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Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread

From Matthew Westcott <gasman@raww.org>
Newsgroups comp.sys.sinclair
Subject Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread
Date 2012-01-23 21:51 +0000
Message-ID <9o633gF56fU1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References <1dea495e-e60a-450a-86e6-ea653e5344b7@b20g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> <4F1C8E46.MD-1.4.17.chris.young@unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk> <jfinfb$e4j$1@dont-email.me>

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On 23/01/2012 04:25, Brian Gaff wrote:
> The thing is, though I can no longer play games, the real  fun time was when
> thee Spectrum was still mainstream, and yet some game writers thought they
> were producing good software, but it was in fact crap in some way.
>   So what was the worst non intentionally crap game in the 80s and early 90s?
>
> I'm not talking about bugs, though a bug that stopped one completing a game
> would qualify I think.

"Sqij!" by The Power House seems to be more or less uncontested for that 
title. It manages to be crap on so many different levels that it's 
actually quite profound:

* The graphics are hideously bad. To be fair, this is possibly justified 
by the storyline, where you play a mutant bird in a post-apocalyptic 
setting, and maybe mutant birds are meant to look like they've been cut 
out of polystyrene with a butter knife, and their enemies are supposed 
to look like cubist pigs.

* The loader enables caps lock, but the game doesn't respond to 
capitalised keypresses, so you can't control your character at all 
unless you break into the program (it's in Basic, natch) and turn caps 
lock off again.

* Even then, it's pretty much impossible to control because your 
character tends to reverse direction at random.

* But your score continuously increases anyway.

* When it does move in vaguely the right direction, it moves at about 
three pixels a second, because your sprite is so freaking huge and the 
game is written in Basic.

* And leaves a trail of stray pixels behind.

* The enemies are implemented not as regular sprites, but portions of 
the screen that scroll up and down, which means that if you stick your 
head in their path, your head starts scrolling up and down with them.

* Wait... scrolling, in Basic? Oh yes, it's actually using Ocean's Laser 
Basic add-on. But it doesn't use the Laser Basic compiler like you're 
supposed to, so the game actually includes a pirate copy of the Laser 
Basic runtime.

* If you manage to get out of the first room without dying (and being 
greeted by the friendly message "WHAT A PLONKER.YOU'VE JUST GOT YOURSELF 
KILLED"), and then go back in again, it loses track of the enemy 
positions, which means they start wrapping around the top and bottom of 
the screen, and the collision detection happens in the wrong place.

* The Power House went on to demonstrate even more disdain for their 
customers by re-releasing it, in the same broken state, as part of a 
compilation.

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Thread

Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-01-22 14:13 -0800
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2012-01-22 22:31 +0000
    Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Brian Gaff" <Briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-23 04:25 +0000
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-01-23 04:06 -0800
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2012-01-23 14:37 +0000
          Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Guesser <alistair@alistairsserver.no-ip.org> - 2012-01-23 15:19 +0000
            Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2012-01-23 15:52 +0000
              Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread chris@zxlife.net - 2012-01-23 19:40 -0800
                Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2012-01-24 18:57 +0000
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-29 10:51 +0000
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread spike1@freenet.co.uk - 2012-02-08 02:57 +0000
          Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-02-08 12:32 -0800
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Matthew Westcott <gasman@raww.org> - 2012-01-23 21:51 +0000
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Guesser <alistair@alistairsserver.no-ip.org> - 2012-01-23 22:22 +0000
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2012-01-24 19:33 +0000
          Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Duncan Snowden <duncan_s@talktalk.net> - 2012-01-28 14:51 +0000
            Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-29 11:05 +0000
              Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Lee Osborne <losborne74@gmail.com> - 2012-02-04 13:08 -0800
                Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-09 11:52 +0000
                Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-02-21 19:34 -0800
                Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-03 10:48 +0000
                Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread ec429 <ec429@cam.ac.uk> - 2012-03-03 11:55 +0000
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-01-25 06:20 -0800
          Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread spike1@freenet.co.uk - 2012-02-08 02:54 +0000
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread spike1@freenet.co.uk - 2012-02-07 13:25 +0000
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-03-02 02:23 -0800
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-03-06 16:44 -0800
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-03-15 02:01 -0700
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-04-11 00:01 -0700
    Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-06-20 13:56 -0700
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-06-24 08:43 -0700
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-06-26 15:48 -0700
    Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-06-28 12:59 -0700
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2012-06-29 18:26 +0100
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Andrew Owen <aowen10@mail.bbk.ac.uk> - 2012-07-02 09:55 +0100
          Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2012-07-02 17:33 +0100
            Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Andrew Owen <aowen10@mail.bbk.ac.uk> - 2012-07-03 10:21 +0100
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-07-10 22:41 -0700
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-08-19 08:09 -0700
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-12-02 11:49 -0800
    Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Brian Gaff" <Briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-12-02 21:51 +0000
    Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread spike1@freenet.co.uk - 2012-12-03 04:44 +0000
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-12-29 15:36 -0800
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2012-12-31 16:27 -0800
  Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2013-01-11 15:08 -0800
    Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread arda <ardarda@gmail.com> - 2013-01-19 12:47 -0800
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Chris Young" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2013-01-19 22:22 +0000
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Andrew Owen <aowen10@mail.bbk.ac.uk> - 2013-01-20 10:25 +0000
      Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread R-Tape <stonechatproductions@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-01-23 03:09 -0800
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread spike1@freenet.co.uk - 2013-01-23 15:36 +0000
          Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread "Paul E Collins" <equi+web@cl4.invalid> - 2013-01-29 23:32 +0000
        Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread Duncan Snowden <duncan_s@talktalk.net> - 2013-01-23 17:01 +0000
          Re: Official CSSCGC 2012 Thread R-Tape <stonechatproductions@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-01-23 15:27 -0800

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