If you thought 2023 was crap, think again!

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...

Congratulations to Jim Waterman who wins the official first entry to this year's CSSCGC (ignoring the entry that must not be mentioned). It would have been submitted on the stroke of midnight if not for those accursed email gremlins who removed the attachment. As a result, the actual entry arrived a tardy one-minute past midnight. There are clear instructions on how to load the game, type Load"", easy enough except I couldn't find the speech marks, I tried the Spectrum shift + P, but that didn't work, and now the command line is becoming a mess, but I can't delete it as I'm somehow now in the middle of the line and need to get to the end first.  Luckily the game playing instructions mention the positions of the Lambda cursor keys. C,V,B,N. I managed to get to the end and delete the line. Wikipedia then assisted me with an image of the Lambda keyboard, I needed Shift + 5 for speech marks. Only 3 minutes in and I manage to get the game loaded. File:Front of ...

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...

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...