I posted a link to my game in a QBasic forum and this guy reviewed it for me! =)

Spotted Cheetah (http://rcs.fateback.com)
Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 3:15 pm    Post subject:    Reply with quote
First of all: the review of Barrack
(Sorry for my poor English and this strange comment: i had two weeks to write it )

In a few words:

Well done, awesome idea!

So going on with some regular review:

You will immediately notice after starting that this is not just "the same as xy". The game what might be the closest to this is a very rare text screen old game called xonix (NOT the hedgehog!), or Volfied. Both of them are rare, and the similarity is just like comparing Heroes to Age of Empires. Something what was never been before! Like in those old games you have to conquer the playfield, but now not by moving and laying a line after you: you have to use a laser gun. This makes the whole thing completely different as that you can not turn you have to use different strategy to get rid of those balls. Here comes an another difference: most of them are not just bouncing around the remaining open area. It is important to catch on with (and catch) them since your score mostly accumulates based on how you could deal with the balls. This gameplay makes the game completely unique: you may find old games which remind to this, but none what is similar!

Graphic
The game not offers too much at this side. It just draws a few circles and boxes with the standard palette on Screen 9 (This makes the circles a little strange, but they are circles, and makes the graphic flick - free). On the other hand this is enough for the game, and it not looks so bad as excepted as many things are well detailed and some are animated, and due to this it not needs any external file.
Score: 5/10

Sound
As the game is just one executable, there is no music for it. On the other hand it has many effects, but they come out from the PC speaker what can be a little annoying. Hopefully it can be turned off, and the game remembers this. But if you connect the speaker to your sound card somehow the effects can rise the game's value.
Score: 4/10

Handling
At unique games usually it is a big problem that the programmer do not really know how to make it's handling. This one is the opposite of it: everything is perfectly done, it seems to be well - tested. You control your "paddle" with the mouse what makes you able to do everything what is needed. You will never lose just because you could not press or move something in time! Excellent! I could not find anything negative!
Score: 10/10

Game idea
This is absolutely the highest point of the game. Of course it reminds to some games, but they all are so rare that makes this game extremely unique. And not to mention that the idea is not bad: The entire game speaks for itself: it can be well done!
Score: 5/5

Gameplay
Althoug you might have never seen such a game before, you can learn it in just five minutes. You will have to walk trough the help pages which are short, and explain the thing well (I especially liked that the ball types were shown in action). The only problem was after i red them i assumed i know everything, but two important keys were only in the control setup. The help said about them, but i thought that they are just to configure on fly. The first few levels are not hard, they are just showing the balls, each one in each level, then it becomes harder and harder, finally it will seem to be impossible. The first move is the most difficult, without power ups on the later levels you are dead. So this is an another challenge: using up the resources wisely. There is another small problem around here: there are a few ball which not play their role well (I think it is impossible to seperate the queen from so much swarm balls, maybe only with using up all the magnets & time) , but this is a "must have" for a new idea. They are just a little annoying, these bugs not really harm the gameplay.
Score: 8/10

Replay
At this side the game is in the group of "short, just play". No story, no characters, just a little game with which you can spend your time. To this it is very good, on the other hand the lack of Save makes it annoying if you get used to the game and can beat the first levels by routine, but this will not take too much time. The better players can get through easy levels in much shorter time, so this is not so horrible.
Score: 4/5

Pure QBasic
First of all hadn't i said that NO ASSEMBLY???!!! On the other hand the game uses ASM for only the mouse what may be eliminated for example with my mouse routines. Everything else is just QBasic, there is nothing in this code what may be "smelly" except that mouse routine.
Score: 14/25
(I think i said that -10 points for loading the base library, and -1 for each interrupt or port group used)

Speed
When there were many balls on the screen the game started to slow down on my P233. I think the lowest configuration on which it runs acceptably is at about 150Mhz.
Score: 10/25
(As i can remember i said that if the game seems to have problems on a 300Mhz CPU then 0 points. But i forgot how the scoring was)

So finally:
Game/QB
36/50 (72%) - 24/50 (48%)
All: 60%
(Remember: this is a hard competition! This 60% means a good game! If the speed could be increased somehow then it would get many valuable points. I think GETting & PUTting the balls too would help a little: that many CIRCLEs are a little slow.)

(I will rewrite the scores if i find that the other games here were reviewed with different scoring system. If you think something should not be what i gave, tell it, and i may correct them. Of course it is not only me who can make the score here, feel free to tell what you think. This is not just an usual competition )

(My highest score was 249290 points. It can be very hard )

What means what for me:

Graphic: The game's look. What will be somebody's opinion if she / he only see the screenshots of the game.
Sound: The same but if the sounds were shown alone (the effect - imagine them in anything else in their suitable place).
Handling: How easy (or hard) is to use the menu systems, but primarily how the controlling fits (or not) to the game itself.
Game idea: If somebody just says that "i want you to program this" how you will feel (assuming that you would like to program a similar thing).
Gameplay: How all the things above get together in the game (not scoring them again, just what they make as feeling), and how good is the game itself.
Replay: Primarily what "replay" says: will you play it again after you played, but a little for how many people may like the idea (who like it will play more than who not)

End of the review. If that could be scored i would give a little bonus for doing this all in just one BAS file. On the other hand i had a little problem when i tried to compile it with my QB4.5: id did not work. I had to dust off that thing called "Professional Development System" (- Micro$oft) what i so hate to do it.