01-15-2005, 04:15 AM
First of all: the review of Barrack
(Sorry for my poor English and this strange comment: i had two weeks to write it
)
In a few words:
Well done, awesome idea!
So going on with some regular review:
You will immediately notice after starting that this is not just "the same as xy". The
game what might be the closest to this is a very rare text screen old game called
xonix (NOT the hedgehog!), or Volfied. Both of them are rare, and the similarity is just
like comparing Heroes to Age of Empires. Something what was never been before!
Like in those old games you have to conquer the playfield, but now not by moving and
laying a line after you: you have to use a laser gun. This makes the whole thing
completely different as that you can not turn you have to use different strategy to get
rid of those balls. Here comes an another difference: most of them are not just bouncing
around the remaining open area. It is important to catch on with (and catch) them since
your score mostly accumulates based on how you could deal with the balls. This gameplay
makes the game completely unique: you may find old games which remind to this, but none
what is similar!
Graphic
The game not offers too much at this side. It just draws a few circles and boxes with
the standard palette on Screen 9 (This makes the circles a little strange, but they are
circles, and makes the graphic flick - free). On the other hand this is enough for the
game, and it not looks so bad as excepted as many things are well detailed and some are
animated, and due to this it not needs any external file.
Score: 5/10
Sound
As the game is just one executable, there is no music for it. On the other hand it has
many effects, but they come out from the PC speaker what can be a little annoying.
Hopefully it can be turned off, and the game remembers this. But if you connect the
speaker to your sound card somehow the effects can rise the game's value.
Score: 4/10
Handling
At unique games usually it is a big problem that the programmer do not really know how
to make it's handling. This one is the opposite of it: everything is perfectly done, it
seems to be well - tested. You control your "paddle" with the mouse what makes you able
to do everything what is needed. You will never lose just because you could not press
or move something in time! Excellent! I could not find anything negative!
Score: 10/10
Game idea
This is absolutely the highest point of the game. Of course it reminds to some games,
but they all are so rare that makes this game extremely unique. And not to mention that
the idea is not bad: The entire game speaks for itself: it can be well done!
Score: 5/5
Gameplay
Althoug you might have never seen such a game before, you can learn it in just five
minutes. You will have to walk trough the help pages which are short, and explain the
thing well (I especially liked that the ball types were shown in action). The only
problem was after i red them i assumed i know everything, but two important keys were
only in the control setup. The help said about them, but i thought that they are just
to configure on fly. The first few levels are not hard, they are just showing the
balls, each one in each level, then it becomes harder and harder, finally it will seem
to be impossible. The first move is the most difficult, without power ups on the later
levels you are dead. So this is an another challenge: using up the resources wisely.
There is another small problem around here: there are a few ball which not play their
role well (I think it is impossible to seperate the queen from so much swarm balls,
maybe only with using up all the magnets & time) , but this is a "must have" for a new
idea. They are just a little annoying, these bugs not really harm the gameplay.
Score: 8/10
Replay
At this side the game is in the group of "short, just play". No story, no characters,
just a little game with which you can spend your time. To this it is very good, on the
other hand the lack of Save makes it annoying if you get used to the game and can beat
the first levels by routine, but this will not take too much time. The better players
can get through easy levels in much shorter time, so this is not so horrible.
Score: 4/5
Pure QBasic
First of all hadn't i said that NO ASSEMBLY???!!! On the other hand the game uses ASM
for only the mouse what may be eliminated for example with my mouse routines.
Everything else is just QBasic, there is nothing in this code what may be "smelly"
except that mouse routine.
Score: 14/25
(I think i said that -10 points for loading the base library, and -1 for each
interrupt or port group used)
Speed
When there were many balls on the screen the game started to slow down on my P233. I
think the lowest configuration on which it runs acceptably is at about 150Mhz.
Score: 10/25
(As i can remember i said that if the game seems to have problems on a 300Mhz CPU then
0 points. But i forgot how the scoring was)
So finally:
Game/QB
36/50 (72%) - 24/50 (48%)
All: 60%
(Remember: this is a hard competition! This 60% means a good game! If the speed could
be increased somehow then it would get many valuable points. I think GETting & PUTting
the balls too would help a little: that many CIRCLEs are a little slow.)
(I will rewrite the scores if i find that the other games here were reviewed with
different scoring system. If you think something should not be what i gave, tell it,
and i may correct them. Of course it is not only me who can make the score here,
feel free to tell what you think. This is not just an usual competition )
(My highest score was 249290 points. It can be very hard )
What means what for me:
Graphic: The game's look. What will be somebody's opinion if she / he only see the
screenshots of the game.
Sound: The same but if the sounds were shown alone (the effect - imagine them in
anything else in their suitable place).
Handling: How easy (or hard) is to use the menu systems, but primarily how the
controlling fits (or not) to the game itself.
Game idea: If somebody just says that "i want you to program this" how you will feel
(assuming that you would like to program a similar thing).
Gameplay: How all the things above get together in the game (not scoring them again,
just what they make as feeling), and how good is the game itself.
Replay: Primarily what "replay" says: will you play it again after you played, but a
little for how many people may like the idea (who like it will play more than who not)
End of the review. If that could be scored i would give a little bonus for doing this
all in just one BAS file. On the other hand i had a little problem when i tried to
compile it with my QB4.5: id did not work. I had to dust off that thing called
"Professional Development System" (- Micro$oft) what i so hate to do it.
I still could not finish the graphic library as i much more like 16 colors in QB (I
started again a project for it: i want to write a simple big cat life simulator in
just one file in pure QBasic. I not really like messing up with those ultra complex
file formats needed by our games can be seen on our page). I finished creating a HLine
and a VLine routine for it and that first appeared to be very very fast. On my computer
it produced 180FPS while QB lines were at 101FPS when i drew 64000 pixels of 320
pixels wide lines. When i tried to fill the screen with 5 pixels wide lines i got
48FPS for my routine while QB did it at 20FPS. This may be important for a 3D engine
what needs horizontal lines to produce triangles (To produce something like what can
be seen in 16 colors at our "Future projects" page).
Here is the source without any speed testing to not fill the whole page:
(If you plan to write 100% QB 3D then you may find this valuable, but not for anything
else yet)
Spinball? - i think i have some old shareware version of it: it was not bad, but that really annoyed me (and everyone within 25 metres) that i could not turn off it's PC Speaker effects. Of course you can submit if it has a new version (I hope it was made more interesting. I think the biggest drawback was that the gameplay became quite boring after a short time)
(Sorry for my poor English and this strange comment: i had two weeks to write it
)In a few words:
Well done, awesome idea!
So going on with some regular review:
You will immediately notice after starting that this is not just "the same as xy". The
game what might be the closest to this is a very rare text screen old game called
xonix (NOT the hedgehog!), or Volfied. Both of them are rare, and the similarity is just
like comparing Heroes to Age of Empires. Something what was never been before!
Like in those old games you have to conquer the playfield, but now not by moving and
laying a line after you: you have to use a laser gun. This makes the whole thing
completely different as that you can not turn you have to use different strategy to get
rid of those balls. Here comes an another difference: most of them are not just bouncing
around the remaining open area. It is important to catch on with (and catch) them since
your score mostly accumulates based on how you could deal with the balls. This gameplay
makes the game completely unique: you may find old games which remind to this, but none
what is similar!
Graphic
The game not offers too much at this side. It just draws a few circles and boxes with
the standard palette on Screen 9 (This makes the circles a little strange, but they are
circles, and makes the graphic flick - free). On the other hand this is enough for the
game, and it not looks so bad as excepted as many things are well detailed and some are
animated, and due to this it not needs any external file.
Score: 5/10
Sound
As the game is just one executable, there is no music for it. On the other hand it has
many effects, but they come out from the PC speaker what can be a little annoying.
Hopefully it can be turned off, and the game remembers this. But if you connect the
speaker to your sound card somehow the effects can rise the game's value.
Score: 4/10
Handling
At unique games usually it is a big problem that the programmer do not really know how
to make it's handling. This one is the opposite of it: everything is perfectly done, it
seems to be well - tested. You control your "paddle" with the mouse what makes you able
to do everything what is needed. You will never lose just because you could not press
or move something in time! Excellent! I could not find anything negative!
Score: 10/10
Game idea
This is absolutely the highest point of the game. Of course it reminds to some games,
but they all are so rare that makes this game extremely unique. And not to mention that
the idea is not bad: The entire game speaks for itself: it can be well done!
Score: 5/5
Gameplay
Althoug you might have never seen such a game before, you can learn it in just five
minutes. You will have to walk trough the help pages which are short, and explain the
thing well (I especially liked that the ball types were shown in action). The only
problem was after i red them i assumed i know everything, but two important keys were
only in the control setup. The help said about them, but i thought that they are just
to configure on fly. The first few levels are not hard, they are just showing the
balls, each one in each level, then it becomes harder and harder, finally it will seem
to be impossible. The first move is the most difficult, without power ups on the later
levels you are dead. So this is an another challenge: using up the resources wisely.
There is another small problem around here: there are a few ball which not play their
role well (I think it is impossible to seperate the queen from so much swarm balls,
maybe only with using up all the magnets & time) , but this is a "must have" for a new
idea. They are just a little annoying, these bugs not really harm the gameplay.
Score: 8/10
Replay
At this side the game is in the group of "short, just play". No story, no characters,
just a little game with which you can spend your time. To this it is very good, on the
other hand the lack of Save makes it annoying if you get used to the game and can beat
the first levels by routine, but this will not take too much time. The better players
can get through easy levels in much shorter time, so this is not so horrible.
Score: 4/5
Pure QBasic
First of all hadn't i said that NO ASSEMBLY???!!! On the other hand the game uses ASM
for only the mouse what may be eliminated for example with my mouse routines.
Everything else is just QBasic, there is nothing in this code what may be "smelly"
except that mouse routine.
Score: 14/25
(I think i said that -10 points for loading the base library, and -1 for each
interrupt or port group used)
Speed
When there were many balls on the screen the game started to slow down on my P233. I
think the lowest configuration on which it runs acceptably is at about 150Mhz.
Score: 10/25
(As i can remember i said that if the game seems to have problems on a 300Mhz CPU then
0 points. But i forgot how the scoring was)
So finally:
Game/QB
36/50 (72%) - 24/50 (48%)
All: 60%
(Remember: this is a hard competition! This 60% means a good game! If the speed could
be increased somehow then it would get many valuable points. I think GETting & PUTting
the balls too would help a little: that many CIRCLEs are a little slow.)
(I will rewrite the scores if i find that the other games here were reviewed with
different scoring system. If you think something should not be what i gave, tell it,
and i may correct them. Of course it is not only me who can make the score here,
feel free to tell what you think. This is not just an usual competition
)(My highest score was 249290 points. It can be very hard
)What means what for me:
Graphic: The game's look. What will be somebody's opinion if she / he only see the
screenshots of the game.
Sound: The same but if the sounds were shown alone (the effect - imagine them in
anything else in their suitable place).
Handling: How easy (or hard) is to use the menu systems, but primarily how the
controlling fits (or not) to the game itself.
Game idea: If somebody just says that "i want you to program this" how you will feel
(assuming that you would like to program a similar thing).
Gameplay: How all the things above get together in the game (not scoring them again,
just what they make as feeling), and how good is the game itself.
Replay: Primarily what "replay" says: will you play it again after you played, but a
little for how many people may like the idea (who like it will play more than who not)
End of the review. If that could be scored i would give a little bonus for doing this
all in just one BAS file. On the other hand i had a little problem when i tried to
compile it with my QB4.5: id did not work. I had to dust off that thing called
"Professional Development System" (- Micro$oft) what i so hate to do it.
I still could not finish the graphic library as i much more like 16 colors in QB (I
started again a project for it: i want to write a simple big cat life simulator in
just one file in pure QBasic. I not really like messing up with those ultra complex
file formats needed by our games can be seen on our page). I finished creating a HLine
and a VLine routine for it and that first appeared to be very very fast. On my computer
it produced 180FPS while QB lines were at 101FPS when i drew 64000 pixels of 320
pixels wide lines. When i tried to fill the screen with 5 pixels wide lines i got
48FPS for my routine while QB did it at 20FPS. This may be important for a 3D engine
what needs horizontal lines to produce triangles (To produce something like what can
be seen in 16 colors at our "Future projects" page).
Here is the source without any speed testing to not fill the whole page:
(If you plan to write 100% QB 3D then you may find this valuable, but not for anything
else yet)
Code:
'Spotted Cheetah - Hungarian Big Cat Society
'
'Pure QBasic SCREEN 13 "library"
'
'
DEFINT A-Z 'Not recommended by the library
'$STATIC
DECLARE SUB S13PlotPx (x%, y%, cl%, scr%())
'Note: You should build the code directly into the program to be fast
DECLARE FUNCTION S13GetPx% (x%, y%, scr%())
'The same as above if you need many pixels
DECLARE SUB S13InitBuf (xSiz%, ySiz%, scr%())
'Initializes a scr%() screen buffer. xSiz% will be increased to a multiple
'of 2: the width of the buffer will always be even
DECLARE SUB S13PutBuf (x%, y%, scr%())
'Sends the buffer to screen
DECLARE SUB S13HLine (x1%, x2%, y%, cl%, scr%())
DECLARE SUB S13VLine (x%, y1%, y2%, cl%, scr%())
DIM SHARED m256%(255)
FUNCTION S13GetPx% (x%, y%, scr%()) STATIC
arr% = scr%(x%) + scr%(y% + 320)
IF 1 AND x% THEN
S13GetPx% = scr%(arr%) \ 256
ELSE
S13GetPx% = &HFF AND scr%(arr%)
END IF
END FUNCTION
SUB S13HLine (x1%, x2%, y%, cl%, scr%()) STATIC
IF (y% >= 0) AND (y% < scr%(521)) THEN
xs% = x1%
xf% = x2%
IF xs% > xf% THEN SWAP xs%, xf%
IF (xf% >= 0) AND (xs% < (scr%(520) \ 8)) THEN
IF xs% < 0 THEN xs% = 0
IF xf% >= scr%(520) THEN xf% = (scr%(520) \ 8) - 1
xst% = (xs% + 1) AND &HFFFE
xft% = (xf% - 1) AND &HFFFE
ars% = scr%(xst%) + scr%(y% + 320)
arf% = ars% + ((xft% - xst%) \ 2)
clt% = m256%(cl%)
IF xst% <> xs% THEN scr%(ars% - 1) = &HFF AND scr%(ars% - 1) OR clt%
IF xft% + 1 <> xf% THEN scr%(arf% + 1) = &HFF00 AND scr%(arf% + 1) OR cl%
clt% = clt% + cl%
FOR i% = ars% TO arf%
scr%(i%) = clt%
NEXT i%
END IF
END IF
END SUB
SUB S13InitBuf (xSiz%, ySiz%, scr%())
ERASE scr%
REDIM scr%(((xSiz% + 1) \ 2) * ySiz% - 1 + 2 + 320 + 200)
FOR i% = 0 TO xSiz% - 1: scr%(i%) = (i% \ 2) + 522: NEXT i%
FOR i% = 0 TO ySiz% - 1: scr%(i% + 320) = i% * ((xSiz% + 1) \ 2): NEXT i%
scr%(520) = ((xSiz% + 1) \ 2) * 16
scr%(521) = ySiz%
FOR i% = 0 TO 127
m256%(i%) = i% * 256
m256%(i% + 128) = (i% - 128) * 256
NEXT i%
END SUB
SUB S13PlotPx (x%, y%, cl%, scr%()) STATIC
arr% = scr%(x%) + scr%(y% + 320)
IF 1 AND x% THEN
scr%(arr%) = &HFF AND scr%(arr%) OR m256%(cl%)
ELSE
scr%(arr%) = &HFF00 AND scr%(arr%) OR cl%
END IF
END SUB
SUB S13PutBuf (x%, y%, scr%())
PUT (x%, y%), scr%(520), PSET
END SUB
SUB S13VLine (x%, y1%, y2%, cl%, scr%())
IF (x% >= 0) AND (x% < (scr%(520) \ 8)) THEN
ys% = y1%
yf% = y2%
IF ys% > yf% THEN SWAP ys%, yf%
IF (yf% >= 0) AND (ys% < scr%(521)) THEN
IF ys% < 0 THEN ys% = 0
IF yf% >= scr%(521) THEN yf% = scr%(521) - 1
ars% = scr%(x%) + scr%(ys% + 320)
ari% = scr%(520) \ 16 'Increase with buffer's width
arf% = scr%(x%) + scr%(yf% + 320)
IF 1 AND x% THEN
tmp% = m256%(cl%)
FOR i% = ars% TO arf% STEP ari%
scr%(i%) = &HFF AND scr%(i%) OR tmp%
NEXT i%
ELSE
FOR i% = ars% TO arf% STEP ari%
scr%(i%) = &HFF00 AND scr%(i%) OR cl%
NEXT i%
END IF
END IF
END IF
END SUBSpinball? - i think i have some old shareware version of it: it was not bad, but that really annoyed me (and everyone within 25 metres) that i could not turn off it's PC Speaker effects. Of course you can submit if it has a new version
(I hope it was made more interesting. I think the biggest drawback was that the gameplay became quite boring after a short time)
fter 60 million years a civilization will search for a meteorite destroying most of the living creatures around this age...
There must be a better future for the Cheetahs!
http://rcs.fateback.com/
There must be a better future for the Cheetahs!
http://rcs.fateback.com/