Summary and Results

Post date: 07-Jan-2017 23:15:24

There are 30 entries by 18 authors. GReW had the most entries at 4, followed by 3 each for PROSM and Andrew J Green.

28 of the entries were for the ZX Spectrum with the remaining 2 being for the ZX81.

Virtual awards:

"Best" "Game" that wasn't even a "Game" goes to Vegetarian is Fun as it had colour, graphics and custom font, but sadly lacked any gameplay at all.

"Best" ZX81 Game has to be Advanced "Simon" Simulator for providing colour and sound elements to a computer that had neither. Just a shame nobody really likes Quality Street (other tins of sweets wrapped in coloured plastic are available).

"Best" idea that should never have been made into a game, ever has to be Absinthe_boy's Slowcooker. It's so shockingly awful it would have single handedly made Sir Clive Sinclair scrape his eyeballs out with an ice cream scoop so he could never have to see his beloved machine used for such disgraceful purposes.

"Best" use of "double quotes" in a game title has to go to GReW's Advanced "Simon" Simulator.

"Best" Mystery solved now the competition is over has to be my own game, Hack-Up. If you 'log in' with user name root and the password (all in caps) of CSSCGC2016 you will be able to go further.

Now, on to the challenges:

Challenge 1 - The Keyword Initials Challenge had 5 entries. Ignoring for a minute the late entrants, the winner of this challenge is LPRINT (Little Peter Rabbit Is Not There). Not only was this entry received late, it used a keyword that was obviously a good choice, and coupled with sound, colour and graphics was a noble attempt at a fun game.

Challenge 2 - Colour Clash Challenge. This challenge only had one entry, so the winner is: Pixel Perfect (Clash) by Andrew J Green. His effort was particularly noted for skill, even though the game had a bug that interrupted game play if you drew the circle too close to the top of the screen area.

Challenge 3 - Christmas Challenge. There were only two entries to this challenge, but neither of them really fulfills the challenge brief correctly. One takes an existing ZX Spectrum game and changes the graphics/levels to have a different theme, but the game stays the same, the other doesn't appear to be based on an existing game that came out in the 1980s. For the sheer effort it took to write the game, however, the winner is The (Un)Official Father Christmas Game.

Now on to the overall winner (or should that be the loser?).

As per the rules of the competition, every title has been marked a score from 0 to 10 based on 5 categories - ease of use, gameplay, graphics, sound and innovation. The lowest score wins. The way the scores were entered, meant they were not compared to any other entry, and they were only sorted by score once all 30 entries had been scored. It was done this way so that no previous score could influence any other. I hope you all agree with my judging.

Here then are the results of those scores - the top entry is in number 1 position. An equals sign (=) indicates those entries that shared a place with the same score.:

So, the game in Green, Supermassive Black Hole Simulator by Herman S.P.N. Sausagy-Chippleton is this years "Most Crappest Game" and THIS YEARs CHAMPION.

At the other end of the list, Thunderturds by death squad gets a well deserved "Best Game" award for outstanding graphics and comical elements. Who would have thought a shit game would be the best game :-). It's over to you death squad - good luck for 2017.

So, once again, I must say thank you to all our entrants - without you there would be no competition. There were a few hiccups along the way - some severe delays, an awful website that didn't work very well (thanks Google!), and some cracking original ideas to go through.

How does this year compare to others? I have no idea. Who cares? Just keep churning out that rubbish and we'll all enjoy a new competition for 2017.