The "Ernie Wise Memorial Game What I Wrote" thread 2008

Rockford · September 2008

As the September rain lashes remorselessly long and hard against the window (Everest PVC-u) what more can a cove do but reflect on life whilst drinking tea? Hence, I find myself asking simple questions like "Why did Ted Moult blow his brains out?"

Well, on double-glazed reflection we all know the answer to that one. So instead I've been playing "Alien Birth", which I wrote back in 1990 and submitted to Sinclair User as a cover tape entry.

http://s124132876.websitehome.co.uk/zxspectrum/AlienBirth.z80

Obviously, they were impressed. Unfortunately, from what I can recall from the rejection letter, it was thought too complicated for "younger" readers. The swines. To be fair after giving it a go I can't for the life of me remember how to play the damn thing. I think it has something to do with stopping aliens from, you know, birthing. Hence the name. The keys, as always, are QAOPN.

I was 18 at the time. And I don't even like sci-fi, apart from some bits of Red Dwarf, but that doesn't count. So what was I smoking?

And then I wrote Twinz

http://s124132876.websitehome.co.uk/zxspectrum/twinz.tzx

a crazed attempt at Speccy snap. If you completed a level you had to guess the game from the revealed picture. What fun! This was written as an antidote to the protracted development of "Touchdown" for D&H Games. Though I duly, miraculously received payment (£1,500 no less and a cheque that didn't bounce!) it was never released and, I admit now but not at the time, complete pants!

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0012187

Even worse, I also wrote "Space Monkeys" for my own personal gratification, as at this point I hadn't yet been introduced to the pleasures of Razzle. This game was inspired by a TV commercial of the time and was hilariously average, though some did later remark that it was "quite dreadful".

http://s124132876.websitehome.co.uk/zxspectrum/SpaceMonkeys.tzx

All these games were written in BASIC, and apart from "Touchdown", compiled using the great, superb and truly wonderful "MCODER II". At least I had one moment of minor triumph with "Rikosphere" - thanks YS!

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004148

And I'm not even going to mention Laser War, a game submitted to Vincent Vity - but then who here has never submitted a game to Vincent?

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002815

It's interesting looking back at what I attempted to create, the time and effort I put into designing and writing a game for the Spectrum. This forum proves I'm not alone. So who else has written a game and now have no idea how to play it, and more importantly, why they wrote it in the first place!?

Winston · September 2008

The only playable game I've ever written was a MUD (multi user dungeon) for the BBC Micro on econet. It was a joint effort with myself and a friend, and a true client/server program before either of us had heard the term. (It had both client/server and peer-to-peer messages).

It was pretty popular at our school.

I got in touch with the head of computing, and he still has the MDFS floppy disc it was on, so next time I go there I'll have to bring my hard disc equipped BBC Micro and dump the contents of the disc.

dm_boozefreek · September 2008

You fitted a hardrive to a BBC micro, now that's dedication ;)

Maybe even more than "what you need, if you wanna be a record breaker". :D

thx1138 · September 2008

I've written text adventures. I think the storylines were pretty good, but the games were bloated and written clumsily in BASIC using up lots of memory for not a lot of game.

Rockford · September 2008

Not having a good go at writing a text adventure is one of my biggest regrets as it's probably the best way of creating a game which can reflect imaginative ideas and scenarios.

Also, it appears to me that some of my download links aren't working... Not sure why this would be but will try and get it sorted.

def chris · September 2008

yeah those links are down (the non-WoS ones anyway), would be interested to see these games!

Lord Muck · September 2008

Rockford wrote: »

As the September rain lashes remorselessly long and hard against the window (Everest PVC-u) what more can a cove do but reflect on life whilst drinking tea? Hence, I find myself asking simple questions like "Why did Ted Moult blow his brains out?"

Our Ted it has to be said
produces proof beyond us
rain, shine or gale force nine
his frames remain intact
helicopters in my garden bringing wind, i beg your pardon
double glazing is amazing
don't you all agree?

No fears they'll last you for years our statistics prove it
and you'll pose when everyone knows it's you who sets the pace
On the cold and frosty mornings scoff and howl at yultide warnings
insulation for the nation that's the one for me

No draft cos that would be daft a feather acknowledges Newton
and a ball and chain let loose on the pain can only smash your nerves
In the hibernating season pick the best it stands to reason
no complaining when it's raining thanks to Mr Moult.

dm_boozefreek · September 2008

I have 3 shamefull games lost to the mists of time, one from when I was younger called "Attack of the deadly sun god", which wasn't strictly my own work. It was a large chunk of code borrowed from "Mystic Diamonds" one of the turds from cassette 50. In which there was a blocky sun god at the top of the screen and warriors came down the screen at you, you had to use your mighty....erm stickman, to shoot the warriors, with a straight line that was the full length of the screen. The warriors also drew over the sun god if they appeared on the same row as any of his parts. It was crap to say the least.

the other 2 are from 1993, and once again are not strictly my own work just hacked BASIC games. The first is "Skiing sluts in pointy tree hell", which was once again just a cassette 50 game with changed graphics and text, and the screen drew the trees differently from how they were layed out on cassette 50.

The 3rd and final was "Mad Dave goes Snowboarding", which was just the "Sunglasses Sam goes skiing" game that came on an old cassette mag (can't remember which one?), and all it did was change the graphics and the text, but I added a ramp that you could score 10 points by going over.

It's these turds that still keep me faithfull that I will still one day write a game from scratch. Even though I can't really remember how I did what I did to them in the first place. Given my current domestic situation I may be going back home sooner than I thought because my wife now thinks it's the best thing for me so I can go home and tie up the loose ends I keep worrying about, anyway that aside I think the 2 games from 1993 may be on a +3 disk in my loft, so if I do go back home for a bit I will certainly try and find them. Thing that gets me is I don't even know how the hell I saved 2 48k progs onto a +3 disk, because I wrote the bits I did and changed them round using 48k BASIC, the games I messed with came off cassettes?

I can barely string a loader or a PRINT routine together these days :(

I remember a while back I wrote a loader for one of my JSW games, and it actually works, but the sad thing is I'd completely forgotten how to attach it :roll:

I think I may still have it in my Speccy folder here somewhere? But alas the game was released without the loader in the end because I ran out of time, and just wanted to get it out there.

def chris · September 2008

dm_boozefreek wrote: »

"Skiing sluts in pointy tree hell"

wasn't that a captain beefheart album? lol. would like to see this if you find it tho'...

I got pretty good at BASIC when I was about 15 and attempted to make a football management game called 'Village Soccer' i.e. a league based on kids kicking a ball around a park instead of pro-footballers. I got as far as the game would load, you would be given a different team with different skill levels/players each time, also had a loading screen done,, couple of other things Ive forgotten, but halfway through making it our spec broke, took ages to get fixed, also specs were on their way out and amigas/atari st's were coming in and I just left it. not sure if I would have had the ability to finish it anyway tbh but Im kind of gutted I didn't try. forgotten virtually all the BASIC I learnt now.

Arjun · September 2008

A long, long time ago, I wrote a Contacts Manager sort of program called "ID File". It was written in BASIC and was pretty nifty (even if I say so myself) but was utterly useless because it stored the database on tape and no one apart from myself ever used it. ;)

Then there was this Bingo/Tambola game I wrote which used bits of machine code for number searching. Looked nice but was, again, useless because Bingo, by nature, is a social game. You would look a complete nitwit trying to play the game with a bunch of friends and the speccy. :D

Then there was this utterly boring (in hindsight) text adventure that I wrote which was inspired by Peter Gerrard's "Exploring Adventures on the Spectrum 48k". It was set in a castle (no it wasn't a Castlemaze adventure rip-off!) and erm... that's about all I remember.

Recently (more like 2 years ago I think?), I developed Dash-it!, which has been critically acclaimed in the speccy community for its excellent graphics, fantastic sound and astounding gameplay! Everyone should play it IMO. It was even nominated for CGC 2006, if I'm not mistaken. ;-)

The "Ernie Wise Memorial Game What I Wrote" thread 2008

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