The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!
Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 4:00 pm
There a few days of the year to run, but one thing has been abundantly clear since May: for 2021, I will be running the comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition. I have officially launched the "preview" on Spectrum Computing (and on World of Spectrum, which gets less attention these days), and I'm not going to repeat the bulk of the post - read it there.
But, to keep things short (ha, famous last words!): it's 25 years since the first CSSCGC in 1996, and also, because 2019 went without one, this is the 25th edition of the competition. For this fortunate collision of two ways of seeing a quarter of a century in business, I'm pushing the boat out far, far into the ocean of dubious-quality programming. Because, for too long, the Spectrum has dominated the competition - it was 2004 before any other machine had any entry of any kind, and I'm going to make this a big party in which all members of the Sinclair family are welcome - as well as strange cousins like the SAM Coupé, Jupiter Ace, and the "next generation" versions such as the Next.
In order to make this party go off with even more of a bang than it would already have done, then this is where you, the people of The QL Forum, come in.
If anything, the QL is an excellent candidate for a machine to write Crap Games on. With its late delivery, incomplete ROM and wonky microdrives, it was a two-letter byword for Sir Clive's erratic decision-making. I might even try to argue that it has even more Crap Credibility than any of the Spectrum models, or the ZX81, or the ZX80.
And yet, in the entire history of the CSSCGC, there has been a grand total of TWO entries for the QL. One of them was "More Tea Vicar", a very, very crude version of the phone-in game from The Big Breakfast's early days, and which took up less than a kilobyte of memory. It was part of an effort in 2008 by Gavin Callard to release one game on as many formats as possible - the QL version was the final remake of a ZX80 game that was converted for the ZX81, Spectrum, Jupiter Ace and Z88 as well.
The second entry was submitted... as late as December 2020. It was only just reviewed last night. And it's one of my efforts from this year: "Big Clive's Supergayrainbow Exploding USB Power Supply Game", based on a competition run by everyone's favourite electronics-obsessed hairy bear on YouTube. There's not much of a game, I admit, but I've gone all out to show the QL's colour-clash-free graphics at as close to its best as I can.
I've made them both available on my collection of QL type-ins.
So that's it. The entirety of the QL's CSSCGC entries can be seen in two screenshots. THIS WILL NOT DO. THERE MUST BE MORE.
And that's why I made that type-ins archive. Really, this whole project is why I signed up here in the first place - to get involved with the world of the QL and hope for some kind of reciprocation. There have been some attempts over the years to define "what is a Crap Game?" And I say: it's something that could just about have been worth a public release, but wasn't going to trouble the computer tape shelves of John Menzies or WHSmith (or, in the case of the QL, microdrive cartridges rather than tapes, obviously). Magazine type-in programs are ideal, and some of those that were published were... bare-bones affairs, to say the least. Neither "More Tea Vicar" nor "Big Clive's Supergayrainbow..." would ever have been seen in the pages of Popular Computing Weekly in 1984, but that's because the concept behind them both didn't exist at the time. If it did, and I was the editor of PCW, Sinclair User, ZX Computing or any other magazine that published QL listings, I'd be grateful for any submission.
The worst submission ever was in 2004 and was merely "10 PRINT 7" on a Spectrum. It was a blatant piece of trolling. I would assume you're all above that.
I don't care for finnicky rules and regulations such as "bad programming techniques". I will not throw a screeching fit if I see a GOTO or a GOSUB in a QL listing. All I'm looking for is some QL SuperBASIC listings that actually do something. You could even write a utility or a graphics demo if you really want - the CSSCGC has had such things in the past, even though they're rare. In fact, one of the best regarded programs of the original 1996 competition was a UDG definition utility, and it's not as if the Spectrum hadn't had its fair share of those already.
I'll be interested to see what those who live outside the CSS / WOS / SC bubble can come up with - it's not going to be an endless stream of "Advanced / Super (something) Simulator" programs or in-jokes from the 1990s that refuse to die. As long as I get something that runs on the newly-registered QemuLator I now have, the chances are I'll take it and review it.
Something I have opted for is a series of challenges: none of them are particularly aimed at the people of this forum, except possibly "program a computer you've never tried to program before". Say, a Jupiter Ace (which only speaks FORTH) or a SAM Coupé (which seems to have been developed by bolting on the best of the QL's features on top of Spectrum BASIC). There is also a "recycling challenge", in which you can take an existing CSSCGC game and convert it for a different machine. There are over 1000 Spectrum programs, quite a few of which could be given a QL conversion if you're running short of ideas. I intended to lead by example on this front, but I got stuck... I will eventually get through this. I was converting Dr. Ian Collier's Einstein, from the 1996 competition. It's a Spectrum version of one of those "Hi-Q Puzzles" I had when I was a nipper - they'd been around in various forms, usually made by Ideal Toys, since the 1960s or there abouts, even if what I had was clearly a 1980s version. I went as far as building the screen, and here are the two for comparison...
Ian Collier's code that actually works the game is quite condensed and convoluted, and I've been trying to remove every GOTO from it. I probably shouldn't bother. I am not ashamed to admit there are a couple of GOTOs in "Big Clive's Supergayrainbow..." and I did it BECAUSE IT WORKS, and every way I tried to get round it didn't.
Before I finish this post, some of you may say "but this is a technical forum, we're mainly interested in how the circuit boards work, how to rebuild knackered microdrive cartridges and how to recap a Gold Card and so on and so forth". Well, in that case, see programming a game as a technical exercise - particularly if it's on a machine that you've never tried to program before, which is another of my official challenges. Over on SC we have Ast A. Moore who's generally regarded as a genius; he doesn't have much interest in games, but still wrote A Yankee In Iraq to show off his trick with the floating bus on the +2A. I have no idea what it means - maybe you do - but the game is smoother than a baby's bottom. And it is far above and beyond what I expect for a Crap Games Competition!
The competition will open on the stroke of midnight (UK time) on 1st January 2021, and will close at two minutes to midnight on 30th November, to allow time to sort out any dangling loose ends, such as multiple entries tied for the winning post.
I'm after "maximum effort, minumum attainment" - so take basic, half-baked ideas, turn them into a playable game of some sort, and then embellish that with anything you see fit. Make a loading screen that'll appear in a new window that's loaded in with LBYTES, redefine the entire character set (make sure I know whether it's a Toolkit II version or the "Wild West" style, though!), write extensive instructions and a backstory, make an inlay card for... whatever external packaging the microdrive cartridges were shipped in... really, anything to give a Crap Game something above and beyond what it deserves!
Here's the official website. It contains all the contact details.
I'll call back whenever I need to - I might make a monthly digest of non-QL submissions, but if I get one for the QL, it'll be published here without delay.
But, to keep things short (ha, famous last words!): it's 25 years since the first CSSCGC in 1996, and also, because 2019 went without one, this is the 25th edition of the competition. For this fortunate collision of two ways of seeing a quarter of a century in business, I'm pushing the boat out far, far into the ocean of dubious-quality programming. Because, for too long, the Spectrum has dominated the competition - it was 2004 before any other machine had any entry of any kind, and I'm going to make this a big party in which all members of the Sinclair family are welcome - as well as strange cousins like the SAM Coupé, Jupiter Ace, and the "next generation" versions such as the Next.
In order to make this party go off with even more of a bang than it would already have done, then this is where you, the people of The QL Forum, come in.
If anything, the QL is an excellent candidate for a machine to write Crap Games on. With its late delivery, incomplete ROM and wonky microdrives, it was a two-letter byword for Sir Clive's erratic decision-making. I might even try to argue that it has even more Crap Credibility than any of the Spectrum models, or the ZX81, or the ZX80.
And yet, in the entire history of the CSSCGC, there has been a grand total of TWO entries for the QL. One of them was "More Tea Vicar", a very, very crude version of the phone-in game from The Big Breakfast's early days, and which took up less than a kilobyte of memory. It was part of an effort in 2008 by Gavin Callard to release one game on as many formats as possible - the QL version was the final remake of a ZX80 game that was converted for the ZX81, Spectrum, Jupiter Ace and Z88 as well.
The second entry was submitted... as late as December 2020. It was only just reviewed last night. And it's one of my efforts from this year: "Big Clive's Supergayrainbow Exploding USB Power Supply Game", based on a competition run by everyone's favourite electronics-obsessed hairy bear on YouTube. There's not much of a game, I admit, but I've gone all out to show the QL's colour-clash-free graphics at as close to its best as I can.
I've made them both available on my collection of QL type-ins.
So that's it. The entirety of the QL's CSSCGC entries can be seen in two screenshots. THIS WILL NOT DO. THERE MUST BE MORE.
And that's why I made that type-ins archive. Really, this whole project is why I signed up here in the first place - to get involved with the world of the QL and hope for some kind of reciprocation. There have been some attempts over the years to define "what is a Crap Game?" And I say: it's something that could just about have been worth a public release, but wasn't going to trouble the computer tape shelves of John Menzies or WHSmith (or, in the case of the QL, microdrive cartridges rather than tapes, obviously). Magazine type-in programs are ideal, and some of those that were published were... bare-bones affairs, to say the least. Neither "More Tea Vicar" nor "Big Clive's Supergayrainbow..." would ever have been seen in the pages of Popular Computing Weekly in 1984, but that's because the concept behind them both didn't exist at the time. If it did, and I was the editor of PCW, Sinclair User, ZX Computing or any other magazine that published QL listings, I'd be grateful for any submission.
The worst submission ever was in 2004 and was merely "10 PRINT 7" on a Spectrum. It was a blatant piece of trolling. I would assume you're all above that.
I don't care for finnicky rules and regulations such as "bad programming techniques". I will not throw a screeching fit if I see a GOTO or a GOSUB in a QL listing. All I'm looking for is some QL SuperBASIC listings that actually do something. You could even write a utility or a graphics demo if you really want - the CSSCGC has had such things in the past, even though they're rare. In fact, one of the best regarded programs of the original 1996 competition was a UDG definition utility, and it's not as if the Spectrum hadn't had its fair share of those already.
I'll be interested to see what those who live outside the CSS / WOS / SC bubble can come up with - it's not going to be an endless stream of "Advanced / Super (something) Simulator" programs or in-jokes from the 1990s that refuse to die. As long as I get something that runs on the newly-registered QemuLator I now have, the chances are I'll take it and review it.
Something I have opted for is a series of challenges: none of them are particularly aimed at the people of this forum, except possibly "program a computer you've never tried to program before". Say, a Jupiter Ace (which only speaks FORTH) or a SAM Coupé (which seems to have been developed by bolting on the best of the QL's features on top of Spectrum BASIC). There is also a "recycling challenge", in which you can take an existing CSSCGC game and convert it for a different machine. There are over 1000 Spectrum programs, quite a few of which could be given a QL conversion if you're running short of ideas. I intended to lead by example on this front, but I got stuck... I will eventually get through this. I was converting Dr. Ian Collier's Einstein, from the 1996 competition. It's a Spectrum version of one of those "Hi-Q Puzzles" I had when I was a nipper - they'd been around in various forms, usually made by Ideal Toys, since the 1960s or there abouts, even if what I had was clearly a 1980s version. I went as far as building the screen, and here are the two for comparison...
Ian Collier's code that actually works the game is quite condensed and convoluted, and I've been trying to remove every GOTO from it. I probably shouldn't bother. I am not ashamed to admit there are a couple of GOTOs in "Big Clive's Supergayrainbow..." and I did it BECAUSE IT WORKS, and every way I tried to get round it didn't.
Before I finish this post, some of you may say "but this is a technical forum, we're mainly interested in how the circuit boards work, how to rebuild knackered microdrive cartridges and how to recap a Gold Card and so on and so forth". Well, in that case, see programming a game as a technical exercise - particularly if it's on a machine that you've never tried to program before, which is another of my official challenges. Over on SC we have Ast A. Moore who's generally regarded as a genius; he doesn't have much interest in games, but still wrote A Yankee In Iraq to show off his trick with the floating bus on the +2A. I have no idea what it means - maybe you do - but the game is smoother than a baby's bottom. And it is far above and beyond what I expect for a Crap Games Competition!
The competition will open on the stroke of midnight (UK time) on 1st January 2021, and will close at two minutes to midnight on 30th November, to allow time to sort out any dangling loose ends, such as multiple entries tied for the winning post.
I'm after "maximum effort, minumum attainment" - so take basic, half-baked ideas, turn them into a playable game of some sort, and then embellish that with anything you see fit. Make a loading screen that'll appear in a new window that's loaded in with LBYTES, redefine the entire character set (make sure I know whether it's a Toolkit II version or the "Wild West" style, though!), write extensive instructions and a backstory, make an inlay card for... whatever external packaging the microdrive cartridges were shipped in... really, anything to give a Crap Game something above and beyond what it deserves!
Here's the official website. It contains all the contact details.
I'll call back whenever I need to - I might make a monthly digest of non-QL submissions, but if I get one for the QL, it'll be published here without delay.