16 Days Later Competition


frolik

Bass Invader
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Okay, I think someone asked for feedback on the compo entries so I've taken the liberty of doing a short writeup on each of them.

Disclaimer: I don't want to upset anyone with any of my comments so if you think I've got something wrong, just say and I'll change it - I haven't thoroughly tested every entry but I've tried to be as unbiased as possible

You can download all these games here


Aka Noid
A ridiculously polished game, for an arcade conversion it even has level saves (savestates) and level editor for completeness. I've never been a lover of pong type games but this has changed my mind and will stay on my SMC permanently. It's great to see games go through revisions until they reach quality - nice one JyCet!

Blair Wars
I have to admit I'm not into slow shootemups, although this one has a funny theme and I enjoyed reading the narrative - extra points for humour! But theres not a lot to keep me coming back unless the gameplay gets a bit more jazzed up

BombsGP
Really cool! I love the original ideas put into the bomberman style game, I've not seen it before so I'm assuming it's original anyway.. I'll come back to this and spend more time but it's a testament to Zot's power and hopefully will tease more amateur zot games creators out of the woodwork.

Cave Copter
Games like this are often dismissed at first glance because of their simplicity, but a sure fire way to beef up a simple game is to add options and different modes and sure enough, thats exactly what you have here - once you get into it there's quite a bit of dextrous fun to be had, could have a couple more options though, like coins and moving walls & the music doesn't complement the game too well (imho) but I'll keep it on as it has certain appeal to me

Deluxe Snakes
I don't really enjoy the snake games ever since I had it on an old nokia phone and it frustrated the hell out of me whenever I was sitting on the loo! But this is a nice twist and, again, has some cool options and modes to keep it a bit fresh.

Elena
I recently started playing a bunch of tetris variants but nothing as jazzed up as this! It's great to see fresh ideas coming out with the cylindrical drop method and the 3D view, it took me a while to realise you could rotate and zoom but when I found them it kinda killed me as I lost concentration - it's not easy when your holding the GP sideways.. One idea would be to add a button or option choice to speed up the rotation as it's not easy to get all the way round to the other side before the block drops. Like it a lot, another quality game release

Goits of Rage
What the hell is a Goit? Anyway, this is a bit of beats of rage fun a'la south park cartoon style. I think BOR is a very professional game but I don't think the different mods are different enough to make it worth playing all of them. This one gets extra marks for originality though as I don't think there are any other cartoony looking mods like this

GPAmp
I've not got any stuff to play on this at the moment but it looks amazing, AND it's got skin support too, and if it's interface is anything like winamp then it's gotta be a hit

GPMax
I've only played the actual dance mat type game a couple of times pissed so I'm not the best judge for this. Great visuals and it really looks like the psx quality coming through, unfortunately I hate the music and as it has already been said, the arrows don't seem to correspond with the rhythm, which needs looking at, but it still reeks of quality and with a little more work this will please many gp32ers immensely

Lacuna
Yess! This is exactly the kind of game that I hope for from these compos, it looks DAMN good, plays like a charm, [I think] it's original, and has a good polish. It won't be everyones cup of tea, but I'll take it black with no sweetner please! There are a few basic options and the music is a great retro style bouncy tune to accompany the action. Don't get put off if you're not that good, this is just that type of game that you need to play the odd game or 10 until you get better and then you'll start sweating and gritting your teeth while you scrape past the gaps.

Masterlator
Extremely impressive emulator, this one seemed to just come out of nowhere and the author must have spent a fair bit of time coding it from scratch which shines through with a very cool interface and all the features that a good emu needs, savestates, brightness, & sram saves. I can't go into too much detail as I'm not big on sms games but a few I tried ran very nicely, only one (Ghouls n ghosts) had a couple of sprite bugs in. I haven't tested this much in depth however

Memory GP32
Nice little game specifically built for 5 minutes of fun on a portable gaming device! Looks like a WIP game as the highscore and options were unavailable, with more features it would make the game a lot more presentable. Nice tunes, and again with that trademark DJ Marky sample!

MGS:VR Missions
I couldn't seem to get this working, on either clock setting it was jerky as hell and I couldn't work out the controls :(

Nazcadreams
Well, it's nice to see someone undertaking something of this scale, looks like a kind of RPG but more of an adventure without the puzzles, nice to explore the world that has been created here, although there's not a lot to it I'm sure there are many folks out there that this will appeal to. There are some nice graphical effects such as the white grass foreground blending with the bits of white in the background, but the biggest problem I had were in the dark screens I couldn't see the walls on my flu.

Neutron Strike
There's something about this game that works very well, it's not just a one shot - one kill, there's bullets everywhere and a reasonable energy bar. The smoothness of the ship movement is quite nice and the enemy waves are fairly nice. With some more baddies and variety in there this could turn into something rather good.

PBSynth
Woah cool! I've played with stuff like this before and although don't know the exact principles behind it, it's good fun to mess around with. As it stands, all there is right now is a toy to make funky noises, but according to the readme there are some very cool features planned to allow sequencing, filters, more delay and other stuff that I probably won't understand! If only the author could get together with Tobi Drummers author to comine the output of each app, we could be making music!


Pituka
Finally the CPC emulator goes public. I've only tried a few games but it seems to work very well if a little slow. This will open up a whole new set of games for many gp32ers and probably open up that old argument of C64vCPC!

Rom Arcade
I do not have the roms for this and have therefore not tested it

SmashGP
Stylish or what?! I never played Smash Brothers before but I see what it's all about, basically just beating each other up in a fun kinda way! It's a bit confusing with the screen flicking about all over but it is a lot of fun, and would be bloody marvellous if you could incorporate RF-linkup for multiplayer games. I see there are some more things to be added which I'm sure will make this an all round winner of a game.

Tobi Drummer
This has always been a lot of fun to mess around with and now it has a sequencer to save those masterpieces in. Although I was hoping that when playing the sequence you could drum along at the same time, it's a nice update to a nice prog

WWII
Nice little multidirectional shootemup, a bit hard to shoot down other planes but it's quite smooth and as with homebrew shootemups, it just needs a bit more variety to make it a hit

Xump
I used to love Sensitive on the C64 - it was one of those games that you just sat there and zoned out to, this is pretty much identical, I can't remember if the levels are the same but it's another addition to the fine range of brain games for the Gp32 and will live long and prosper on my smc

yAnl
This is the Irfanview of the gp32, you can use tga, pcx, gif, fxe, fxea, gxb, axf, bin, mod, lha and rar files from the launcher, play gtris, and edit mod music! A nice idea and a good bit of fun, but I like my file launcher to be a bit more streamlined, it's nice to see different ideas coming out for the file listing interface though

The End
From what I've seen here, excluding emulators, Lacuna wins hands down, I just damn love it! Coming in a close second is Aka Noid, and third is SmashGP.
Style (presentation) points go to Xump, PBSynth, GPMax, GPAmp, Aka Noid, Elena
Originality points to; LAcuna, BombsGP, Tobi Drummer, Cave Copter
Coding Kudos to the emulator devs for Pituka, Masterlator & ROM Arcade

And a huge thank you to all the folks who entered and made it the best competition yet

EDIT: it's "JyCet", sorry!
 
well the mgs vr missions is a very good game if you love metal gear solid but its alot harder and not that good graphics but who cares its fun as hell.


smash gp is also a fun game except that the maps suck if there was a map editor and they were a little smaller that game would be numbah one in my book but there is a character editor that i have no clue how to use buti am looking forward to the tutorias on the site.

also the night dreams thing is wicked awesome and very kewl but so confusion cause there is no story line kinda like the game gish (im pretty sure gish has a story line but the animations very musch like gish)

the cave copter game is harder then hell on the gp on computer its very fun and addicting and also alot easier

the blair wars dont get me wrong its fine but its just not my type of game


oohhh and ofcoure tobi drummer im a drummer and i love playing around on this thing when im on the bus or at school
 
i personally liked gpmax since im a ddr maniac. the grphics were great and everything looked just like the ps2 game. however, the arows dont follow the beat, the music sux, and its really hard to play with just the joystick. i say the author needs to implement the buttons as arrows like the ps2 version.
 
if you check on CHN's site there's an older Masterlator v0.1 so it didnt come out of nowhere he's just been working on it. It's a great emu!
 
A 'Goity' or 'Goit' is basically a really stupid idiot. There is a flash cartoon of them but it is down at the moment because the creator is too lazy to create any more episodes. Basically very similar to weebl and bob
 
I've only played Elena, the VR missions, Lacuna and GPMax so far but they're all great. The VR missions are slow but you've got to remember that there's almost no optimisation because the whole thing was coded from scratch in just 13 days. For one of the only fully 3D games on the GP32 I think it's very impressive.

The problem is that all the other entries I've played are just as good! Too close to call.
 
also the night dreams thing is wicked awesome and very kewl but so confusion cause there is no story line kinda like the game gish (im pretty sure gish has a story line but the animations very musch like gish)

Well, there is no storyline. You just need to awake from the dream, collecting the 50 items and beating two nightmares (doors at onirica fields leads to them).
I'm glad you like it.

Regards.
 
I had several comments about the difficulty level of Cave Copter. At first, I thought it would be too easy, because I basically can play it endless (well, as the cave gets narrower, you are likely to reach a deadlock eventually). You should've seen it before adding the music, it was about 30% faster. ;)
But it's the same as with lacuna, play it for some time and eventually, you'll be good at it (I couldn't leave my hands off my own game during playtesting, it's just too addictive for me ;) )
 
Cheers to everybody who has spent the time to write about these games. I'm gonna donwload the lot right now :D
 
nazca posted on Oct 29 2004 at 09:45 AM said:
also the night dreams thing is wicked awesome and very kewl but so confusion cause there is no story line kinda like the game gish (im pretty sure gish has a story line but the animations very musch like gish)

Well, there is no storyline. You just need to awake from the dream, collecting the 50 items and beating two nightmares (doors at onirica fields leads to them).
I'm glad you like it.

Regards.

It didn't work on my BLU though. It just loaded for a while and then went to a white screen and froze. Not sure why.
 
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It didn't work on my BLU though. It just loaded for a while and then went to a white screen and froze. Not sure why.

There is a problem with some file launchers like yafl and wind-ups (maybe others as well), they can't boot properly the fenix runtime. Slubman's firmware and european one are ok.
 
DaveC posted on Oct 29 2004 at 02:01 PM said:
nazca posted on Oct 29 2004 at 09:45 AM said:
also the night dreams thing is wicked awesome and very kewl but so confusion cause there is no story line kinda like the game gish (im pretty sure gish has a story line but the animations very musch like gish)

Well, there is no storyline. You just need to awake from the dream, collecting the 50 items and beating two nightmares (doors at onirica fields leads to them).
I'm glad you like it.

Regards.

It didn't work on my BLU though. It just loaded for a while and then went to a white screen and froze. Not sure why.

Did you put the fenix runtime into GPSYS ?
 
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nazca- you are warped... this is a compliment - Game is great! Reminds me of JetSet Willy. Love the Nightmare scenes - takes a while to work out what you are meant to be doing - but I guess that's true in a real nightmare...

Only got to the first nightmare yet though....

Argon0
 
frolik posted on Oct 29 2004 at 02:40 AM said:
You can download all these games here

Aka Noid
A ridiculously polished game, for an arcade conversion it even has level saves (savestates) and level editor for completeness. I've never been a lover of pong type games but this has changed my mind and will stay on my SMC permanently. It's great to see games go through revisions until they reach quality - nice one CyJet!



Just to let you know its JyCet. <_<
 
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nazca posted on Oct 29 2004 at 02:09 PM said:
It didn't work on my BLU though. It just loaded for a while and then went to a white screen and froze. Not sure why.

There is a problem with some file launchers like yafl and wind-ups (maybe others as well), they can't boot properly the fenix runtime. Slubman's firmware and european one are ok.


It doesnt work in my FLU with european firmware, I hope this doesnt affect negatively in the competition because it is a really interesting and original games.

Buen trabajo nazca !!! jeje

Aiken
 
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Aiken posted on Oct 29 2004 at 11:03 PM said:
nazca posted on Oct 29 2004 at 02:09 PM said:
It didn't work on my BLU though. It just loaded for a while and then went to a white screen and froze. Not sure why.

There is a problem with some file launchers like yafl and wind-ups (maybe others as well), they can't boot properly the fenix runtime. Slubman's firmware and european one are ok.


It doesnt work in my FLU with european firmware, I hope this doesnt affect negatively in the competition because it is a really interesting and original games.

Buen trabajo nazca !!! jeje

Aiken
The launchers are fine, it just seems that the fenix runtime sometimes has problems handling the app path passed to it. I was going to do some investigation and post a fixed fenix runtime, but it uses SDL so I'll need to set that up first.
 
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Just going to add my own mini reviews:

GP Max- Really liked this. Big fan of DDR so this gets played a lot. Not keen on the backgrounds and the arrows can be off but still great fun. Some tunes are great, others annoying and some can go on a bit too long.

Memory-This is actually one of my most played. I love this kind of game on the PC so have been trying to get through all levels on countdown. Can get up to level 10 at the most :) Is it possible to create own icons for inclusion in future versions?

Deluxe Snakes- Downloaded several times and connection died halfway through due to its size.

Tobi-Loved the original and this improves on it.

Goity- Not got Beats of Rage so I have not tested it.

Rom Arcade- Couldn't get it to run. Have everything in the right directory and all the roms and I just get a blank screen. I'm original firmware and have a 133mhz machine (not over clocked it)

Blair wars- Just didn't really see the point to this, over in about one second.

Arkanoid- A classy game with some nice improvements over the first release and very addictive.

Elena- Tetris in 3D! Fun but at times the 3dness can get a little disorientating.

Smash GP- nicely made but everything gets hard to see once the action kicks off. Room for potential though.

PBSynth- Only played around for a little bit more for the dedicated musician I think :)

LACUNA-Simple but incredibly playable and the visual style is pleasing. Reminds me a little of Rez somehow.

Nacaza- Some of the jumping is a little off and it isn't always clear as to where to go/what to do but I like the graphics and it's nice to have a game like this on the GP32.

Pikuita- I never bothered with the machine at the time so it's nice to play games I may have missed. A nice emulator :)

Masterlator-Some improvements over fsms and down points. I like the GG surround around the game, it's a nice touch but the pink and white is annoying, I would have preferred the surround to expand across the screen. I don't like the rom selection in comparision to full length names in the other emu. However, gg roms now play without splitting in half so I'll be keeping both emus on my smc.

WWII-Okay but a bit repetitve

Cave Chopper- Nice- a great pick up and play game that will keep you coming back.

GPAmp- Not got any oggs to test. Lovely skins though.

Bombz- Bomberman crossed with RPG style elements. I will follow this with interest and it's a great example of what Zot can do.

MGS- I have 132mhz machine so it was way too slow for my machine.

N Strike- Nice little shooter, but a little repetitive

Xump- I love this. Such a simple little puzzler but keeps me hooked.

YANL-Didn't test.
 
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