Terry Wapram (the two Terrys played guitar for Iron Maiden in the early days, 1976 and 1977 respectively) - "Sir" Clive McNicholls = Clive Burr + Nicko McBrain + Sir Clive Sinclair Overall: - Polandball (probably) - Rush's "bad" albums (mainly Power Windows, 1985 to Vapor Trails, 2002) were the soundtrack for a lot of typing on BASin and Spectaculator... Dedication ---------- This Crap Game is dedicated to the memory of: Jim Langmead (one day in 1974 - 11 April 2007) Host of the 2004 CSSCGC, which was the last time I entered it (with Super Mario Fruit Machine, Advanced Horseshoe Magnet Simulator for the ZX81, Noughts and Crosses for the ZX80, and Jackpot 3 - which I'd written as a nine-year-old and dug out for a laugh). Wrote some suitably scathing reviews of what we'd all submitted. Li Wenliang (12 October 1986 – 7 February 2020) "The Hero of Wuhan". He tried to warn us. He was silenced. Need I say more at this point?