Clam Diver - ZXKerl

Oh dear, has it come to this? I'm reviewing a game called 'Clam Diver'. IS there some intentional innuendo at play here, or have I got a distorted sense of reality from too much attribute clash and chutney as a child?

I went to Urban Dictionary to clarify things.

clam diver:

A Fisherman who harvests underwater by hand-picking varied species in a discriminate and non-destructive way. Most countries with a coast have such communities, often they are misunderstood by other Fishermen and particularly by Bureaucrats. Actually the oldest and purest form of fishing.

The Clam diver told us he had seen a lot of damage to the seabed caused by dredging.

The game

Well, that was surprisingly innocent. But also a reasonable way to introduce the game. Clam Diver is then a game themed around diving for clams. There is a very minimal introduction where you are asked to enter a level with no indication of what levels can be selected. I tried a range of numbers here and I can't figure out what effect this has on the game or how it plays. So far so crap.

Upon entering a level number, the game screen spawns. A nice screen of UGD is generated. The UDGs are well drawn, and the use of colour calls to mind an underwater scene quite nicely.




As soon as the game started I died. SO I tried again. And again I died. It happened several times in quick succession. I started to think this is the whole game. No way to play anything, just endless death.

But no. there is a game here, and shock horror: it's quite good.

The key is to make sure you don't hit a jelly fish, and if the game starts you right next to one you have to think fast. Of course I had to work that out for myself. There were no instructions. But once I realised, I was able to play the game.

Essentially your diver travels up and down automatically. You have no control over this movement, except when you collect a clam the divers direction changes. You can use O and P to move left and right, and in this way, you must attempt to collect all the clams. If you hit a jellyfish, it's game over.

While the game at first seemed very, very crap, once it gets going it's actually pretty good. The main reason for this is the excellent playability. Your diver moves at a nice fast pace, and the controls are incredibly responsive. This leads to some pretty frantic gameplay that is rather fun.

It's a sort of goodish game disguised as utter crap.

If this were a type in back in the day I would have been very pleased if I'd taken the trouble input it manually. The fluid movement and responsive controls of clam diver are certainly an impressive coding achievement.

For no real reason, I found myself thinking of possible embellishments:

A shark that is 3 UDG big, patrolling horizontally in the middle of the screen.

An O2 meter, with an area on screen you have to pass through to get more air. This would move to a new location every time you made use of it.

Just one more thing...

The only other thing to mention is that ZX Kerl submitted about 8 million versions of this game in a single night, in what must have been a flurry of intense coding, play testing and bug fixing. I'd say it was worth effort. Cool game ZX Kerl, well done.

Final thought

I was wrong to think some form of innuendo was involved in this title. However, that led me to discover that clam diving is considered by some to be the oldest and purest form of fishing. It may be the very purity of clam diving that inspired ZX Kerl. We may never know for certain.

What I can say for certain is that clam diver the game is as evocative of this noble and sustainable method of harvesting the seas bounty as a basic spectrum game is capable of being - probably. Try it here.

Technical Ability - 55%

A fairly BASIC game, but it runs very smoothly. Lovely UDGs.

Achievement - 25%

Not really crap at all.

Fun - 50%

Definitely has replayability.

Crap Factor - 30%

A decent level of challenge and replay value.

Roundup

Pros -

• Good UDGs
• Challenging gameplay
• Responsive keys

Cons -

• No instructions
• Unable to choose a new level without re-running
• No input checking while choosing a level
• No autorun

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.