Art House - Etch A Sketch - Jamie Bradbury

There are many good questions in life that need answers and some of those answers are 42. Yet, 42 is clearly not the answer to the question of what a past C.S.S.C.G.C host does with all their spare time when they no longer need to review crap games. If you are curious what the answer is it is answered admirably by Jamie who has just submitted his 3rd entry to the contest. It would appear he regrets having so much spare time on his hands and is eager to regain the position of host for next year.

So what delight do we have this time round? The program is titled Art House, a title that might mislead one into thinking that it is a utility of some sort. It isn't! Instead it is a fiendish little game that appears to be a marriage between Snake and Jamie's previous entry Etch A Sketch. I'll let Jamie describe it,

"Art House is a tiny art making game set within the boundary of 1 single attribute. The gameplay takes place across 6 levels of various difficulties. In each level you are presented with a symbol and you have to replicate it before the timer reaches 1000. The game is pretty original IMHO.

You control a tiny 3 pixel 'snake'. When moving from left to right, the snake leaves a trail behind it. When you move in any other direction, the snake rubs out anything it passes over. Using these rules it is possible to draw the symbols and advance through the levels. The quicker you do this, then the more points you score."

This description is not wholly accurate, the snake is free to move across the entirety of the screen but the only bit you are interested in is a pink coloured 8x8 square. Inside that square, you need to replicate a symbol that appears in a pink box at the top of the screen. You can only create this by drawing horizontal lines from the left of the screen to the right and then erasing the parts you don't need by traveling across the square in any other direction. Is that clear? Maybe an image would help.

The screen is pure simplicity, but the game is not. On the lower left is a counter that adds up to 1000, should it reach 1000 before you finish then you lose. If you complete the level before the timer reaches 1000, the remaining time counts towards your overall score. The snake moves at a pretty good rate, however I found turning to be a complete nightmare, with about a 20% chance of turning at the right moment (disclaimer this might be down to me being old and slow with fingers worn out from Daley Thompson's Decathlon). However, once you get the hang of how the snake draws and erases it is possible to complete the levels. At least I believe so the last level beat me, but I won't spoil it for you by explaining why. I'm sure there are clever shortcuts you can take to make it quicker I'll wait for the YouTube full walkthrough video.

Before you say is this all, the answer is no! Back to Jamie,

"But winning the game is not the only goal. As you play you will mark the screen in ways you did not expect. This will create an 'abstract art work' which is unique to that play through. In this way, I have made an art making computer game. That's the idea anyway."

At the end of each level the computer will produce the monochrome version of a Mondrian, the first time this happened I thought the computer had gone crazy and then remembered Jamie's words above.

So how does this game stack up? Is it Crap or Cool? Would you be pleased you had typed it in from a magazine or would you be suing the publishers for wasting your time?

Technical Ability - 72%

The game is written in 32 lines of basic, so it would have been a fairly decent type-in. As a result, it is fairly no frills. Unlike Etch A Sketch there is no music. It does have a loading screen, which wouldn't have taken too long to put together, no fancy loading effect the loader itself is bare-bones

  10 LOAD ""SCREEN$ 
  20 LOAD ""

As a result, the program name appears written across the loading screen. Once started you are presented with the following screen

No instructions on how to play or which keys you need to use. These are QAOP, by the way. It has two features that reminded me of Etch A Sketch, the use of over to erase the unwanted parts of the screen and a complete lack of bounds checking.

You shouldn't need to go near the edges of the screen, but you'll break the code if you do. However, the interesting bit for me is the core of the game. As I played each level I wondered how it knew you were finished. Fortunately being basic it wasn't hard to check out. The answer is it uses SCREEN$, now I can't remember ever using SCREEN$ for anything more than SAVE "" SCREEN$ or LOAD "" SCREEN$. If I ever knew that it could take an x and y parameter to return the character located in the screen memory I have long forgotten.

240 IF SCREEN$ (11,16)=a$ THEN

Where I had imagined a complex checking of pixels I discovered the above. A very neat solution.

The language used is perfect for the game, it doesn't need any more speed. There are however a few rough edges.

Achievement - 92%

It is fairly rare to come across a game that appears to be a new idea. Elements of other games are in here but the game itself is not similar to one I've come across before. Am I wrong? Please let me know in the forums.

For that reason alone I think Jamie has made a remarkable achievement. 

Fun - 62%

This is a difficult one to judge, I like Snake and this is a little like Snake. I like the idea of having to work out what to erase to get the correct end result. I like the whole concept, and yet, I didn't feel an overwhelming urge to replay. Why? I can't put my finger on it. It doesn't help that then the play area is so small, it definitely helped playing fullscreen on a larger monitor. The inability to turn easily (as said above maybe my poor reactions) didn't help. Neither did the snake pooping on the screen when it made a turn.

Somehow though I think it might be me, it should be more fun.

Crap Factor - 15%

With bounds checking and a prettifying of the UI it would be a decent enough game. It thankfully uses QAOP so no tricky keys. The idea and the game are not crap, the artwork produced by the rerun is either a nice touch or pointless depending on your take. I'm struggling to call it on this one, but crap factor is low.

Roundup

Pros -

• Loading screen
• QAOP Keys
• Unique game
• Tricky, especially the last level

Cons -

• Didn't fill me with a just one more go addiction
• Lack of frills
• Inability to replay from the level you were on (Snap shots advised)

Jamie did mention in his covering email that he made the game pretty easy. If you want more of a challenge then change line 250. Currently set to 1000, but you could try 500 for example. So I do suspect that I am the problem, my results.

Level 1 - 983
Level 2 - 188
Level 3 - 749
Level 4 - 946
Level 5 - 881
Level 6 - FAILED

I may play these games so you don't have to, but do give this ago you can download it here. Let me know how badly you beat my scores. Let me know if I wouldn't know a fun game if it came up to me and tickled me with Ken Dodd's Duster.