New Spectrum game - Banger Management

jonathan · March 2009

The game I produced for the Byte Back event is now available for download:

http://www.byte-back.info/hbchallenge.html

Now, does anybody want chips with that?

polomint · March 2009

Hehehehehhe, excellent game, bit like lemmings... See you next week when i've finished with it, lol

Well done Jonathan

LCD · March 2009

Excellent one, but harder than Lemmings as there are multiple exits, he he he...

ewgf · March 2009

Just downloading it now - thanks mate.

ewgf · March 2009

I am so glad I'm not programming a Spectrum game at the moment, as I'd really be disheartened by the release of such an excellent game. This is fantastic, even better than Albatrossity! Quantum Gardening is still your best game, though, Jonathan, I reckon, although Game-X is nearly as good.

One thing, though - why is there never a text file with your games? I know the game is set in a fast food shop near a nuclear power plant, but I want to know if the game is set in a chipshop or a cafe. Also, I haven't yet tried the screen editor, but it might have needed instructions in a text file (or maybe not, I won't know until I try it).

If you'd have been programming these games in the 80s, you'd have been rich!

dm_boozefreek · March 2009

I feel honoured as it's partially based on my idea, thanks JC you've made my day :)

deadpan666 · March 2009

Just downloaded this....it's blimmin' good fun! Nice work!

Shaun.Bebbington · March 2009

Just an idea. As the game was created at Byte Back, which was in aid of a couple of charities, why not release this and Albatrossity on real cassette as a 2-pack for charity? Those two would easily be worth at least ?3.99 + postage of anyone's money in my opinion.

I'm reviewing this game now, by the way. I'll forward you [Jonathan] a copy of the text when I finish it.

Regards,

Shaun.

Nonsense in BASIC · March 2009

What a game this is! Fantastic work sir. Great tune as well!

ASH-II · March 2009

Well I certainly enjoyed this game...Very well done....:-D

SteveP · March 2009

Hi Jonathan - Banger Management is really well produced. How did you manage to write that it one day? It is similar in quality to many professionally released games in the 1980s, but I'm sure back in the day they took more than 24 hours to produce it. Do you have any special pre-arrangements in order to make the game in such a short time, i.e. existing routines you can copy and paste? Everything from sprite creation to text font and menu effects? The music? No matter how you did it, this is an excellent piece of work.

jonathan · March 2009

Sorry to disappoint, but the entire game wasn't written in a day, in fact a good chunk of the engine was written beforehand. I was blogging its development over at Gaming Verdict. Had I not done this, contributors would not have been able to design and test levels until the very end of the day, which would have made the whole exercise rather pointless. However, the game was put together, the engine finished, and the front end bolted on over the course of the Saturday. Levels were designed by attendees, and I had hoped they might contribute a few more graphics too, though only Matthew Westcott managed to make a contribution in that department. I didn't get time to fix one or two bugs at the event, so that was done afterwards, along with the loading screen.

I could probably have knocked out the engine in a day - and did so at ORSAM a few years back - but then I would never have been able to do anything else. Most of a game's development is about design anyway, and not banging out code. Those levels needed customer orders and food deliveries to turn up at the right times, as well as the occasional tweak in order to make them function properly, then they had to be arranged in a reasonable sort of difficulty curve. That takes a lot more time to do than drilling out lines of mnemonics.

As for using existing routines, there's a degree of amending old code to do new things. There's no point in writing every line of code from scratch for every game, and I've built up a good library of routines over many years. For example, the rotating string routine is just a copy of Mr. Fruity's bog-standard string display routine with a small and very lazy rotation loop in the middle - notice see how slow it is on the credits screen. It only took 5 minutes to do, though. On the other hand, the sprite routine was written specifically for this game because none of my existing routines would have handled so many sprites without flicker.

I'll upload the source if anyone's interested.

Shadow Maker · March 2009

I'm interested.

ewgf · March 2009

It's a fantastic game, though for me, Quantum Gardening is your best, closely followed by GameX and then Albotrossity. QG was difficult to grasp, but when you do it can really grab you.

jonathan wrote: »

I'll upload the source if anyone's interested.

It wouldn't interest us non-coders, but it certainly wouldn't hurt the Spectrum community if the source code to your (and everyone else's!) games were made available.

MrD · March 2009

Have just got around to playing Banger Managment this weekend - and I have to say I'm well impressed! Very addictive little game - and I think I may have a job getting the music out of my head too... :lol:

Readboy · March 2009

Just played Banger Managment this morning on the train into work; you gotta love ZXDS.
All I can say is wow, what a frantic and absorbing little game this is. Congratulations to Jonathan for an excellent coding job.

Just out of interest, what was the inspiration for the game, it kind of reminded me of Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 on the DS but at 4 times the speed.

psj3809 · March 2009

I think for this game it was up to people to send in their ideas, i think Jonathan took the two ideas he liked the most and merged them to create this great game.

frobush · March 2009

What makes it even more incredible is that he had me sat next to him for most of the afternoon - talking shite!

Sorry about that!

I didn't know it was Joanathan until someone pointed it out!

What a rush!

Vertigo · April 2009

dm_boozefreek wrote: »

I feel honoured as it's partially based on my idea, thanks JC you've made my day :)

I think it'd be great if someone wrote a version of JSW based on our ideas.

dm_boozefreek · April 2009

Vertigo wrote: »

I think it'd be great if someone wrote a version of JSW based on our ideas.

It would wouldn't it? I wonder what it would be called ;)

Vertigo · April 2009

Boozefreek's Folly: Jet Set Forever?

joefish · April 2009

I remember the Sinclair User cartoon strip 'Sinclair Simon' once referring to 'Wet-Set Jelly'.

Zagreb · April 2009

I've had a good few games of Banger Management now and I really like it. It's like a more hectic version of Lemmings and some of the screen designs can be a bit devious! I think my only negative is that there aren't any of the little bonus games and extra pickups I associate with Jonathan's games (unless there are and I've just not found them yet!).

New Spectrum game - Banger Management

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