Nooooooooo!!! Everything's Wiped!!!!

Post date: 12-Jun-2016 20:11:55

Game by: Lee Prince

Reviewed by: Simon Ferré

Wow, my first review of an entry into the Keyword Initials Challenge. Doesn't time fly?

Having not fully thought through the consequences that could occur in this challenge, I now regret it, based purely on this first entry.

There's never been a keyword more frightening to use than NEW. One press of the wrong key without realising it can result in dire consequences to the poor programmer. I recall my mum, heavily into typing in listings from magazines being quite proud of herself for finishing typing a huge listing, and running it successfully for the first time to check for any bugs. At the end of the game, she was met with the prompt: Do you wish to play again (Y/N)? to which she replied N, then watched as her whole typing effort was reduced to a two second reset. The moral of the story? SAVE your program before running it, especially if it uses the NEW keyword. At least the developers of the BBC Micro gave you a chance to retrieve a BASIC program with the OLD keyword after hitting the BREAK key or entering NEW.

Anyway, on with the show. Examining the tape file with ZX Blockeditor, I see additional elements to the tape. Not only does it use turbo load, it has very long pauses on the timing pulses, such that for several seconds you feel as if time has stopped around you. This is seriously advanced stuff. At least Lee has provided us with an entertaining loading screen:

I quite like the way that during loading the pixels are shown building up. Not many games do that usually, preferring to reveal the screen when the attributes load. Anyway, I've already noticed the exclamation mark that has been accidentally entered in the text at the bottom as a number 1. That flaky SYMBOL SHIFT key not quite working properly, Lee, or is there going to be a sequel?

Once the game eventually finishes loading, the game either resets using the NEW command or pretends to, eventually revealing the score (which increases with each successful avoidance of the NEW keyword).

Unfortunately, on my first run through, I lost straight away, returning to a reset Spectrum without receiving any score. This is when I decided not to load the game again. I haven't taken a screenshot of the game showing me my score, because I didn't get to see one. I could have cheated by turning on Turbo Loading in my emulator, but I wonder if the non-standard tape format may have thwarted my attempt to load the game faster.

So, it's a bit like the chili Dorito in the pack of cheesy ones without the need to drink a glass of milk, or Russian Roulette without the blood splattered walls but with all the frustration and the rush that you get whilst waiting for the trigger to be pulled. At least I didn't get an R Tape Loading Error (the sloth loader (TM) must have been working flawlessly), and with this game you get to have another go if you lose.

The idea is simple, the sloth loader (TM) is frustrating, the game is annoying, and the very little gain for your pain is just what is needed in a crap game. Now, do I fancy loading up for another go? Quite honestly, not really.

Score: Six shooter out of Ten-sion.