Games World

Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.

In the last year or two there has been a steady trickle of new games releases, however due to the work of two hard working individuals, Neil White and Peter Naulls, this trickle has turned into a complete flood. Indeed the pair of them have released so many games (over 20 in the last couple of months) that we could in theory keep GamesWorld running for an entire volume!

So this issue we are going to cover Neils rather natty selection, and don't forget that if you like any of his games you should send him some money (or cigarettes), see each games !Help file for more details.

Neil White's Games

Convey

The objective of the game is to collect all the red blobs on the conveyor belt and then cross the finish line, if you miss any you will be taken around again. The controls are Z for left, X for right and space to jump. If you do jump then you can't jump again directly after you have landed you have to wait a second or so - so be warned!

JMBMan

This is a pacman clone written in BASIC in under 9 hours. Neil thought it would be fun to make a pacman clone in one day (been there with AcidHousePacMan many years ago - ED). The keys are Z for left, X for right, / for down and ' for up. The game speeds up every 5 levels until level 20.

Shemozzle

This is an 8 level demo beta. The probe robots you have sent down to the planet are malfunctioning. It seems the magnetic pull of the planet is affecting the control circuitry in all related mechanisms so you'll have to try to use the remote control panel to get them to their launcher pods.

In this demo your robots move in steps of three, your malfunctioning controller lets you select a move of two, then one, after you are happy with your selection click the tick to activate the robot. It will then move according to the commands you have given it.

You have a limited amount of moves in each direction, so be careful, although you are unlikely to run out in this demo. Press all three buttons together to destroy the robot. Use the far right mouse button reposition the controller. Your 'lives' are indicated in the center of the control unit.

Squerd

This is an exceptionally hard puzzle game. All you have to do is place the pieces over the image to remove the entire design - sounds easy? Well it isn't in fact its so hard I can't do a single level. Select a piece from the available ones with Select and rotate it with Menu or Adjust.

Tanks

You are a tank in an arcade game that has become self-aware. Forced to turn on your comrades you must try and escape to a better world where green tanx in arcade games run free. The keys are Z for left, X for right, / for brake, Return for fire and Space for jump. The Yellow coins give you health and bullets. The Red coins hurt and the Green coins are keys which open sections of walls.

To finish levels you need to collect 3 rotating red and pink things, theses only appear one at a time, when you have found all three they will form an exit portal.

Other Gaming News

New StrongARM compatible Elite

There isn't a great deal I can say about the Archimedes version of Elite, this is a new fixed version that will load correctly on a StrongARM equipped machine (such as a Risc PC or one of the new Omegas from MicroDigital) without the cache having to be turned off (which makes loading slow). However let Jeffrey Lee, who performed the modification, tells us more.

"This version was produced from a copy I've been using for ages which seems to have no definite origin; as such the 'extras' such as the rjw_Sync module have just been tagged on later once I discovered that they were in the 'official' distribution (i.e. the version Richard Goodwin patched). Apparently rjw_sync is used to slow the game down should it run too fast, but I've never had a problem with this so can't really comment on whether it's needed. If it runs to fast then try using it and see what happens. The game should still run on any machine from RISC OS 2 up to RISC OS 4 (including Select), although this release has only been tested on 3.71. It is not RISC OS 5 compatible. The copy of !System provided should only be merged with the one on your hard disk if elite fails to run without it; it contains an old version of the Shared C Library which you probably wouldn't want to install over the one already in your machine."

Tutankhamuns Tomb by Christopher and Harriet Bazley

This is a strategy/maze game. You have three lives and have to collect the right coloured keys to open the coloured doors which block your path to the pyramid's exit, and retrieve the lost crowns. The final (purple) door will not open until you have all the crowns as well as the purple key! This game was originally for the BBC Micro and has been converted by Christopher and Harriet Bazley.

If you pass under a loose rock, it will fall and block your return path! Giant spiders are lethal, but predictable in their movements and you can sometimes outrun them. Golden crowns give a bonus to your score. You also get a bonus for completing the game in a short time. A high score for each level is recorded. Editing levels in 'TutenEd' will automatically reset their high scores to zero.

The keys are:

Z left
X right
" up
? down
P pause: while paused
Q while paused sound off
S while paused sound on
R while paused commit suicide (handy if you get trapped by a rock)
SPACEBAR to unpause

That is it for this GamesWorld, I will be back next issue when we will have yet another bumper crop of games to cover.

Paul Brett