If you thought 2023 was crap, think again!

A new Valve game is always cause for excitement. So just last week, the official announcement of the invite-only Beta for Deadlock had the PC gaming folks all excited.  But then on Labor Day, significantly, a more important Valve game arrived to CSSCGC Manor. You can hum the Valve music yourself. Good first impressions from the loading screen - some effort has been expended. It's even got a thrilling tag line that promises 'All the fun of a Valve'. Which, honestly, seems like an achievable goal.  Impressions remain positive through the instructions screen. And you can even set the colour of the Valve! Some games would charge you money or make you open loot boxes for this kind of player skin customisation, but here we have it for free. Take that, Gabe.  But it's here that the truly important nature of the game is first indicated.  We, the players, are to inhabit the person of Barry, who manages the titular valve at the behest of the State. My Barry got a high score, p...

One thing I'm pretty sure about Jamie is he likes the BEEP command. The beginning of this game is no exception. If you listen with your ears half closed and off at a slant, the intro could sound like water running down a pipe. If so that is appropriate for the game is about water, or more precisely, a drip of water. This has to be one of the more Zen entries the accompanying email contains highlights like "Has there been a steady drip of terrible games? Has it all been downhill? All these thoughts inspired me to make this game - Drip! ... Drip all the way to the bottom to win! Use the diagonals when needed." It even includes a haiku "Drip's life is random Drips can end in an ocean. Can drips make you think?" Is anyone capable of rational thought at the end of judging a CGC? The Zen feeling continues with the Intro page, but does it continue beyond that? The game itself consists of randomly placed magenta squares moving up the screen while you move left or ri...

 As we draw to the close of 2024 Firelord Quality Games have squeezed in one last entry. The accompanying email fills me with hope. "In case the previous entry was not the winner, this is the one!"..."If the price for the 1st winner in more than 1000$ then I would prefer to receive it in bitcoins." The manual also makes me believe this could be a game worth playing "We all know Dragon Lair in ZX Spectrum was Crap. No-one bother to finish it because it was boring,difficult,boring, difficult and had many distractions! Firelord Quality Games took all the above characteristics and created a unique & never seen before game! Lragon's Dair : We stripped all the distracting stuff from the game -like graphics,direction controls,sound and multiload and we created a PURE Dragon's Lair Experience!" But is it worth playing? The intro screen is as promised, striped back and music free. Hmm, tough choice between 1 or 2 I start with option 1. It is quickly cle...

 As the old saying goes, you wait ages for a bus and then two come along at once, I thought there would be a fancy name for this, but it appears to be called clustering or Bus Bunching compared to Wiggenstein's Third Law. Why am I talking about buses? Because I am en route to talk about snakes. Having just posted a review for a snake game, another drops into my inbox.  It is very basic, but actually quite good. In the original Snake you used to eat things like apples, each one you ate you got longer until you had trouble avoiding your own body. However, your body used to move with you. In this version (very like Snakemower) your tail stays put and you get longer with each move.  There is one other major difference to Snake, this time you are a fire-fighting snake. You need to collect water (blue squares) to pass over (extinguish) the fires (red squares).  A handy gauge tells you how much water you have. So the trick is to avoid your body and red squares unless you ar...

 I have a snake game, I have a lawnmower simulator, Uh, Snakemower Simulator (not very advanced).  Hot on the Heels of Word Crane we have a new entry from Equinox, N.V.A.S.S a blending of an old favourite reptile-based game and the infamous April Fool that started this whole sorry mess. In order for no one to feel left out this simulator runs on anything from the humble 16K upwards and opens with a wide gamut of colours and beeps. There is also the offer to redefine keys, some offers you can't refuse, this one you have to. Once passed that we have the unorthodox key map of Q,A,O,Enter. Not shown here, but FLASH is used a little too widely, After that, we are into the simulator itself. In lieu of nice UDGs the snake's head is represented by a copyright sign which not only flashes but also changes colour which leaves a randomly flashy trail behind it to serve as a body. At the bottom of the screen is the amount of grass you need to, um, mow. Each move is accompanied by a pleasan...

I have a horrible feeling that Etch-a-Sketch apps are going to become the lawnmower simulator. Since I have already reviewed one Etch-a-Sketch app at the start of this contest I am not going to go into deep detail on my thoughts on Etch-a-Sketch apps. Instead, I'll look at how they differ. The most obvious difference is that this is for the QL. I only used Qemulator for this review and followed the very helpful instructions for noobs contained in the package. After connecting the directory to microdrive 1 and running LRUN mdv1_etch_bas I faced a brief pause before being offered the choice between Etch-A-Sketch Classic or Super Awesome Colour Etch-A-Sketch. Note the subtle shading under heading The difference being the range of colours you can use. Movement is controlled by cursor keys and there is the ability via presing m to jump to a new screen location (Note the input isn't verified when you type in the new coordinates causing the program to bomb if you enter something silly...

 After a day trying to recover a server with a failed raid array there is only one way to relax and that is by reviewing the latest CGC entry. First impressions are good, the intro screen has restrained use of colour (no flash) and fairly clear instructions. After pressing Enter the good impressions continue. First and foremost is the beautiful representation of a crane, the letters appear in the squares at the bottom with appropriate beeps. Error checking appears in order. So far not too crap at all. It is only once you start to play properly that the true crapness of the game gets revealed and due to the effort Equinox has put into this, I won't ruin it by saying any more. Technical Ability - 55% Written in BASIC, but that is pretty much to be expected. Colour is used to a pleasing effect and sound  is used well. Though there is no loading screen, the game doesn't really need one. That crane is a masterpiece. Achievement - 95% This game is very deliberately crap, though it d...