Winter 2013 Dualstream Day of Zeux Scoresheet:Wervyn
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/= INTRODUCTION ================================================================ | Hey look at that, a DoZ! I'm feeling a little impatient so let's just leap | | right into the scores this time. | ===============================================================================/ /= 11776 = Dragon Blaster ========================== DRAGONS/HEAVY = [153/400] = - THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 58/100] - | I was a little surprised that, in a DoZ with only five entries in it, TWO | | games tried to cross-sheet Dragons to Heavy. I'm kind of responsible for | | this theme. Story on this is that Insidious asked me, literally an hour | | before the competition started, for ideas. And I said, "I dunno, dragons? | | Wait, the DoZ is today?" So, I'm sorry for just pulling something out that | | really doesn't seem to be that cross-compatable, at least to me. So all that | | said, we have Maxim's entry here, which is undeniably about dragons, but in | | probably the most unimaginative way possible. And granted, knowing that MZX | | has a built-in dragon I did kind of expect to see it in there. But I have to | | wonder if I might not rate this just as highly if it were playing to the | | Nostalgia theme. (Actually the answer to that is no, the exact same game | | would probably score 20-30 under a generous interpretation, for the other | | topic.) | | | - GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 33/ 90] - | Get in there and shoot those built-ins! This is default MZX gameplay to the | | core, with the addition of a fairly simple custom weapon mechanic that hurts | | this score as much as it helps it. By that I mean that it's DIFFERENT from a | | vanilla MZX shooter, at least a little bit, but isn't really any more | | interesting or fun. There's maybe a bit of strategy involved in navigating | | the regions effectively without getting overwhelmed, or whether to press on | | or stock up in the town, but for the most part the game is just boring | | because we've seen it all before. At least until the very last stage, but | | even that isn't really that much more exciting. | | | - GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 15/ 70] - | Default gameplay is paired with default graphics, which are probably as | | tastefully put together as a classic/retro MZX pastiche can be, but of | | course that isn't really much. The game doesn't look that BAD, per se, it | | just looks bland and uninspired. Lots of black, lots of regions composed of | | the same characters, very samey in general. | | | - TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 11/ 60] - | Likewise, this game almost entirely revolves around shooting builtins. | | There's a shooting engine for custom projectiles that has a decent bit of | | work put into it, but I almost wonder why. It's buggy, in that bullets don't | | always hit their targets, and it makes the game more tedious than fun. Apart | | from that is some minor statusbar code, and basic scripts for shops and | | board transitions, and that's really it. Incidentally, I'm not really | | docking any points for the save-game bug, since the game is too short for it | | to really matter to me. | | | - STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 16/ 50] - | The story is pretty thin, and while it's not like I'm going to harp on the | | game for not really having one, it is true that points are reserved for the | | games that do things well, in each category. My only motivation for playing | | this one was that I had to, as a judge. | | | - SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 20/ 30] - | The music is serviceable for a standard action game, and varied enough to | | not get boring, but nothing special. Default sound effects always leave | | something to be desired, although they were at least there. | | | - TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [153/400] - | I can't imagine Maxim spending more than a few hours on this, given that I | | know he's capable of a LOT more. And for the record, I'm not upset that he | | submitted a boring built-in shooter, I'd honestly prefer that to having only | | four games in the competition, and I don't want people to be afraid to | | settle for this level of quality in the DoZ. I'll still judge your game | | frankly and fairly if you do, and if the competition isn't too fierce you | | may actually not come in last place! | | | | Wervyn says: "Help us generic hero, you're our only hope!" | | | | Puella says: "What are you shooting at them, fish? Sperm?" | | | ===============================================================================/ /= 20945 = The Ballad of Dargan the Dragon ========= DRAGONS/HEAVY = [248/400] = - THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 70/100] - | So here's the second of two Heavy sheet games about dragons, and let's see | | if I can help distinguish what makes this one (slightly) better. Basically, | | it's that KKairos is a little bit more imaginative with the theme than Maxim | | was. Here, the core gameplay is fighting as a dragon instead of fighting | | against them, and so the game does a little bit to explore how different | | kinds of dragons might fight. And that's kind of cool, even if it's | | ultimately just a palette swap for the most part. The story is still one | | note, albeit one note on the theme, so it only does so much. But yeah, this | | is a decent effort for the heavy sheet, and probably the right decision | | considering the weakness of the gameplay. | | | - GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 41/ 90] - | As far as that gameplay goes it pretty much IS a battle engine. A very | | basic, if decently made, battle engine, and its complexity is quickly | | exhausted. I'm not sure how much I like the ATB approach here, at least it | | started out tricky to figure out what I could do and I ended up dead due to | | wasted time before I could get to the town to heal. Once I figured out the | | arrangement, the difficulty drops a lot. It essentially becomes a reflex | | game with a fairly low cost for failure. And of course, once you get past | | level 5 or so, the game becomes trivial, even while it tries to increase the | | difficulty by throwing more and stronger enemies at you. You're just too | | fast for it to matter, and the area effect spell makes any enemies after the | | second one largely meaningless. | | | - GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 59/ 70] - | This is definitely the prettiest game of the DoZ. The color choices are | | easy on the eyes and effective, making the backgrounds quite vibrant and | | lush. The character editing is detailed and everything looks immediately | | recognizeable, be it towns, forests, or dragons. Foreground information pops | | and is easily discernable, and the UI is intuitive, at least insofar as | | making it immediately apparent to the player what you can do and how to do | | it. I have some quibbles and nitpicks with the title, startup, and ending | | screens being rather bland, and with some color boundaries on the map screen | | around the mountain that look like they could have been handled better. But | | overall, these are at least starting to approach Quasar levels of pretty. | | | - TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 42/ 60] - | I'd consider this a moderately complex engine, successfully executed. | | KKairos reported some bugfixes but honestly their effect is negligible and | | cosmetic. There's definitely some balancing to be done here, but that's all | | covered in gameplay issues. If there were more going on in the game than | | just the battle engine, and it were all done with this level of polish, I'd | | probably be rating this 55+. | | | - STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 20/ 50] - | It's like, How to Train Your Dragon, but without any real characters or | | plot. There isn't a great deal more motivation here than in Maxim's game. | | Slight advantage awarded due to the RPG approach, though. At least for me, a | | game is more compelling when it involves character growth, even for the | | thinnest of reasons, because it gives the player an active stake in playing | | the game to improve their character. More interesting? Perhaps not, but | | definitely more compelling (thank you Extra Credits for that definition!). | | | - SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 16/ 30] - | With only two pieces of music rapidly switching back and forth, the audio | | backdrop of the game quickly becomes pretty tedious. They aren't bad musical | | choices, but neither are they excellent, and you don't get to enjoy them for | | long. Battle sound effects do their jobs adequately but not superlatively, | | so the score here is pretty average. | | | - TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [248/400] - | I liked this game, but it could use a lot more depth, both in battle and | | outside of it. Really, it's just a glorified battle engine that, while | | polished, is not particularly deep. Still, not a bad effort. | | | | Wervyn says: "So, where's the Night Fury option?" | | | | Puella says: "I really liked the dragon avies and the forests!" | | | ===============================================================================/ /= 55314 = Schone Zeiten ========================= NOSTALGIA/HEAVY = [295/400] = - THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 91/100] - | This is really great theme use. First, the story does an excellent job of | | playing on the idea of Nostalgia, in content (frenemies longing for the good | | old days of stellar expansion), presentation (delivered by our protagonist | | remenscing on an old story) and hilarious anachronism (it may be a | | stereotype, but asgromo really does capture the linguistic rhythm of the | | 20s, as explained by Hollywood anyway). The use of a classic space sim | | itself is nostalgic for those of us who remember games like Starflight and | | Escape Velocity (granted, I'm not awarding that much just for this, it is a | | stretch). And the musical selection and muted graphics really hammer home | | that old-timey feel. Plus, it all feels novel as a whole, which is worth | | some for originality. Could it be better? Probably. But it's very near the | | top. | | | - GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 61/ 90] - | There are a lot of things to love here, marred by some frustrating and | | questionable decisions. And of course a slew of bugs, but I'm taking most of | | those out of the technique score. First the good, I haven't realized how | | much I really wanted a game like this in MZX until now, I spent a good deal | | of time playing this and making trade spreadsheets and exploring the | | (admittedly kind of small) galaxy while blowing up pirates. The core | | mechanic here is solid and I love how extensible it is, and the battles, | | while a bit oversimplistic, are still a lot of fun. But then there are the | | drawbacks. In trading, the lack of a bulk option for buying and selling was | | so egregious that I had to add it myself to enjoy the game. It's just | | unreasonable to expect the player to click hundreds of times (or even | | thousands, if you're really trading for keeps) to offload their inventory. | | The reverse side of that is that it's a little bit too easy to become | | absurdly rich once that meta-limit is taken out of the picture, since there | | are trade imbalances in systems right next to each other and close to the | | starting star which result in massive payoffs with very little risk. Battles | | are also a bit too simplistic, particularly when multiple enemies are | | involved, and the turn engine allows them to reduce the effectiveness of | | your high-frequency weapons. The game could really use a way to take full | | inventory on your ship and cargo without having to stop at a planet that | | happens to trade the specific items you have. Finally, for all the initial | | fun and wonder, the game still isn't very deep, and I wish there were more | | to do. | | | - GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 42/ 70] - | Effective use of some the basic character set, combined with some pixel | | circles and ships on the navigation, and nifty but slightly boring UI | | screens. The enemy ships are probably the kind of thing I'd come up with if | | I were doing art for the game, since they mean very little manipulation of | | individual characters, and I like working in macro. The planetary surface | | screens are kind of neat in their randomization, but ultimately still look | | like pixelated mush in different muted colors, no matter where you go. | | Speaking of the generally muted palette, while it does seem thematically | | appropriate, it also makes the game a bit visually drab, too. Catch 22? So | | basically, the graphics are okay. | | | - TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 39/ 60] - | There are enough cool engines on display here to merit a full score, if so | | much of the game weren't broken in fairly severe ways. The scripted nature | | of the map and events is a great example, since it's a really clever system | | that allows for easy expansion of the game universe, but so many of the bugs | | trace to it. Found cargo from planets and battles don't actually pick up due | | to a counter mismatch. One of the systems locks up the game because of a | | misnamed file. The result looks really cool, but feels very rough, and it's | | never good when you can't finish the game due to a bug, no matter how easy | | the fix is to implement. | | | - STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 37/ 50] - | Definitely a strong showing in this category. The story isn't necessarily | | deep, but it's told with a lot of charm and that makes it quite | | entertaining. And as I've said already, games that involve player agency in | | character development are good at drawing me in. Perhaps it's my addictive | | personality, but any game that allows me to work to improve my character | | naturally makes me want to pour time into being the absolute best. This kept | | me entertained for at least an hour of actual playthrough (once I got all | | the bugs sorted out and could actually play the game). | | | - SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 25/ 30] - | I could just be a sucker for early 20th century music, but I loved the | | selection here. One of the things that made it particularly great was that, | | while you were really only listening to one song for most of the game, it's | | varied enough and long enough to not get dull, and plays continuously for | | the most part and so transitions don't feel jarring or irritating. A | | slightly more upbeat big band classic for the battles gives those a bit more | | zing, and a plethora of well chosen sound effects round out that experience. | | Everything else in the game is just serene, and I find I like that a lot. | | | - TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [295/400] - | Probably my favorite of the competition, and I feel very love/hate about it | | since there is so much wrong with it and so much room for improvement, but | | I'd really like to see it improved. Please make this into a much longer game | | with more extensive features and a better battle engine. | | | | Wervyn says: "Hey look, SFMZX finally came out!" | | | | Puella says: "Hobos in Space, '28 skidoo! Also I could listen to this music | | all day." | | | ===============================================================================/ /= 65974 = Dracos Corona =========================== DRAGONS/LIGHT = [215/400] = - GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 48/120] - | This is an ambitious engine that ultimately doesn't really work. Eventually | | I got somewhat comfortable with it but the only way to use it has you | | sitting at the edges of a cloud of enemies trying to pick them off one by | | one. It's just too hard to see what's going on if you get in the middle of | | them and are beset with status effects. Additionally, the attack powers feel | | clumsy and hard to use well. Pressing a key AND holding space to charge AND | | then releasing to do damage is just too many fine steps for a game with such | | confusing visual feedback. I would have limited this to holding WASD and | | then releasing, with an autofire at max charge, since the game seems like it | | wants to be a run-and-gun, but only really works as a slow-paced tactical | | battle of attrition. Unless of course you use option 2, which is to just | | ignore everything in your way and run past, since there's next to no benefit | | for killing anything apart from a tiny increase in health over time. The | | game really needed a tangible reward for leveling, like increased weapon | | stats (helpful for stronger enemies in the later levels), otherwise there's | | no incentive to fight. | | | - GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 52/ 90] - | I thought the environments were actually quite nice, if blocky and a little | | basic. The big failure here is in UI clutter and poor layout, it's just too | | hard to tell what's going on and react, particularly if you get swarmed by | | enemies. First we have the obvious, the screen getting spammed with pastel | | particles all over the place. Then you have the addition of extra targetting | | information when you try to fight something, most of which is largely | | useless. The one bit of truly useful information, "Am I fully charged yet?" | | (particularly for the first weapon which won't FIRE otherwise) is at the far | | left of your peripheral vision. Combine with environments that look good but | | not great, and this score drops significantly. | | | - TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 57/ 80] - | There's a kind of cool engine at work here, even if I think it ultimately | | turned into a mess. It seems competently implemented, is reasonably complex, | | and DOES work, and so I award a fair number of points for it. That said, | | there are game-halting bugs as well, so that's a bit of a dock, and I do | | think Schone Zweite's engine represents an overall more impressive body of | | work, even though it's significantly buggier. So the max award that I'm | | stepping off from here is a bit less than the full 80 points. Overall it | | still becomes the most solid technical achievement in the DoZ, in terms of | | coding effectiveness and scope minus bug impact. | | | - STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 22/ 50] - | I thought the story was pretty trash, honestly. I mean there was something | | to it, it is a little more involved than Dragon Blaster's or Dargan's, but | | it's all just sort of dumped at the beginning in a scene that's just not | | very interesting. And then it just ends without resolution, looking like | | none of our actions in the game really had any meaning. Hooray for player | | agency! | | | - SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 29/ 40] - | I liked the selection of tracks here, they did a good job of setting | | ambient moods for each area and were nice to listen too as well. As far as | | sounds, the player weapon effects are suitable, but I'm trying to decide how | | I feel about the missing effects for enemy attacks. On the one hand, their | | absence is notable, but on the other I'm not sure I'd like a chaotic | | cacaphony of noise to match the mess on the screen any better. Docked a | | couple points anyway. | | | - THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 7/ 20] - | This was connected, but very weak, and mostly relied on the story to set it | | up. Apparently some cult is trying to awaken a great dragon, which means bad | | stuff? Apart from that, nothing about the game really says "dragons" to me. | | The game doesn't even get as far as doing something about the dragon, just | | chasing some macguffins, and then you win (or lose?). | | | - TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [215/400] - | A very flawed piece of work, and I'm not sure if it's salvageable, really. | | The battle engine just seems like a mess of anti-fun right now, and I'm not | | sure how to maintain the feel while ditching the disorientation. At the very | | least, the UI needs a serious redesign, and the controls need to be | | simplified to make fighting more amenable to twitch gameplay. Still, it was | | interesting. | | | | Wervyn says: "So like, is everyone dead now?" | | | | Puella says: "The design is amazing but OMG I'm having a seizure!" | | | ===============================================================================/ /= 92887 = Nostalgia (in which the past is revis = NOSTALGIA/HEAVY = [252/400] = - THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 88/100] - | Also a very good take on the Nostalgia theme, and one I'm pleased to see. | | I'm definitely glad we got this instead of a rehash on MZX games, for | | example, as that would have felt a little too obvious. I ultimately rated | | this slightly below Schone Zeiten for reasons related to novelty, cohesion | | and how finished it was. Zeiten just edged it out a bit, but if we'd | | actually gotten a full rendition of more games that felt a little more | | familiar (horse riding game what, should I know this one?) or faithful (I | | guess 3D engines in MZX are no longer the rage), this could have topped it. | | Still, good show. | | | - GAMEPLAY --------------------------------------------------------- [ 39/ 90] - | What's here was good fun, but too short, and does suffer from being | | unfinished. Each segment is short enough to avoid overplaying the joke and | | keep things interesting, but the result is that, with three and a half | | segments, the game is really short. It does make me wonder though, if Rob | | hadn't told me that the game was unfinished and made a quick fix to wrap | | things up, would I have noticed and awarded more points here? Probably not | | that many more, in any event. | | | - GRAPHICS --------------------------------------------------------- [ 45/ 70] - | The graphics are fairly basic but actually do a really great job despite | | that. I especially enjoyed the title screen parodies for each minigame, so | | good job enhancing the atmosphere with an approach that wasn't too hard to | | implement. The 1991 segment was particularly pretty, but the use of enemy | | things the same color as the background was pretty questionable. But due to | | the circumstances of that segment, that seemed to be very intentional. My | | question is, why? Is this another nostalgic joke that went over my head? | | | - TECHNIQUE -------------------------------------------------------- [ 22/ 60] - | The collection of game engines that went into this is pretty simple, but | | function without issue. There's enough on display to be worth at least some | | points, even if it's programming that should be within reach of the MZX | | novice for the most part. | | | - STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 35/ 50] - | I was definitely drawn in by the humor of this submission, and that counts | | for a lot, even unfinished. The presentation was clever, with enough content | | to not outright pan, even if it could have done better were there more. | | Thank you for making me laugh at some genuinely funny jokes. | | | - SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 23/ 30] - | I suppose it's not entirely surprising to get a collection of classic, | | nostalgic mods here. Good call on the Model M decibel level keyboard | | feedback. In general, I found the sounds here good, just nothing about it | | that really held it above the rest. | | | - TOTAL ------------------------------------------------------------ [252/400] - | I wouldn't mind seeing this one finished either. The ideas so far are | | clever enough to be worth continuing, and even if it's not a game people | | will play over and over again, it's one I think they'll enjoy. | | | | Wervyn says: "You cannot get ye flask." | | | | Puella says: "I want that 1991 screen for my background." | | | ===============================================================================/ /= FINAL SCORES ================================================================ 1. 55314 - Schone Zeiten ------------------------- NOSTALGIA/HEAVY - [295/400] - 2. 92887 - Nostalgia (in which the past is revis - NOSTALGIA/HEAVY - [252/400] - 3. 20945 - The Ballad of Dargan the Dragon --------- DRAGONS/HEAVY - [248/400] - 4. 65974 - Dracos Corona --------------------------- DRAGONS/LIGHT - [215/400] - 5. 11776 - Dragon Blaster -------------------------- DRAGONS/HEAVY - [153/400] - ===============================================================================/