The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

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TMD2003
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by TMD2003 »

END OF WEEK 4:

NOTHING to add! Not a sausage, or indeed, a crap game about sausages. Nada. Zilch. Neddily-diddly-doodly-ding-dong squat. To fill up the time, I went back to Minecraft for the first time in a year and a half and once that takes me I can be gone for weeks. It was five years, first time round. (Not that I was here, at the time.)

But hope springs eternal of a promised game for a computer that's not new to the history of the competition, but hasn't been seen in many years... what could it be? Find out... very soon, I would hope.

Said computer might even be of interest to QL people, and I would bet that its unusual language can be crowbarred onto the QL, somehow...


Spectribution: Dr. Jim's Sinclair computing pages.
Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
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TMD2003
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by TMD2003 »

END OF WEEK 5:

And I've had an eventful week. Test Cricket is back on terrestrial TV, and I've had a medical scare which will hopefully be resolved in my favour by the time I come to make the seventh or eighth of these weekly round-ups. And my constant cracking of the whip has paid off - elsewhere, at any rate - because, irrespective of mobility problems, I've had three games to review!

On 30th January, entry #4 - Cretans by Steve McCrea.
On 31st January, entry #5 - Mono-Rail Simulator by Hedge1970.
And on 3rd February, entry #6 - Genesis 1:28 by John Connolly... for the JUPITER ACE!

So, now that I've had my first submission for an "obscure" machine, brought to me by last year's host who will want to pay me back for having to install a QL emulator and SimCoupé just to review all entries, I remain hopeful that I'll get something for the QL this year. It's certainly not for the lack of trying...


Spectribution: Dr. Jim's Sinclair computing pages.
Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
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dilwyn
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by dilwyn »

Well, my own "Don't Shoot The QL" entry will hopefully be with you soon. Things ground to a halt with the PC problems today, so I'll see what the weekend brings!


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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by qbits »

Hi,
Hmm! Competition! Crap Games! Sinclair Platforms! QL?
Contested: A Spectrum of Crap Games that might include Questionable Lines of code or Super frustrating and Basically annoying to play.

The Challenge! Ah! Here’s my QBITS contribution written in QL SuperBASIC Noughts & Crosses or across the pond known as Tic-Tac-Toe.

QBITS
Attachments
QBTTT_v01QL.zip
(1.44 KiB) Downloaded 109 times
QBTTTscr01.jpg


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TMD2003
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by TMD2003 »

Oooh, crikey! Interest!

Dilwyn - I await "Don't Shoot The QL" and I'll rave about it on SC and... that other lot when I get it, because it might spark some of them to have a crack at QL programming, as I did.

qbits - is that game an official entry? If so, send it to csscgc2021 "at" rickdangerous.co.uk and I'll count the date of submission as the date I receive the email.

Meanwhile...

END OF WEEK 6:

Just the one this week - Jamie Bradbury's two-player test bed, Battle From Below. Find someone to play it with, and send your best vibes to Simon H on the title screen who's in a bad, bad way.

And for those of you wanting a break from colour, sound, microdrives, Gold Cards and SuperBASIC, there's three weeks to go until the ZX81's 40th birthday! Don't leave the old black-and-white door wedge crying in a corner with a tub of Lidl's knock-off version of Häagen-Dazs and a bottle of cheap Chardonnay that hasn't even had Big Clive's SodaStream within a mile of it.


Spectribution: Dr. Jim's Sinclair computing pages.
Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
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dilwyn
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by dilwyn »

Don't Shoot The QL

About as naff a game theme as I could come up with! It's a fairly simple shoot-em-up game where you try to shoot down all sorts of retro computers to earn points, but avoid shooting a QL, you will incur penalty points. Shoot the Golden Macs at the top and you get bonus points. Get your name into the high score table!

Turbo compiled version plus the SuperBASIC source and a Quill DOC file. Well commented with REMark statements for anyone wishing to tinker with it. Runs in mode 8, will also work in high colour modes on systems such as QPC2.

Needs Toolkit 2. Should run on unexpanded QL, although the speed needs to be tweaked for whatever system it is run on, as explained in the DOC file. The interpreted basic version won't run fast enough on a QL - use the compiled version on slow systems.
dontshoottheql.jpg


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dilwyn
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by dilwyn »

Loads of bugs reported, will update soon.

High score table bug (line 2300, STEP -1 missing from the FOR b loop when shuffling the array up to make room for new entry).

"Out of range at line 0" error on some systems - under investigation.

A few others, some of which vary from system to system, which I can't remember off hand - under investigation.

New version on the way soon when I get a minute this week! Good job I used QL Forum to get some unwitting volunteers to test the game!


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TMD2003
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by TMD2003 »

No worries, Dilwyn - I've just sent you a rather chunky email with some extra details. It's the first time I've ever seen a forum used as a CSSCGC test bed...

I wonder if anyone on SC or otherwise will attempt a QL-to-Spectrum demake for the Green Challenge? The scrolling-text principle shouldn't be hard to convert, even if the timer and the adjustment menu might be.


Spectribution: Dr. Jim's Sinclair computing pages.
Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

The QL has commands in the Superbasic interpreter to scroll the screen sideways: see PAN

The ZX81 programme "Debris Rescue", could probably be written Basic and compiled.
Last edited by Derek_Stewart on Thu Mar 07, 2024 9:04 am, edited 1 time in total.


Regards,

Derek
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dilwyn
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by dilwyn »

Have fixed some bugs in "Don't Shoot The QL". Most were simple typos and wrong STEP values in a loop. And I've addressed some of the issues TMD2003 referred to in his message to me.

One problem caused a weird issue with Turbo I'd never encountered before, I'll mention it here in case it helps someone in future.

When compiling, I copy the BASIC windows into the program, the 'SET N WINDOWS' item in the compiler front panels, rather than explicitly open windows in the program. This was causing the Turbo compiled game to stop with "out of range at line 0" error on a 512x256 screen system even though the program's windows were well within 512x256.

After a little head scratching, I realised it's down to the outline of BASIC, not just the normal size of BASIC windows. When editing basic programs I use a small routine which sets the basic windows to fill the hires screen. So as far as the compiler was concerned, it needed to copy the full 1024x768 outline, not just the normal TV or monitor mode windows. Once I'd realised what was happening, the solution was really simple, just enter a WTV or WMON command to reset the outlines to normal basic sizes just before compiling.

To the unfortunates who've already downloaded the first version, there's notes at the end of the DOC file on what I've changed in this version.
dstheql.zip


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