If you thought 2023 was crap, think again!

 Reading the accompanying email this is clearly going to be a challenge "I trust you aren't dyslexic and can read backwards, otherwise your brain might wilt and die. instructions are in the game, have "fun"" Since I do suffer from a level of dyslexia (the worst possible name for a condition for people who have issues with spelling) I am immediately in the risk category of brain wilt and death. I bravely face the challenge and load up the accompanying TZX file.  The game starts with a by-now, well-known flourish the need to RUN to start. Instantly I enter a world of spelling differences. I soon grasp that my kingdom is under attack by a mad wizard and I need to kill him. A strong start to an adventure.  I'm asked if I want instructions and I type Y and indeed my brain wilts a little trying to work out what "strunctoins: splick glacj oakaoapalalaladimadingdong" means. I am so busy trying to fathom this out I have missed the message at the bottom of t...

Often I find the emails that accompany the games to be as/more amazing as/than the games they accompany. "I was going to ask god to bless this one but even he has standards so I guess you'll have to do." The inference is that I have no standards and that I am likely to bless this program. One of those two things is wrong. From the start this heads on to my not a game pile, in this case not a utility either. The program opens by needing me to type RUN. After that, I am greeted with the screen below. Points are given for the attempt to center the text and removed for the random vowel usage. With no further instructions, I press enter and get greeted with the word SCORE:. A second press draws a circle on the screen. A final press tells me I bit the bagel 3.3874512times. Extra point for the lack of spacing. Pressing Space and Enter to restart results in a dismal beeping, anything else spares you the beeps. After this 0 OK, 81:1 Fortunately, it doesn't look like I need to ...

I'm beginning to think there should be an award for the tersest email accompanying an entry. If so this entry would be a serious contender. "Enjoy the game. Have a colorful 2024" Attached to the email was a TZX file called Level Up 48K. So far not too much to go on, so I loaded it up. One blink later and it was done, so fairly short. Even better the screen looked like this So no autorun. At this point there are only two real options LIST or RUN. Naturally, I listed the contents, 11 lines of basic. Normally I would hesitate to show the code here to avoid ruining the pleasure of listing it yourself. But the content will be easy enough to guess from the rest of this review. Bonus points will be awarded for not turning off the green paper. The game (can it be called a game?) seems to be a sad reflection of mankind's current progress. At least with the first crap game you got to press M, there was a goal of sorts to mow a lawn. There was even some level of graphics. Not so...

Some entries are accompanied by emails that ramble on at length about the virtues of the attached software, or that go into exquisite technical detail. Some are not and the latest entry falls firmly into the last camp. The crux of Dave Hughes' email was, "Here's another one" That was it, fortunately, the game itself has instructions built in. All quite straightforward, keys O,P and SPACE. I should be able to handle this though after my dismal reactions in Jamie's Art House I'm already worried about maneuvering Tom Cruise at speed, especially a younger Tom Cruise. To prepare myself I google Tom Cruise's running speed, apparently, he claims to have been clocked at 17MPH, the power of the Internet agrees that this is probably true. No Usain Bolt, but a very decent speed. I press SPACE expecting to launch into action, but I needn't worry, there is another screen of explanation.  I have questions, I know a lot is made about Tom Cruise's height, but he i...

It's everybody's favourite offer a Two for One, almost a BOGOF, but no money needs to be spent. Which is a beautiful segue into the name of this game. Go For Money and as a bonus Go For Money2. Both games arrived as tap files and also basic listings. This is a thoughtful approach for the reviewer who doesn't need to get into the dirty business of pressing Break.  The game was sent by ZXKerl, a person of very few words, below is the whole of the email " This is GFM and GFM2. It's a one key game. Well the sequel has got two keys. I think GFM2 is less annoying (key E to erase items)." Where to start? Since I have two .bas files the first move for me is to check the differences. It appears that version 2 differs by one additional line. There are no helpful REM statements commenting the code and I'm feeling a little too sleepy by the fire to start digging into what it is doing, at around 30 lines long it is a promising start for a crap game. So with no more del...

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...