Sillycon War

TK90XFan · October 2013

Does anyone knows about Sillycon War?

I like isometric 3D arcade adventures and I found this one at WOS:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0015073

I'm intrigued by the lack of data about this game in the link above. It has been stated that its author also wrote Buggy Boy and Chain Reaction but nothing else can be found. I tried some searching in Google, but I found nothing of my interest.

Was this game an unpublished work of Maz Spork? Does anyone know the origin of this game?

Alessandro Grussu · October 2013

The game seems unfinished. I did not find any objects to take in the first 20 rooms I visited, there's a room without any feature except for the entrance and two Pac-Man-like beings in it, and on one occasion it froze when I tried to enter a room:

There is also no sound at all, but that could also be the consequence of not having any room left for it.

MatGubbins · October 2013

Yikes! An unmapped game!

Plays quite well.

There's some text stroed at 29584 if that's any help. There's one room that the character will happily walk over the wall and create attribute squares then crash.

If you can find the cola can, then you can pick it up.

TK90XFan · October 2013

Alessandro Grussu wrote: »

The game seems unfinished. I did not find any objects to take in the first 20 rooms I visited, there's a room without any feature except for the entrance and two Pac-Man-like beings in it, and on one occasion it froze when I tried to enter a room:
...

I played briefly this game and I had same impression. The game crashes in some locations; in one screen, the screen attributes are messed and collision detection is turned off.

I wonder how this (unplayable) game has entered in the WOS archive.

rich_chandler · October 2013

TK90XFan wrote: »

I played briefly this game and I had same impression. The game crashes in some locations; in one screen, the screen attributes are messed and collision detection is turned off.

I wonder how this (unplayable) game has entered in the WOS archive.

Because it's a game for the ZX Spectrum?

The archive is for all ZX Spectrum software, it's not the place of the archiver to determine whether a piece of software merits inclusion in the archive.

TK90XFan · October 2013

karingal wrote: »

Because it's a game for the ZX Spectrum?

The archive is for all ZX Spectrum software, it's not the place of the archiver to determine whether a piece of software merits inclusion in the archive.

Sorry if I has not expressed myself clearer, English isn't my native language. :oops: I'm not doing question about why this game has been included, but in what manner this happened. Perhaps someone (the author?) did uploading of the game. Perhaps someone found an unfinished work in some forgotten tape. Who knows? This history could be very interesting.

Alessandro Grussu · October 2013

Crisis wrote: »

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showwrap.cgi?permit=individuals/SporkMazH..pmt

Unfortunately the author's website is unreachable, I already tried to connect to it :sad:

Ralf · October 2013

Good discovery!

It looks like a really nice game. I wonder if it is possible to complete or not.

But no info at all.
Another strange thing - it is marked on WOS as complete while we have only .z80 snapshot.

Alessandro Grussu · October 2013

Complete? Where? :confused:

Anyway, there are several full games in the archive which sadly are only available as ugly .Z80 snapshots :sad: (e.g. I once discovered this one)

MatGubbins · October 2013

I've got this far...

Gone underground, got the coin, returned to the surface, used the coin at the kiosk and got the torch.
The torch allows entry to the "it's too dark" room. Exchanged the torch for the keys.
The keys allows the locked door to be opened. Get the spanner. (pressing use will reset the game)
The spanner allows entry to "this door needs to be forced". Picked up the "lairfight" book. (press use for a message)

I've tried using the book and the spanner on the MOS chip on the balcony - nothing
I've taken the book and the coke can to the room that has the clone behind a barrier, stacked the can and book, picking the book up and leaping over the barrier and using/pushing the book into the clone - nothing.
Taken all objects to the dark room with 2 pacmen - nothing

I wanted to take the can of coke and use it on the MOS chip on the balcony, but only one object can be carried.

Some rooms crash because the player is not in the correct place when things happen - especially on the lift to the
undergroud - save your game upon each new screen.

Once the game is over and you've exchanged the torch for the keys, wait for the demo screens to appear and the torch will
be in the room instead of the keys.

TK90XFan · October 2013

Alessandro Grussu wrote: »

Unfortunately the author's website is unreachable, I already tried to connect to it :sad:

It seems the only way to unveil the mystery about this game is contacting Maz Spork. Not really sure though, after all this game has been made almost 30 years ago (considering that the year of release stated in WOS is correct). If we'd have the luck to find him...

Sokurah · October 2013

Well, his website is here: http://spork.dk/
His email must be on there somewhere.

ewgf · October 2013

The brilliant Wayback Machine (a site that archives other sites, invaluable for looking at now-non-existent sites, and now claims to have 240 billion web pages :-o - http://archive.org/web/web.php) gives this;

http://web.archive.org/web/20080108095434/http://maz.spork.dk/

but my (brief) look through it didn't find any mention of the Spectrum game.

WhenIWasCruel · October 2013

played it a bit just last year, and it seemed interesting, but, in fact, severely bugged, as noted.

i've contacted the supposed author a few minutes ago.

let's see if he answers and joins us.

Alessandro Grussu · October 2013

The last post in his blog dates back to October 7th, 2010.

Max has a Flickr account, like me; I could try to contact him through FlickrMail, but I doubt he would ever read it because he has not uploaded anything there since April 2011 and most probably he is no more interested in it.

He's got a LinkedIn account too, by the way.

EDIT: while I was perusing the Web, WIWC has already tried to contact Max. Let's see what happens.

Bandit · October 2013

The "penpal" that sent me this was... Danish ;)

Sokurah · October 2013

I had a friend back then who was a big trader/swapper (we're both Danish). I guess that's how the demo I made back then found its way to WOS too.
...I wonder if it's the same guy...but there were probably lots of people swapping games across borders.

MatGubbins · October 2013

Pressing keys 1,2,3,4,5 will show your pockets, so you can carry more than one item at a time!

MatGubbins · October 2013

The game can be completed. As written in my previous posting that I wanted to use the coke can on the MOS chip on a balcony, yes that now works. You need to pick up the coke can and the spanner, select the spanner, go though the door that needs to be forced. The book is of no use - apart from a dig at Fairlight (select book, use book). Anyway, go into the next room, select the coke can and climb the stairs and walk onto the MOS chip and press use. The game returns to the title page and a congratuations message appears with a scrolly message.

TECHNOFRIED can be added to the long list of MIA games.

TK90XFan · October 2013

MatGubbins wrote: »

The game can be completed. As written in my previous posting that I wanted to use the coke can on the MOS chip on a balcony, yes that now works. You need to pick up the coke can and the spanner, select the spanner, go though the door that needs to be forced. The book is of no use - apart from a dig at Fairlight (select book, use book). Anyway, go into the next room, select the coke can and climb the stairs and walk onto the MOS chip and press use. The game returns to the title page and a congratuations message appears with a scrolly message.

TECHNOFRIED can be added to the long list of MIA games.

Wow! Good job! ;)

You may submit a walkthrough to The Tipshop.

MatGubbins · October 2013

Daren has kindly uploaded the ending .Z80 and .SNA files to The SillyCon War at Speccy Spoilers

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/speccyspoilers/s.php
Take a look at the readme for the keys.

There will be a TipShop walk-through arriving on the next update (stay tuned!)

Mat

mazspork · December 2013

Hi guys.

This was a demo I hacked up back in 1985 that I subsequently used for showcasing my abilities to a few publishing houses. It was never really intended for publication (and it's a mystery how it was spread in the first place).

I still have the source code: http://spork.dk/tsw.asm

-- maz

WhenIWasCruel · December 2013

shortly after...

hi, mazspork. i like the underrated chain reaction.

mazspork · December 2013

Thanks. It's a very early example of procedurally generated content. And it actually shares some code with TSW.

Timmy · December 2013

Welcome to WoS!

JuanF. Ramirez · December 2013

WhenIWasCruel wrote: »

hi, mazspork. i like the underrated chain reaction.

Absolutely agree. Very cool game.

... and welcome to WoS! :smile:

Sokurah · December 2013

Velkommen til WoS. :-)

TK90XFan · December 2013

mazspork wrote: »

Hi guys.

This was a demo I hacked up back in 1985 that I subsequently used for showcasing my abilities to a few publishing houses. It was never really intended for publication (and it's a mystery how it was spread in the first place).

I still have the source code: http://spork.dk/tsw.asm

-- maz

Nice to meet you! ;)

I love isometric games and was browsing in WOS repositiory when I found TSW. Since I haven't seen it before, it drawn my attention.

By the way, I like very much your isometric game Chain Reaction, but I must confess that Buggy Boy is the game of yours that I have played most.

jdanddiet · December 2013

Hi Maz, welcome to WOS mate (I'm Graeme btw)

WhenIWasCruel · December 2013

TK90XFan wrote: »

Nice to meet you! ;)

I love isometric games and was browsing in WOS repositiory when I found TSW. Since I haven't seen it before, it drawn my attention.

By the way, I like very much your isometric game Chain Reaction, but I must confess that Buggy Boy is the game of yours that I have played most.

yes, buggy boy is also very nice.

"and what about the fantastic skabet."

slenkar · December 2013

How many books did you have to read to create sillycon war? and how long did it take to code?

Sillycon War

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