The Games

This, our first entry to the 2010 compo arrived on the day of opening from Firelord.

If you are a software developer like me, you might be familiar with the XAMPP toolset.  Well, I was quite excited when Firelord sent me an email saying that he had successfully ported it to the ZX Spectrum (16K or 48K version wasn't stated however). I say successfully in the broadest sense of the word however...

Excitedly, I booted it up and was reassured by the intro screen but after that, things did tend to go downhill a bit.  After some initial warnings and prompts, the start up process hit one brick wall after another, each feeling like a slap in the face.  Not only was some kind of virus attacking the MYSQL server, but my log file was apparently decorated with firewall and port issues.  Obviously my humble speccy was straining at this point as familiar ZX BASIC error codes came in.  Eventually I had to pull the power plug from my machine but it was too late - I now have another lifeless speccy to use as a doorstop.  Another one bites the dust.... just like this app.

Oh, how badly did Apenao want to get the first entry into this year's competition? Missing it by less than 90 minutes must have been a blow below the belt after his hectic morning running around like a lunatic trying to get his game together to be bombed by bird poo (you can read it here for yourself!)

Well as far as crap is concerned, this game is in the ballpark.  This is clearly one of those games where a massively disproportionate amount of time was spent designing a decent loading screen followed by an equally satisfying 'start game' animation that no time was left to improve the game itself.  Once the game starts, there ends all hint of graphical eye candy as you freefall back into a standard speccy black on white screen.  Even the emulated spectrum font fails to impress!

It takes a while to work out what the objective of the game is, not least because the game is quite happy to run along all by itself without any interaction from yourself! Selecting games using the number keys (followed by a entering a score) appears to have little on the overall game position, particularly since the game you select is no bearing on the one that gets selected.

I was impressed for all of 3.7 seconds to see that other people are voting along with me, right up to the point when I realised by humble spectrum isn't networked to the internet.  I assume the 'others' must be using some kind of spectrum mind control to manipulate the game.

A score system was hastily added in by the author at the last minute to give it a level of authenticity.  Personally, my pet cat Clive keeps better score.

Not bad job at confusing the player and would have had good 'load once then bin it' factor if it wasn't for the nice loading graphics and start anim.  Must try harder Apenao!

Oh, this is nice! Not the game but its underlying political statement...

I can't help feeling that AYChip has capitalised on a faux pas by Yours Truly with this little chestnut. The timing of the aforementioned faux pas could not have been worse in mounting tensions after the recent FAQ debacle which also didn't escape the author's notice.

More impressively, he must have turned this game around (including the gripping instruction text) in a matter of a couple of hours before firing it at high speed velocity towards my inbox.

Unusual for a game written in BASIC, this one includes 8 directional control but this cancelled out by the fact that you can't get your crosshairs to the edge of the page if your target has wrapped across the page.  I can only assume that the text-wrapping is representative Minkowski spacetime and that maybe, if you can get those cross hairs to move a bit faster, you might be able allow special relativity to take hold and push you to the edges before reality notices what you've done.  If not, then damned if I know how to knock out the letters when they are off the page.  Surely not a... bug?

Read the manual then play the game.  But before you do, you will have to decide which side you align yourselves with. That will then help make the decision on whether this game is the mark of a pure genius or simply total crap!

Nice one Ed.  looking forward to your next 579 games!

Apologies to Digital Prawn for missing this epic game in my first upload.  I had played it earlier that day (like we believe that! - ed.) but once again fatigue from my day job as a secret agent got the better of me!

If you are loading this game into a REAL spectrum (which I assume you all will be of course) do plan it first.  Do LOAD "", start the tape, then take that two week holiday into the Balearics.  It might have finished loading on your return.  I thought I might at least enjoy the loading screen whilst I wait in anticipation but it was robbed from right under my eyes no sooner had it arrived.  As to the loading time, maybe someone should tell the silly Prawn that he doesn't have to zero out the entire machine's memory to make his game work, and if he did, then he should read up on a little trick with the LDIR command!

But onto the game.  Apparently, your quest is to navigate Yendalf through the forest of Talberon whilst wielding his staff of Xandar in a menacing way until you find the golden egg.  OK - let stop there; Yendalf? Talberon? Xandar? Who makes up these names? (DP presumably - ed.) Sounds like Tolkien on ACID.

The game isn't as horrendously awful once you ignore the fact that there isn't any sort of scoring mechanism, no time limit and infinite shots of the staff (AFAIK) and that the extent to which the egg is camouflaged is that it is the same colour as the trees! Whoopie doo!

Saying that, I did manage to accidently destroy the egg so I suppose I probably need more practise.  Then again, I blame the stupid position of the fire button - great layout if you have NO THUMBS!

Graphics and anim speed however are not bad enough to warrant the game really crap.  Therefore, it is back to the drawing board my binary crustaceous friend.

Firelord is on a mission in this year's competition - 2nd game submission just under 48 hours after his first one and this must have been written whilst smoking the wacky backy.

This game appears to be the sequel to last year's entry "Sinclair Blind Flight Simulator" but this time you get to fly the plane from take off up to landing.  What makes this flight sim a bit different is that you do it using the classic adventure keys: N E S and W.  (Bet you can't find that in the 747-700 series aviation manual!) Still, it's about all you have to go on as you have to feel your way around in order to progress the adventure.  It is at this point where you have to wonder why the adventure features graphics if you are blind.  Still all graphics look like they were done on an etch-a-sketch and probably by a blind person!

You get the option of using the Braille Monitor or Normal Monitor at the start but the Braille version didn't seem to change anything.  Presumably this is because I don't have a Braille monitor.

I thought it was a bit odd that the LOOK command still works as normal in this adventure game.  I thought Firelord would have had the insight (!) to use the keywords FEEL, TOUCH, GROPE etc. instead but alas no.

Some screens don't allow you to read the description before the text rolls off the screen.  Hint: Type WORDS to view all the text and GRAPHICS to return to pictures mode.  That little nugget will have earned Firelord a couple of notches on the crap factor alone.

I must say, the whole concept and the in-game content is a great read and very amusing.  Can't wait for the third and final part of the trilogy: the landing.

I really do feel that Paul is doing his younger self a disservice by submitting his pinball game into the CGC.  Written in the early 90s when he was just a wee lad and long before girls became desirable, the young Paul put together this rather nice little gem.  It has all those cute little nuances that an amateur ends up with when programming in BASIC, like: "big pauses when the ball bounces and basic goes through 6 loops before the rebound logic completes".  It makes you want to go "Ahhhh! Sweeeeet!"

Yes, it is bit bizarre that it is called Pinball Machine when it clearly resembles Thru' the wall.  Firstly Pinball should have flippers, not a bat and secondly the physics of Pinball should be based on Gravity rather than Newton's First Law (duuurrrh!).  Still, as Paul points out, the Cascade Cassette 50 version of Pinball also had exactly the same flaw so I guess his younger self was simply misled by the CC50 tape.  Yet another example of the irreplaceable damage caused by the CC50 tape!!!

Points should be awarded for the poor scoring mechanism: Only the "10" graphics appear to clock up your score, even though much more interesting wotzits appear on the stage.  I like the way the UDGs are loaded and defined in the first BASIC loader block and the game in the second.  If Paul had accidently omitted the first loading block from his CGC entry then a few more crap points may have been handed out.

Nice job Paul and great insight to the copy the flaw of the CC50 Pinball game.  It is however far superior than most of the CC50 games (including Pinball) and it is probably too nice and pretty to slate to death!

Wow! Apenao has teamed up with James Cameron to present us with the award-winning tie-in game. I invite you to read the most interesting Background and Instructions as wrote by Apenao all by himself.

Graphics are fantastic on account of their masked graphics (apparently; 11 of them; at the same time; simultaneously) and shiny loading screen.

Comical contacts from the Blue People (If you ever wondered where the Smurfs came from them this game just might give you the answer) and the Invaders (e.g. us).  If you don't speak the lingo then you obviously didn't read the book (which I myself did, obviously!) and so you deserve to lose.

The and prizes were awarded to this game. Presumably the latter is awarded to games whose authors have recent been bombed by a seagull on their way to work. If you are looking for the same 3D effect that you get at the cinema then make sure you put those funny polarised glasses before playing then game.  If you don't have any then don't worry, the 3D effect works just as well without.

Brilliant game but it does beg the question: What part of "Crap" does Apenao not understand in the phrase "Crap Game Competition"?

And before you ask.  No, I didn't receive a $1,000,000 backhander from Apenao and his dogsbody Cameron!

Digital Prawn shows off his skills in BASIC by pushing his game through the Hi-Soft BASIC compiler in order get himself a few extra CPU cycles every frame while you try to whack the ducks and avoid the skull and cross bones.

I loved playing this game on the BBC Micro back in the 80s.  DP appears to have missed out on a design flaw that the BBC game had which was the ability to switch the music on and off by firing at a box on the right of the screen (thus consuming your much needed ammo).  Then again, I suppose the lack of music in DP's game probably renders such a box redundant.

Game gets nicely repetitive very quickly and a great cheap and cheerful screen colour change after you complete each sheet. Interestingly, the Quit Game (Y/N) option at the end of the game resets your spectrum for you if you select N.  Clearly, this is DP's attempt to stop hackers from breaking into the game and finding a POKE for infinite lives or ammo.

If the recent escapades of England's Captain, Mr. John George Terry has passed you by then this game might be a bit confusing.  If you are in the know then be prepared to be confused anyway!

Apenao's third crap game entry this year sees you playing the role of John Terry in his next Premier League game.  You need to fight off your fellow football mates as you try to score a hat-trick with their girlfriends while they are looking the other way.

Once again, the objective of the game is a little vague and the use of the M key to scroll through various options at the bottom of the screen appear a bit pointless.  Luckily, that is fully in line with the game in general.

If John Terry's Quest for the Golden Bra looks to you a little familiar then it might be because you have already played Avatar.  Following in the footsteps the mighty Stampers and the Oliver Twins, Apenao is using the enterprising tactic of tweaking an existing game release with a slap of paint and a new storey line and releasing it as a whole new game.  Unfortunately for Apenao, he will not be expecting queues of fans parting with their hard earned cash to grab a copy of his latest release. 

Apenao may have to freshen up on his football rules 'cos he states that the game features "full implementation of the Football rules (i.e. if you collect balls, you get more time, etc)".  Now I am no football freak but at least I know what the offside rule is.

This time we see Apenao push the bounds of the Spectrum even further by animating 21 (yes 21!) masked sprites simultaneously.  That is 10 more than what we saw in Avatar.  This does come at a price that the frame rate is generally slowing down to a crawl.  Worse still, and a must in any decent crap game, the key press lag is quite severe.  You have to stop moving one frame before you actually WANT to stop otherwise you will fly past your target. 

It's all about attention to the detail...   I'm not talking about how to produce bug free code (that's easy, it's just a combination of time, care, testing and method), I'm talking about how to produce something that strives to be a viable product only for it to be eclipsed but a clanger or two.  AYChip, with his second entry, forgot to attach his tar file in the very email that attempts to seduce me with phrases like photo-realistic and top-of-the-line physics modelling!  Something at the back of my mind is telling me that this is the 21st Century version of submitting a game on a blank tape!  Something else at the back of my mind tells me that it is AYChip's subtle genius!

This game is your classic dogfight game: You fly your WWI plane and try to bring down your opponent by shooting at him, whilst he tries to bring you down by shooting at you.  Well, that's the idea.  This game, doesn't have any return fire and the enemy AI is non-existent.  Don't think that this game is easy to win however... you have to keep a clear head of you are not to put your plane into a spin and crash and burn.

There are some nice flavours which come back to what I said about subtlety.  YES, the game has a custom character set but NO, the UI is very drabby around the edges (sprites appearing in very odd places). YES, it has a built in facility to perform a core dump if the game crashes but NO, you don't get the all important Z80 registers (including PC and SP which are essential for debugging a core dump).  YES, it does appear to have Newtonian Physics driving your plane's altitude, but NO, it doesn't work (unless you stick to using the "up" key alone)

AYChip offered me a Shrubbery when he emailed me this game (or rather, when he DIDN'T email me the game!).  All I can say is "NI!   NI, NI, NI!"

Here is our first emulator entry.  I can't ever remember a Mac OSX emulator in the CSSCGC but there might have been one (why don't you go and have a look? - ed.).  This one, sent in my Insert Coin starts off looking quite promising until the main window starts.  Navigation of the mouse is operated with the classic QAOP and M for 'click' but on my first attempt I only got as far as opening up menus, but to be fair, the last time I used an Apple Mac was about 15 years ago when I freaked out that it only had one mouse button.  Still where would we be without menus, eh? Oh yes, probably in a lot better place than we are now.

Great Alarm feature, shame I couldn't work out how to set the time the alarm goes off.

Eventually, I found that some menu items did work and you have the OSX style bar at the bottom of the screen.

After locating the Show Clock option, I quickly realised that you need to use the SetTime option.  This is because your Spectrum's mobo might be lacking in a BIOS clock (well mine lacks one, I'm sure some crazy Zed Heads out there as added one to their Speccys).

I should have known that quality was a bit lack when I spotted that the title "Speckintosh" features the letter K, which is curiously absent in both the words Spectrum and Macintosh! Insert Coin may need to go back to his PR guys about that.

This entry is a true case of 'not knowing how the hell to operate the damn thing', but I suspect that that is partially my fault in not being familiar with OSX.  I did get the iTunes app to open but playing tunes or videos was beyond my technical skill set.  Shame, I would have loved to hear my all my Fergal Sharkey tracks on this baby.  Maybe I shouldn't have run it with my SE BASIC ROM installed!

In summary, very nice emulator, probably too good for a crap game compo as the "multitasking window" number was very well done.  Now we just need to wait for OS 8 which should be along very shortly.  I just hope it features 8-directional mouse, that's all!

The Prawn once again delights us with a half decent game that would have had no problems qualifying for the Cascade Cassette 50.  Too good in fact. If our electronic shrimp hadn't written any software using the Z88DK compiler then this is pretty impressive start to his new career as an 8-bit C programmer.

Sound is basic but pretty okay.  Graphics are basic and erm... chunky but okay.  Game play is a bit lethargic but still, pretty addictive - enough to get you through the levels which are also pretty easy (but his instructions says that they are).

What most impresses me is DP's sadomasochistic self discipline in choosing to use vi as "editor of choice".  I guess Prawn just likes that extra challenge that most of us would choose to go without!

In summary: Possibly not crap enough to win the compo but a there are lots of worse ways to kill ten minutes of your life.

Digital Prawn's latest entry is definitely not for the faint hearted.  No matter how hard you try, boredom comes in quick and fast.  Amazingly, Fishing Mission 2 could be likened to that classic game Elite - you have cash which you need to spend wisely before moving into a graphical arena.

So, you have £50 to spend.  You have to buy a fishing rod, a reel, a line, some bait, some hooks and a bobble hat.  Lucky for me, after the third game, I realised I could by the best of each with the £50 starter.

On the way to the river, you might come unstuck with an Act of God or possibly the Feds so beware.

The final part of the game is where the graphics kick in; well, more dibble than kick! Your rod extends what looks like upwards (but I think that is just an accident in perspective).  There is very little interactivity - just press 0 when you think you might have a bite.

I did manage to catch 282Kg of merchandise during my last fishing trip (none of which you could have been grilled and served up for dinner).  This was a bit of a surprise and the game rated me as a fine fisherman.  WTF?

Some nice surreal (and frankly, bizarre) aspects of the game such as choice of bait, the random assaults en route to the river and the usual (and not so usual) kind of crap that one pulls out of the river when fishing.

This might be the last DP entry for a little while so please enjoy!

Our first entry from Madmekon, Advanced Detection Equipment Tester Simulator was the inspiration of a recent article in The Register which recounts the storey about the US government handing over millions of $$$ to a firm produced bomb detectors which don't work.

And so, in this game, you are "that guy" who has the dubious task of testing the ADE-651 on a heavily mined road in Iraq.  As a result, the objective of this game is contradictory by nature.  Either you successfully test that the device doesn't working, getting yourself vaporised in the process OR you sell your soul to the devil who guides you through without ever coming across a bomb and thus failing to test the device at all.  Either way, it's probably going to be curtains for you.

Graphics are minimal.  The game includes an impressively long wait whilst the game is set up (I checked, it's not just a cop-out 100,000x loop that does nothing).  Game play is very short and merciless.  Sound and Music are well on par with a Cascade Cassette 50 effort.  Not a bad crack all-in-all.

Clash of the Titans? Colour Clash? Get it, eh?  Apeneo really treats us with a play on words here.  It does get better though.

To start, the game play: After selecting which character you wish to play (choosing will determine attributes such as speed, stamina, shooting speed etc.) you are entered into a duel with your rival.  You move about the play area shooting your arrow, lightning bolt or whatever (couldn't work out what Hades or Maciste use!) whilst avoiding your rival's shots by jumping up and down.  Damage to your stamina-o-meter is reduced when in contact with your rivals shots.

First the good points: CCotT has some fantastic qualities that should have it immediately and dishonourably booted out of the crap game compo.  From the opening menu screen, colour fills your screen (non-clashing I must add).  You can select lots of options which brings me onto the next set of good points...

• How many crap games include a one or two player option and has decent AI for the one player version?
• How many crap games include a selection of four different characters (very Gauntlet/Atic Atac)?
• How many crap games include a variety of backdrop scenes (very IK+)?
• And still it gets better: How many crap games include a working demo mode (very... well you insert a game name here - why should I do all the work!)?

You get the point.

Nice touches indeed but to be fair, the game isn't perfect.  There are a few failings.

Firstly, the backdrop (as per the game name suggests) clashes incredibly with the players and bullets, both in their XOR style drawing, flickering sprites and the fact that the colours in the backdrop take priority over the sprites.  This brings a whole new angle to the difficulty of the game which trying to avoid Hades' "Attack of the Mutant Telephones" telephones.

Second, you can't actually shoot unless s you are pressing a directional key.  Sloppy programming? Feature? You decide.  Next, if you let the game go into the Demo, you cannot actually then play a game!  Lastly, whether you win or lose, it is back to the main menu, no level ups here I'm afraid.

With the lack of title music, there isn't a lot else you can knock on this game.  As such, like all of Apeneo's games, he is heading straight for the hosting of CSSCGC 2011!

Mulder has treated us here with a Horace spin off.  Now apparently, some of you don't actually copy the spectrum tap files to tape and load them into real spectrums a la 1980s.  If that is you, then (1) get a life and (2) I recommend you switch off flash loading on your favourite emulator and check out the loading screen of this game.  After you have feast your eyes on the loader, you should be ready for some Hot Horace action!

Carrying on from the original Horace series and based on Horace and the Mystic Woods, this game sees Horace in leaner times as a Wino.  If you ever wondered what happened to Horace after that unfortunate Spiders incident, well, now you know!

Horace footstep animation is true to form and animation in general is smooth if not a little flicker. Collision detection is a mite harsh however (most likely character based, in X at least).  Colours are ok but don't play on a dark screen as the blue sprites on black background cause a bit of eyestrain which should win a couple of points IMHO.

On a final note, screen #1 does have a Central Cavern feel to it, don't ya think?

Just before setting down for the night and went to check out my emails only to find this little gem of a crap game in my email box, sweetly deposited inside a Nigerian 419 scam! I invite you to read the email for yourself - it isn't often that you get a phishing scam and a REALLY CRAP GAME thrown in for free!

So, from the host of the CSSCGC 2007 and Crap Game Finder, here's the deal: You have been offered a once in a lifetime offer to help shift a load of valuable extra-terrestrial detritus out of South Africa (or is it America?) for a hefty cut of the takings.  The game provides legitimate proof that the offer is genuine.

In the game, you are Meteorite Man (or Woman) and you have to move your thingy left and right across the landscape and search for meteorites.  If you think you see one (you won't!) press C to chase it (if you think the key actually does anything that is) and if you are lucky you will collect a piece of rock.  If you even more lucky, returning to your lab (Q) it will go under spectral analysis to determine whether it is a valuable or junk.

This is an all or nothing game.  Finding a meteorite will win you the lottery.  Finding rocks win you nothing.  The game smells of the classic BASIC bug where moving off the left edge of the screen reverses your keys and onscreen sprite; moving off the right edge of the screen greets you with a B Integer out of range report ("it's a feature, not a bug!")

Once you have unknotted your fingers from the arcane keyboard layout and made it back to the lab with one or more potential windfalls, a nice spectral analysis of the rock is shown which forms about the only graphics worth talking about (apart from the fact that I can't help thinking that some UDGs never appear in the game due to a bug somewhere).  Sound? The odd beep.

Have a go at this game.  You WILL be disappointed.  Meanwhile, I need to make a call about some money that I am waiting for.

Could we have just stumbled upon the game with the longest title of the 80's computing era?  The Title says it all and it doesn't disappoint.  And so it shouldn't, it comes from the same people who brought you "Ultimate First Communion Simulator" (one of my all time favourite crap games for comedy value alone).

So you have mastered the Abandoned Uranium Workings, aced level 90 of Chuckie Egg, Booted the backside of Booty but have you been able to do so with a melon that is 18 feet (5.49m to the Europeans) wide?  I am sure this game will be a classic!

Graphics are very colourful, if not a little blocky.  I suppose you could say the same about the sfx also.  Animation is basic but game play is very addictive - and why not when you have 20+ screens to work through.  In a similar vein to Manic Miner, some screens have special "nasties", such as the Lair of the Serpent Duchess.  Other nice features include the in-game scrolly, and the amusing way you can get your trapped between two rocks and have your legs dangling.  Still at least you can use your chin (presumably) to move left and right if you find your legs out of action!!!  Suicide is sometimes the only way out but even that is not without humour.

This game might not "win" the comp but will certainly win awards in the wierdness department.

Check out the readme but I do recommend trying to find out the passwords yourself; it isn't as difficult as it first seems.  Source code included.

Finally, if your Spanish is up to it, then read about their game on the Mojon Twins Blog.

Here is the second instalment from Paul Collins.  We were blessed with his rather good Pinball Machine in the back end of January.  Dodge City is a different matter altogether.  You are apparently in a city and have to dodge things, hence the name.  This pretty much sums up the game because you are indeed located in a city landscape and you do have to dodge "things" (author's words, not mine!) which come at you from all directions (well, mainly from the left actually!).

The title screen says "Population: you" so I don't know who is meant to be throwing all those "things" at you.  Talking about the title screen, this effort features the most tuneless title music ever to grace a speccy.  SFX reach a whole worse level once you hit level 10 - your ears are subjected to a horrid double blast of a high pitched squeal ! (I don't recommend this game with headphones pumped up to the max).  Maybe it is the sound that makes your player choose to take one step CLOSER to the source of the "thing" throwing - sure sign of a desperate man looking for the sweet release of suicide!

Game play is basic with simple up down movement allowing you to dodge the brightly coloured blocks being hurled at you.  Funny, in real life, I get the option to move in at least two dimensions if I want to dodge something.  The lack of O and P keys is strangely absent.

After half a dozen games, I managed to get to level 60-something.  There is something appealing about the game and those blocks can catch you out.  After level 40, the blocks start to fade into the blue sky background more, apparently to make them harder to see! Paul recons he has surpassed a ton but that does take some work.

Written in HiSoft BASIC (compiled basic being particularly popular this year) Dodge City has good signs from a well-rounded crap game.  Source code included.

A new entry from a new author for 2010.  Following on from the (un)success of last year's entry Monty Python's Argument Clinic, Laszlo Simon has presented us with a Text Adventure recounting the famous scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail (tie in royalties are being negotiated between lawyers at time of writing).  As per last year, the game is written mainly in C using z88dk althought the program is trivially simple, the clever bit is the text and decision data source which is prepared by a perl script.  Check out the source code if you are inclined.

Can you get Arthur and his knights of the round table across the Bridge of Death by answering the five que.. three questions?  I would be bloody surprised if you can't - particularly if you've seen the film, which I would be bloody surprised if you haven't!

Nice touches to look out for include only being given one multiple choice option (and it isn't option 1!), given two options that are the same. There is also the misspelt tap filename (not sure if this was intentional?) and of course, the compulsory misspellings within the game.

I have dedicated this submission to Jonathan "Joffa" Smith (aka Frobush) who sadly passed away this morning (26/06/2010).

Just a few short weeks after his first entry, Laszlo Simon brings us an old favourite.  Despite my pet hate of Tetris after wasted evenings playing it I still found myself spending minutes (yes minutes!) playing this remake.

Instructions on the opening page explain all including a novel way of quitting the game and a rather unexciting "mini-puzzle" on how to start gameplay.  All adding points to a crap game entry.

On to the main game and on the face of it, Laszlo has included all the traditional features of the game: coloured shapes made of four blocks, speeding up as you progress, rotation - in BOTH directions and even a down button.

It's not until you look a little deeper that the cracks start to show.  First, your score never leaves zero, which is a shame because I was doing really well until I realised it was all pointless.  Second, your tetris can sometimes stop in mid-air for no apparent reason.

Keyboard response is adequately poor for a crap game; which is a shame when you are relying on it to sneak that block under the overhang that you had just created as a result of a disastrous attempt to clean up on a previous cock-up.

The game, despite the shortcomings mentioned above does seem to be a bit "easy".  Not sure why.  I did have quite a few blocks piled up but managed to "clear the decks", eventually blowing my game by trying out the mysterious "8" key!

I suggest you don't fill your hole to the top - you may find the GAME OVER screen the hardest of them all.  Interesting, I think you can still play a bit of tetris during the GAME OVER sequence!

Laszlo brings us a rather surreal version of the classic game Rock, Paper, Scissors.  By adding two everyday objects to the pot, namely a Lizard and Mr. Spock, he has added a whole new dimension to the game.  Insanely, no less than three out of five of the objects are misspelt in the title (Parer? Scrisors? Lisard?) and it was only thanks to the handy hand gestures which he has thoughtfully added to the game board that I was sure what the objects were - NOT! Scissors itself has three variations of spelling!

So, how does a Lizard beat Spock? Well... poison, obviously! How does Scissors beat a Lizard, well, you can chop its head off with them.  The internal ordering is still perfectly balanced as per the original so at least Laszlo managed something right.

This game is clearly two player but there is no Human vs Computer option so you will need a mate to compete with me.  If you don't have any mates then you can do as I did and play both sides for the sheer hell of it.

Keys for each person are arranged in a circle around the s and j keys.  Once circle for each player - mildly confusing when playing solo.  Also, colour clash checks were not top of the list when the screen designs were put together, but then again, neither are the rather rushed graphics.

In summary: nice effort, strangely addictive, a little bizarre and pretty crap.  Nice one Laszlo!

Andy's first entry into this year's competition and he doesn't make it easy.  All I got in the email was 'It's called "Just Not Fun Baby Fun". It may be cheating using an editor. Pff, in my day, why I auda, etc.'.  No instructions, no background, not even the keys to play the game (which took me a bloomin' 10 minutes to work out).

If you really want to know, "Z" = "rotate anti-clockwise" and "M" = "rotate clockwise".  There may be other keys which do things but damned if I can find them.

This game is hard at first but do perserve.  I get the impression that you have to keep away from the other cars and try to get them to crash into each other.  I've never managed to clear a single sheet but you are taken to the next sheet after each death.  Lucky that.

Keys are awkward.  You rotate your car 90 degrees left or right but unfortunately, if you rotate into a wall, you simply stop until you rotate out of it again.  To make matters worse, if you do rotate into a wall, you cannot tell which direction you are facing as your car doesn't fit in the path sideways.  This can lead to your downfall when you start to panic.  It's just a shame that the keys aren't set up and have the responsiveness that was perfected with the likes of Pac Man 35 years ago.  Bad keys = good crap factor!

Each sheet comprises of a different maze with its own distinct graphics, colours and name (based on popular TV programmes).  The one shown in the screenshot looks like a loading screen which has been smeared across your screen and then partially wiped off with your finger.  There is a particularly painful red-and-magenta screen which is probably worse.

Again, we do have a game which is pretty addictive.  The more you play, the more you work out how your adversaries chase you and you can use that to your advantage.  I've spent the best part of an hour playing this game trying desperately to complete a whole level and work out what the yellow is for but not managed it yet.

Oh, don't even think about playing on any level other than 1!

Do you remember those Game & Watch games you used to sneak into school and play at lunch breaks until you lent it to your mate and he had it confiscated for playing it during lessons? From memory, they were pretty basic, comparison of an LCD screen with fixed graphic positions which lit up as sprite to form the screen.

Well, I don't know what Paul was thinking when he thought he could produce a Knight Lore adaptation.  Yes, we get a nice cyan Game & Watch facia complete with the little rubber movement buttons and the "Game A"/"Game B"/"Time" buttons on the side but they don't do much other than look pretty.

Once we look towards the game itself, we can immediately see why Nintendo never attempted to release a 3D game using that technology.

Using the left and right keys, you have to avoid the purple ball by moving away from where it bounces.  Six blue "3D" blocks are provided but provide absolutely no cover.  What's more, no score is included in this instalment... nor Time, nor a Game B mode.

I am also wondering about the accuracy of the Game & Watch simulation - colour was provided to static items only, yet the ball is clearly purple and when you are killed, you also change colour.

There is very little you can say about it other than this game should do well for crap factor.

Aah! Mornington Crescent.  The very name summons nostalgic thoughts of tuning into the radio at 6:30pm to listen to one of the best game shows of all time.  As I insert my tape copy of AYChip's latest entry into my cassette deck and wait impatiently as my trusty spectrum works through the loader, my thoughts return repeatedly to classic witticisms of Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer.

If there was ever a way to pay tribute to "Humph" Lyttleton, it would be to write a masterpiece of a game for the ZX Spectrum.

But as my spectrum mops up the last few bytes of the tape and the game starts to play, I feel my expectations were a tad too optimistic.  (Well, this is a crap game competition isn't it? – ed.)

The main menu is uninspired.  Double-sized text (hand-crafted by the author apparently) features throughout but what isn't mentioned in the email I received was how painfully slow the text is to render and generally how pointless it is to adding anything to the game.  Accessing the menu options (other than Play) appears to be impossible due to a complete lack of on-screen instructions.

If any of you are familiar with the game from "Sorry, I haven't a clue" then you will know how complex the rules are to Mornington Crescent.  According to the Little Book of Mornington Crescent, the board has four edges: Topside, Rightbottom, Leftbottom and Wing, has a square playing surface and is divided into a grid consisting of 83 identical squares (as squares 66, 13, 47 and 49 are only used during the Advanced Shunts and as such are almost invariably ignored).  At no point in playing this game did I see any playing grid!

What you do get instead is between 22.6 and 29.2 seconds waiting as the text to appear as to your current station (time variance due to the length of text that makes up the station name).  You enter a station which will invariably be an invalid move (personally I prefer to observe the Diagonal Primitive Method rules but apparently this implementation doesn't!).  Once you have happened upon a correct move, you will more than likely be checkmated by your computer adversary who will perform a winning move.

Source code included as usual from AYChip, including code to work out the legal moves based on the rules to which AYChip's rules.

Good luck, and … Mornington Crescent!