• Commodore Free, Issue 52 - Part Five

    From Stephen Walsh@39:901/280 to All on Mon Aug 22 15:04:37 2011
    island. Chang and Koong-Shee are now no longer safe. You take control of Chang in this sequel to The Willow Pattern Adventure. You must help him escape from The Unknown Island, due to the fact that the island is not so unknown anymore!

    In order to escape, Chang must get to the boat again. But it won't be easy.
    The island is filled with evil sword wielding ninjas, and the road leading to the boat is blocked by a gate. The gate has been disguised as a huge boulder.

    The key to the island gate is guarded by a Temple Warlord, who is actually one of Li-Chi's henchmen. The temple itself is also locked, and the key has been left in a long lost, forgotten location. To succeed in his quest, Chang must find the temple key, find the temple, defeat the Warlord and get to the boat
    in the top-left corner of the island. Along the way, he must kill or avoid the ninjas.

    Scoring info

    Killing a ninja - 1 %
    Picking up jewels - 2 %
    Defeating the Warlord - 3 %
    Completing the game - 5 %

    Some gameplay tips for you

    * Never waste a sword! There is only a limited number of them, so using a
    sword on something useless can destroy your chances of completing the game.
    A good strategy might be of help.

    * Collect pieces of treasure! They give you bonus points. Finding all pieces
    of treasure is necessary if you wish to score full 100 %.

    * Some ninjas don't need to be killed. There might be an alternative route
    past them...

    Good luck!

    Controls

    I - Chang walks up (or jump, when in temple)
    K - Chang walks down
    J - Chang walks left
    L - Chang walks right

    SPACE - Chang throws his sword if he has it

    Or use a joystick in port #2.

    COMMODORE FREE

    Cutesy graphics it may have although some could class this maze style game is
    a little crude in the animation department. Chang's Adventure is a maze adventure game where our hero has to find objects, kill villains and collect tokens, the download link to the games website is here and various versions
    are in the zip file with both tape and D64 image

    http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/98555/Chang%5C%27sAdventure.zip

    The tape version has the usual loading music and loading screen. Despite the games rather crude graphics, the whole thing plays incredibly well, I am guessing the creator has gone for the amusement element rather than anything else, as the game as a whole is very good, well planned and executed. The animation of our hero walking certainly had me laughing. However once the fun is over you realise this is a very good game, (how many time have I said that) all the elements are there and the difficulty seems to have bee gauged well
    for the user.

    Loading

    Loading up the game from tape then we have the wonderful loading screen, now I am a sucker for these slow reveal pictures and with the great beat tapping music the suspense is almost unbelievable, soon the game loads and we are on the main title screen

    The title music is another Richard Baylis piece

    Title Screen

    As the screen loads we are taken back in time with some suitable oriental
    music composition, think of a classical SID style music piece here, actually this style of music fits the game better than the Richard Baylis techno beats on the loader.

    Pressing a joystick plugged into port 2 took me into the game

    The classical Oriental music continues through the game, now the first thing I need to do is find something to throw at the path guardians, so I can find
    more goodies. Picking up what I suppose is a spear or knife allows our hero
    to throw and kill a guarding adversary, although once killed you then loose your weapon and need to look for another one.

    Some of the Guardians you can walk up to and they will throw a spear at you, move quickly enough you can avoid the deadly tool, dodge out of the way then run back pick it up and throw it at one of the guardians. Nice game with good controls and the download also features an editor, with both tape and Disk images versions of the game to try.

    Graphics: 5/10
    Sounds: 5/10
    Gameplay: 7/10

    OVERALL: 7/10

    Although it may lack sonically and with not much eye candy this is a well thought out game and plays relay well


    *************************************
    REVIEW: DEFF-ENDER
    By Commodore Free
    *************************************

    Released by: Deff-Soft
    Released At: Sideways SEUCK Compo 2011

    http://tnd64.unikat.sk/Sideways_Seuck_Compo_2011.html

    CREDITS

    Code: Chris Yates / Jon Wells
    Music: Deff-Soft
    Graphics: Deff-Soft
    Design: Deff-Soft
    Loader: Martin Piper

    DOWNLOAD

    http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/98295/Deff-Ender.d64

    http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/98294/Deff-Ender_TAPE.tap

    REVIEW

    First empty your mind about any preconceived ideas you have that this game is defender, for a start the game is created entirely in SEUCK.

    Released for the SEUCK (shoot Em Up Construction kit) sideways competition 2011, The game has some similarities to defender namely that you shoot the green aliens and collect the people who seem to float in the sky and also walk on the ground. Why these guys decide that walking along the top of the screen is a good past time I don't know.

    There looks to be scenery as in defender a sort of green line representing a landscape, however this is purely for show, there is no collision detection
    for alien or your ship

    The tape version

    And some upbeat music , after a few seconds this is all then Followed by a
    tape loading screen (the disc version just loads the game)

    The music then seems to cuts of quite abruptly as the game is now loaded and then we are sonically given a techno style music piece. The music is obviously fast paced and fits the game well, at then end of the piece it loops back
    round and starts again.

    Starting The Game Then

    Ok pressing fires will start the game so lets go..

    The sound effects through the game are functional moistly white noise and whistles. The thing to note about this game is that you are moving from right to left or should I say the screen is scrolling, and although your ship can move freely up, down, forward and back you cannot turn around like you would expect to do in defender, obviously this isn't defender.

    Man About

    The idea of the game is move around, kill the green aliens and collect the men before they are captured. To collect the men who are on the ground, you simply fly into them, you seem to be able to shoot them without any problem and your bullets just pass through them. Of course bullets will kill everything else.

    Once a man has been captured by the evil aliens, you can shoot the alien who
    is carrying him, once the alien is dead the man will continue to float up into the sky and then seems to walk along the top of the screen, until you rescue him by driving into him.

    There is no radar or similar to see when you are or where the alien wave is moving as would be expected in a defender game. After you have scrolled along for some time you are then greeted with the next level, and different aliens, in level 2 for example we have a craft that shoots in 4 directions simultaneously, when 2 of these appear on screen at once the whole thing slows down, this is more a failing of SEUCK than anything else. The game has 4
    levels to complete and sadly I haven't managed to finish them.

    Without any expectations that this is defender the game is good enough to kill a few minutes,

    Graphics: 6
    Music: 6
    Gameplay: 6

    OVERALL: 6


    *************************************
    REVIEW: COINS
    By Commodore Free
    *************************************



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