Floppyshop 2

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Text File | 1997-04-16 | 25KB | 532 lines

Budgie games and software reviewed : PERILS OF PENFOLD LINE OF FOUR GOLD RUSH ZEROPHOD GUARDIAN VIRUS DETECTOR BALL ZONE SHARKS BRAINSTORM MEGAMIX II HEARBELL AVINA BLUE FIRE GAME DARK WARS ~~~OOOO~~~ COMPILATION DISK 1 Perils of Penfold by Philip Bishop Line of Four by Philip Bishop Goldrush by Mark Annets Zerphod by Ian Grainger This is the first ever Budgie Compilation disk and so is quite an oldie. However, this should not be dismissed as 'old and naff' as some of these games are actually quite good. I am not sure of the release date, but it was at least two years ago. PERILS OF PENFOLD This game narrowly missed winning the competition run by Mandarin for the best STOS written game. Budgie say that they think that this game should have one - though they are a little biased! On opening the tomb Penfold is struck down by a mysterious curse that protected it. It is your job to guide Penfold to the potion of Ever Lasting Life that is hidden in a secret vault deep below the tomb. To enter the vault you must have all three doorway keys and the blue tree. This is a flip screen arcade adventure game inside of the tomb. In your search you will have to negotiage some very tricky screens with nasty spikes to fall on not to mention the ghosts, bats, knives and things that try to kill you. If you think that you can take a nice leisurely stroll through the game you can think again because you have to do all of this within a very short time limit. This game is quite small - an obvious sign of this is the time limit - a larger game would need a lot longer to complete the game. One major problem is the collision detection. On some screens you actually have to stand in mid air, just past a ledge, in order to jump to the next one! You also need very precide movements if you wish to negotiate some of the screens which can be a triffle annoying. The graphics are reasonably well drawn though the colours are a bit dull. With a little practice, Perils of Penfold should not pose too much of a problem to most players - especially if you find the cheat mode! A nice little game once you have got used to the collision detection. LINE OF FOUR This connect four game came with Perils of Penfold on the original single sided disk and is a little extra written in STOS by the same author. There is not much that one can say about a connect four game other than the object is to drop counters into a little grid and attempt to get four counters in a row either vertically, horizontally or diagonally. This may sound easy, but your opponent is trying to do the same thing. The main menu offers you the option of playing against a human opponent or the computer. One feature which is missing and would have been a nice touch is a difficulty setting. I am not an expert at connect 4 but I managed to beat the computer fairly easily most times which limits the lasting appeal of the game. The control method is also a little awkward. Being mouse controlled, I would assume that the usual method of playing this would be to move the mouse pointer over the column in which you wish to drop the counter and then click on the button. Instead, this game gives you a little pannel on the right hand side of the screen and you click on left or right to move an arrow over the desired column. The computer moves the arror automatically on his turn and then you take control of the arrow on your turn. You click on a down arrow to drop the counter. This would be fine if it was a little quicker but for some reason it moves rather slowly which can be a little annoying, hardly a major fault however. The playing area fills the whole screen and so the graphics are large and clear, the counters are nice and colourful too. I would say that this is perfect for a beginner who is not all that good and likes to take their time over the game. More experienced players may find it a little easy. We must remember though, that this is the free game and not the one that is paid for. GOLDRUSH This is the thinking (wo)mans version of Lode Runner. Well when I read that I had never heard of a game called Lode Runner, but I have now. This is a platform game consisting of walls, glass section, ladders, lots of gold bars and a guard who chases you. The object of the game is to collect all of the gold bars on each screen, preferably without losing too many lives. It sounds simple, until to realise what you can and can't do. The only way to climb upwards is via the ladder, you cannot climb up the walls in any way. You can climb down ladders, jump off of the walls and also drop of the 'washing lines' that string various sections together. In practice this means that if you go down somewhere you may not be able to get back again if you have not planned carefully. Why not? Because, some gold bars are contained underneath sections of the wall. The only way to get down is to blow up the wall with your infinite supply of bombs. If you were to blow one hole in the wall and drop in it, you would not be able to move left or right and as you cannot climb upwards, you would be trapped. Get the picture? You have to carefully plan which sections of the wall you need to blow up to be able to get the gold and get to a ladder. Unfortunately, you cannot throw bomb while you are up a ladder, on the glass or at the guard. Ah yes, the guard. There is an option at the beginning of the game which is a sort of difficulty setting which allows you to select whether the guard constantly chases you, no matter what you are doing, or if he only moves when you move. The guard will attempt to move in your direction but he is not that intelligent and can get himself trapped. However, sometimes he can be right behind you and the only way to get rid of him is to blow a hole in the floor and run away, the guard will run after you and drop straight in it. He is a very short sighted guard! There are loads of screens and the first one had me stumped for ages, luckily you also have lots of lives, about six. There is a terrible tune at the beginning which thankfully turns itself off when you start playing and there are only a couple of spot effects. The graphics are tiny but the whole playing area is shown on screen. Okay so the effects do look rather dated but it is the gamelay which counts, and this game has bags of it. It is very addictive indeed and if you have good enough eyesight to see characters about 6 pixels high then you should love it - assuming you like platform games that it. ZERPHOD This game is also a freebie. This one came with Goldrush. This is a 3D maze game where the object is to find 3 globules within this maze before your oxygen runs out and without the monsters catching you. You have a map at your disposal which shows you where you can go and where the monsters are but it doesn't show you where the globules are. The control method is most annoying because it forces you to move forwards, and turning to face either left or right. This can be most confusing and the mouse response is also very slow. This makes the game most fustrating as it is a lot harder to complete in the time limit. The graphics are quite boring, the sound is boring and the game is boring - but then again I never really did like maze games. Its a matter of taste. GUARDIAN VIRUS DETECTOR This little extra comes on quite a lot of the compilation disks. It is a small program which you configue with a short message and then install on all of your disks. The message will be flashed on the screen on bootup telling you that your disk is virus free. Should the message not appear then you know that something else has found its way onto the bootsector. Kornflake - - - - * * * * - - - - BALL ZONE Released sometime in 1988! Author Ian Grainger Budgie Single 7 Ball Zone is one of Budgie's earliest offerings and the concept is also an old one. This is a clone of Breakout or Arkanoid, whatever you prefer to call it. The game is simple, you control a bat with your mouse which you can move left and right. It is situated near the bottom of the playing area. Using your bat you must bounce a ball upwards into the playing area which contains lots of colourd blocks. If you hit a block with the ball then it dissapears and your score increases. You must attempt to clear all of the blocks. So how do you die? If you miss when trying to catch the ball then it will fall behind you into a never ending pit with large snakes at the bottom (sorry, little joke). Seriously, you have three balls to play with (yes, three) which constitutes your three lives. Now this version has some unique features, the first being a row of blocks behind you which prevent your ball from falling when you miss, however once a block has been hit you will have a hole in the row and if the ball falls down it again then it is lost. This row is not replenished after each level so be careful. Just to add to the tension, there is also a timer ticking away, if this reaches zero then you lose one of your balls (dangerous game isn't it). There are also bonus blocks which when hit, instead of dissapearing, fall slowly to the bottom, if you manage to catch the falling block then you will get a bonus of some sort. There are also 'things' which float around the screen and if your ball hits them then you get another bonus. Onto the effects, the graphics are very well drawn, particularly the blocks. Everything within the game moves very slowly, it is a shame about the credits which jerks madly. The one little fault that I spotted was that the collision detection is not perfect. This is particularly noticeable when you hit a block which needs more than one hit to get rid of. The ball appears to go through it, this also happens when you hit the ball at one of the nasties and it goes straight through it without killing it. Luckily this problem is not too bad and at most times you don't realise it. Niggles aside, the game is very good. But it's 3 years old I hear you cry. Well there are lots of these types of games in the Public Domain at the moment and most are very good. However, the only one that I have seen which I think could beat this is a mono only version which had loads of features. On the other hand, breakout is a simple concept and too many features could spoil it and this has got a very good playability. Kornflake - - - - * * * * - - - - SHARKS Author Donald Campbell Budgie Single 79 This release is an educational title for the younger ST'ers about. It works in a similar way to hangman but is represented in a different way. The computer has a word which it knows and which the player has to guess. Representing the player, is a man at the beginning of a peir. You click on a letter to try it - no keyboard needed - and if it is in the word then all occurences of it are displayed. However, should the letter not be in the word then the man will be pushed along the peir. Should the man be pushed right off then the sharks will get him! However should you guess the word correctly then a helicopter will come and rescue him. There are several word lists included in the program, each consisting of ten words. When the child gets tired of these ones then the creator can be used to make up more words and so increasing the long time interest in the game. It is presented well, a panel on the right of the screen shows all of the letters largely and clearly, and when a letter is used, it is either moved to the correct place in the word, shown at the top left, or it is pushed behind the man on the pier. A good variation on a basic theme. BRAINSTORM - MEGAMIX II This is a little freebie on the disk with Sharks. This is a two player game of the type where a set of overturned tiles are displayed, and each player takes his turn to reveal a pair of tiles trying to find a match. Each match will win the player points - however this version of the game has a cunning twist! There are several 'special' sets of tiles which do interesting things such as swap the points fo each player! this adds a little exitement into the game. Also, the graphics are really good in this one. HEARBELL - NOT STE What? Another freebie? Yes, but this one is a very small freebie, in fact it is an incredibly small freebie. So small, that it only takes up 2k! So what it is then? Well it could be a small text file, and um, well not a lot else really, you couldn't get any graphics or sound or anything like that in just 2k could you? Okay, enough of the suspense. Hearbell is in fact the smallest ever (at time of writing) version of Connect 4! It is a complete game against the computer, full graphics, the lot. Due to the smallness of it, the movement is a little tricky - mouse routines would have taken up too much room and so you press a key to move your counter along the top of the rows and then another key to drop it. Well the author has (naturally) laid down a challenge for anyone to write a smaller one with the same features. Can you make the challenge? Kornflake - - - - * * * * - - - - AVINA BLUE Author Chris Skellern Budgie Single 72 The scenario : 'Many hundreds of years from now, software companies operate from huge purpose built satellite moons that orbit the earth. The human spirit is almost dead. ur lifestyle has become totally overuled by the EGO MIND and its creations. In it's beleif that it itself is a living thing, the EGO MIND destroys and represses any threats to its so called identity. One last chance exists for the survival of the human soul. A small band of programmers operating under the name of Budgie UK have found and reclaimed some long lost spirit of creativity and programming magic. However, a counter plot to destroy and wipe out this magic for all eternity has been detected from within an orbitting software satellite called Avina Blue. Should they be allowed to unleash their latest game onto the innocent game players of mother earth the results would be catastrophic. The game graphics and gamplay are totally dresses up in Egomania and all mankind would feel such sadness in the heart that the whole of mankind would be turned into a race of heartless Zombies!' Well thats the plot and now for the game: This is a basically a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up held within the Avina Blue. The landscape is very hard to negotiate, especially at the speed at which it scrolls past and there are countless monsters (or dodgy programmers) who get in your way and must be shot or avoided. The graphics are well drawn, the scrolling is very smooth and overall this is an incredibly addictive game. Shame about the plot though! Kornflake - - - - * * * * - - - - FIREGAME Author Mike Duncan Budgie Single 74 This is a board game similar in style to Monopoly but with a different theme. The object of the game is to build a house bit by bit by paying builders to build sections of the walls, the rooms and windows and the roof. To actually play the game, first select whether you will play against the computer or a human opponent and then off you go. A dice is rolled and you are then moved along the board for the corresponding number of spaces. There are several things that you can land on. The first is a section of the house which you can buy if you need it and have enough money. Unlike Monopoly, a square does not belong to anybody, you both need to buy all of the sections in order to complete the house. The only competition with each other is trying to build your house quicker than your opponent. The second is a risk card. There are 15 of these, evenly divided between good and bad. These are a bit like the chance cards on Monopoly except that you can choose whether or not to take the risk. The other thing that you can land on is the dreaded fire! This is where the big risk of the game comes in. Fires can be started by landing on the fire square or getting a bad risk card. Fires spread quickly and if not doused, will spread, destroying sections. You can land on fire bucket squares which will allow you to put out one section of fire. There is an option to take out an insurance policy to protect you should a disaster happen. In order to actually buy all these sections, you need money. This is to be found at the bank which gives you £5000 each time round the board. You can also gain and lose money through the risk cards. Other than that, you don't have to pay any money to your opponent. The game plays quite well but I have found that when the end is near and you only have one section left to get, you end up just going round and round the board hoping to land on the section that you need to buy. As you can imagine, this does get rather boring. At least with Monopoly, you can have a glorious win watching everybody else give everything they own to you! Another minor niggle is the graphics. At first glance they are actually very good. Colourful and well drawn. However some of the text clashes on a television and is hard to read and due to bad programming you sometimes get 'bits left over' on the graphics which shouldn't be there. To compensate there is a 'soap' option which lets you get rid of these odd graphics but is also wipes the players off the board and you don't see them again until they play. On the plus side, the source code, in GFA BASIC is supplied so you can always have a look and try to correct this strange bug. Of course, if you do alter the source code in anyway, make sure you let the author know (or Budgie UK as the author resides in Australia) and don't distribute it. In conclusion then, the game is a good version of a an old concept which is quite interesting to start with but the end can be a little drawn out. Also on the disk is Hearbell which is described above. Kornflake - - - - * * * * - - - - DARK WARS Author Adam Medley Budgie Single 71 The Scanario as taken from the Readme file: The clerics of Invar forest had long belived that there was something oustide their 5 mile by 5 mile clearing but the other inhabitants of the four known towns had dismissed their tales as fairy stories. However when contact was lost with the two towns to the south of the Invar river the people began to wonder if there was something in the clerics tales. Unfortunately war broke out between the remaining two towns (the first Dark war). Both armies were decimated but gradually the western town, Swordsblade, gained the upper hand and forced the defenders of Eaglesmount into the walls of the town and then laid siege to it. One morning the citizens of Eaglesmount awoke to find the attacking army had completely disappeared. Closer inspection showed that a vicious battle had been fought and the army of Swordsblade completly destroyed. A few of the wounded were carried into Eaglesmount but most died quickly. However one soldier did survive and told of being attacked in the night by an army of evilorcs from the south. The Elders of the towns of swordsblade and Eaglesmount meet and after long discussions agreed to make peace and form an expedition to find out what had happened to the two southern towns and to discover where the orcs had come from. The expedition was sent forth and no word was heard from it for many weeks, and then one afternoon a lone warrior rode into the town of swords blade and collapsed in the square. Before he died he said one word, 'Undead'. A parchment was found on him which said: 'This messanger is our last hope. If anyone receives this message then the northen towns may be saved from an evil greater then any I have seen before in my life. What is left of our expedition is in the tower of good just south of the river where we may be safe. But no-one must come south of the river ever again. DO NOT COME SOUTH OF THE RIVER. ' But the Elders ignored this warning and offered a reward of 20000 Bronze pieces to anyone who can find out what is happening in the south. As you may as guessed, the aim of the game is to take on the role of this person and attempt to solve the great mystery and reap your reward. If you have ever seen the game Dungeon Master then you should be familiar with this. In the top left hand corner of the screen if a small window which is your view. Underneath is a large collections of actions that you may carry out such as examine, eat, open, talk, cast spells etc. On the right are movement icons and and information box where you can quit, save or load the game, gain information about your party and your environment. You start off in the local tavern and there you will meet various people, some of which you may be able to recruit to your cause, some of which will sell you things and some of which will probably fight you. You move everywhere by using the movement icons and communicate with everything with the action commands and so the whole game is mouse controlled and no keyboard entry is required whatsoever. As with most role playing type games your character has certain qualities. before you start playing Dark wars you will need to create a character. You can choose between Human, Dwarf, Elf and Halfling and you also choose your profession - Warrior, Theif and Magic User. The statistics are then chosen for you randomly. You may choose to keep or reject the character. All of your statistics will affect the game. If you are a warrior with a high strength and dexterity then you will do well in hand to hand combat. If you have a high charisma then you are more likely to be able to recuit people to your party. A person with good magical skills will obviously be better at casting spells. Using this method means that you can choose your character carefully and in effect choose how you wish to play the game. There are lots of characters, lots of places to visit (if you don't get lost and go round in circles) and basically lots of exploring to do. The graphics, although small, are mostly clear and well drawn and look very good. The overall presentation of the game is professional - this could easily have been released commercially for a tenner or so. On the disk you will find a long readme file which is where I got the scanario from. In it there are extensive intructions for playing (most of which you won't need until you really get into it) and details of loads of spells and even a map of the town in which you start. In conclusion then, this is not everybodys cup of tea, but for those who like this sort of thing, then it is the type of game where you can really get involved in it and enjoy it. It has bags of playability and long term interest and the graphics are great too - what more could you ask for? Kornflake