Pancake - jj52

 The accompanying email provides a promising start

"Pancakes are taking over the earth, smash them into oblivion"

So does it live up to its early promise? Sadly no. The game starts in a familiar fashion by not autorunning. 


After running I have Deja Vu, for a moment I think I am back in 'cmpltly awsme bgl simlater'. The screen presents me with a circle and 2 dots.

 



With no idea what to do I press a key. A small UDG appears presumably a pancake smasher.


From then on I get inputs which I seem to be able to type anything into and the program progresses via mournful beeping to being told I have smashed 3 pancakes.


Whatever I enter the game resets.


Technical Ability - 8.1%

The program listing is a mystery, lines 20 to 60 are superfluous, and line 146 gives me 2 chances to end the game without even starting. There is no game just a series of empty inputs leading me towards the end.

Achievement - 2.9%

It runs and does something.

Fun - 7%

I enjoyed 2 minutes of reading the listing.

Crap Factor - 92.1%

Crap.

Roundup

Pros -
  • It runs, with a little help.
Cons -
  • It runs
Pro tip:

SAVE "PAMCAKE" LINE 10. This will auto-run the program starting from line 10. Alternatively, if programming in BASin you can use the Properties option in the Tape Image Builder to add an auto start line number. Just as there is more than one way to smash a pancake, there are more than just these two options to get programs autorunning.




Remember I play these games so you don't have to. Should you play this game I bear no responsibility for your mental health afterwards. Should the warnings not be enough you can download and play it here.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If you thought 2023 was crap, think again!

Image
Some mornings begin with a headache. Some mornings begin with 'What the hell have I done?' Some mornings begin with a feeling of dread and some mornings combine the whole lot. Such was the morning the email popped slyly into my inbox. It looked so normal, almost innocent, but inside contained the words 'I'm sorry, but I think you might be the loser.' I scratched my head? What had I entered and what had I lost? Suddenly it dawned the Crap Game contest, but how had I lost, my game wasn't too crap, in fact, I had polished it, improved it, and even started to take a little pride in it. Well, that is exactly the way to lose a Crap Game contest. I hadn't read the golden rules  and as a result, had broken most of them. I wasn't alone, looking back over the entries there were some very good games in the mix. Games that had a polish far beyond the Advanced Lawnmower Simulator. Games I would have happily paid 1.99 for at the local newsagent. So far this has been a...
Read more

Advanced Pondering The Orb Simulator - Jim Waterman

Image
To prove I can follow instructions I turned off fast load for this one. "Do not fail to load this at normal speed, though, because I had to use some interesting trickery to get the loading screen to appear in the way I did! And, the chances are, it'll take longer to load overall than it will to see everything in the game." Even at normal speed, it is necessary not to blink. For a brief second a screen with A O P S appears Before blending into the image from the cover of A Spy in Isengard which spawned a multitude of memes around orb pondering. The email promised me "You'll play it once to lose, once again to win, that's your lot.". Since I only read the email before loading I wasn't sure what to do at this point. I poked around at various keys with no result. Maybe this was after all a genuine Niksen simulator? I left it running in the background while performing a couple of chores, suddenly there was a fuzzy crackling and the emulator reset. What th...
Read more

Hard Core Hangman - Jamie Bradbury

Image
Well, this is a surprise, not even officially started the job role and there is an entry in my mailbox. I suspect poor Jamie has a year's worth of pent-up crap to purge. No doubt in a year I'll be in a similar position.  The game needs no explaining, it is Hangman. The game that provided hours of fun as a child, arguing about how many parts the hangman's scaffold should have. My sister always insisted on four, base, upright, arm, and a rope. My friends were more accommodating with extensive bracing and fancy additions. Jamie's version was acc om panied by an email which will help to just the crapness or not of this game. The opening is very promising " This is an adaptation of an example program - think it is in the Spectrum manual.". Stealing someone else's code is a great start on the journey of crapness, but admitting to it? Not so much so. How does this game measure up to the four criteria I'm using to judge. Technical Ingenuity - 75% The game is w...
Read more