Be Excellent To Each Other

Bit of fun prior to the 8 Bit Challenge returning later in the month:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekplay.cgi?title=Horace+Goes+Skiing&pub=Sinclair+Research+Ltd&year=1982&id=0002351&game=/games/h/HoraceGoesSkiing.tzx.zip&emu=3&aspect=3

Post your scores. Winner gets nothing other than the adoration of some forum members.

Controls are QZIP.

I got 820.

first go i got 620.

We should do a separate challenge. Horace Goes Skiing, blind.

Actually you could do that with alot of games. In fact with many modern games it might improve them.

First go zero.
Second go 1145.

In your face chinny.

For some reason it won't work in my Firefox, and when loaded in IE it goes "woop woop woop woop woop woop" constantly with a blank screen.

Maybe it hasn't finished loading...

5 minutes later and panicking gippynigs says no.

You need to leave the room for 10 minutes. When you come back it will have loaded.

If you as much as glance at the computer, you'll get a READ ERROR B.

Odd..works fine in FF for me.

Never realised how dodgy the scoring system was. You get penalised far too much for missing gates whilst skiing, which makes it far more rewarding just crossing the road repeatedly. I got 1745 without bothering with the skiing.

For added effect, try shouting "I have right of way" as you step out.

Horace Goes Jaywalking.

[boom tish]

Thank you, I'm here all week.

1710

Good grief this is hard. I can't believe I happily played this when I was five, ffs.

A better game i think - just a really messed up fast frogger - 1690

R Tape loading error, of course.

Bah. I just get the odd bleeps like Dimmers.

Und mich.

You could try a different page or a different browser - heres another java one if your having problems with WOS

http://www.zxspectrum.net/

390.

I'm not persevering for longer than 3 goes, I wasted less time on this when I was 9. (As it was an old shit game even then)

64668.

Admittedly the game wouldn't work for me, but in those cases making a score up is valid. Just ask Judge Judy.

I think the score has to end in a 5 or a 0.

Can we do that? Awesome! Twelveteen billion. And five.

I want you to go and sit outside the forum and think about what you have just done.

My mum says I don't have to and I have a note!

Quite. I remember thinking it was awful, even by the standards of the time.

Maybe it was just my age or the alternative stuff I had to play at the time but I thought it was a decent game and still plays well now. I put quite a bit of time into the pack that came with my speccy -

Horace Goes Skiing
Scrabble - One of the best versions I've played
Chequered Flag - Decent F1 game, albeit with no other cars to race against
Chess
and mumble ... Make-a-Chip and Survival .. mumble..

I think it was pretty good for the time - it was 1982, afterall. I'm sure that's what Sinclair would have expected people to get out of ye spec. What's astonishing is how it went from that to Chase HQ, Carrier Command, Where Time Stood Still and Head Over Heels.

I had this I think I loaded Make-a-Chip once. Survival was ok though.

The best letter I ever saw in a computer mag was an Amiga owner writing in to New Computer Express just after Chase HQ came out. He was an ex-Speccy owner who had seen Speccy Chase HQ and wondered how good could Amiga games be if programmers could push that machine as hard as the Chase HQ programmers had the Speccy.

Also, Hard Drivin and the Freescape games. Mind boggling.

Which reminds me, Castle Master, but in BASIC!

http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/csscgc/csscgc.cgi?search=freescape

It's not very fast. The review says 37 frames per hour in fact!

Did you have the Horizons tape that came with it too? I remember there being a breakout clone on there that repeated the same level over and over - plus you couldn't alter the course of the ball (well, square) so you just had to bat it around until it covered all the angles to hit the blocks.

Thro' the wall!
That was the first spectrum game I played when I was at my Uncle's (yes, that means it's the game that persuaded me to get a spectrum).
The bricks were staggered like a proper brick wall, so there were some really annoying half-bricks at the end of the rows that could take ages to shift.

I can hardly remember anything alse off that tape though. Wasn't most of one side made up of typing tutor programs? And I think there was some sort of evolution sim called foxes and rabbits.
I just remember thro' the wall being in the middle of the tape so it was a real pain if you ever wanted to play it.

I remember a maze game called labrynth where you started the game outside the maze. Thru the Wall was easily the best thing on there - I suspect most of it was written in basic despite the square ball motion. The next Breakout clone I played was Arkanoid which I consequently found astronishingly good.

Also, that crap castle master was entered in the comp.sys.sinclair crap game competition, which was always a laugh. I actually had a couple of things I was going to enter but never finished.

I always preferred Batty to Arkanoid.