This week's lunchtime retro game has been Booty on the Speccy, which was (iirc) the official 'first ever budget game'.
Basically you run around a ship collecting treasure and avoiding pirates. It's a bit rubbish, but I can't stop playing it. Worse than it being a bit rubbish, however, is the fact that it is fundamentally flawed on many, many levels.
Like these:
1. The collision detection is arse. Approach an object from the left and you collect it as soon as you touch it. Approach from the right and you don't collect it until you've walked through it.
2. Random beasties appear which you absolutely cannot avoid unless you just-so-happen to be in the right place.
3. When you die, you return to the first room - regardless of how far you have progressed.
4. If a pirate kills you in front of a door, you can never get through that door ever again because their positions don't reset when you die and they don't move when you're not in the room.
Classic examples of game design gone wrong, and (collision detection aside) things which we've left behind us.
8-bit games were great, but they were also rubbish. What else don't you miss from the olden days?
Basically you run around a ship collecting treasure and avoiding pirates. It's a bit rubbish, but I can't stop playing it. Worse than it being a bit rubbish, however, is the fact that it is fundamentally flawed on many, many levels.
Like these:
1. The collision detection is arse. Approach an object from the left and you collect it as soon as you touch it. Approach from the right and you don't collect it until you've walked through it.
2. Random beasties appear which you absolutely cannot avoid unless you just-so-happen to be in the right place.
3. When you die, you return to the first room - regardless of how far you have progressed.
4. If a pirate kills you in front of a door, you can never get through that door ever again because their positions don't reset when you die and they don't move when you're not in the room.
Classic examples of game design gone wrong, and (collision detection aside) things which we've left behind us.
8-bit games were great, but they were also rubbish. What else don't you miss from the olden days?
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