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Author: BattleCraft99 Genre: Magic 8-Ball Simulation Reviewer: Pete |
Size: 40 KB Download: 8ball.zip |
| First Impression | Wow, this has a kick-ass menu! You can go up, down, turn the little beep sound that goes off when you move the menu cursor off or on, view the credits, and choose if you want screen 13 or screen 12 font during the game! That was exhilerating! Now to try the game! |
| What It's Like | You know those magic eight balls that came out in the 70s? The ones that acted as a low budget fortune teller and also could be the life of the party? The ones with eight-sided three dimensional shapes (I forgot what they're called, so kill me!) that float up through the mysterious purple liquid that fills the ball. Yes, those ones. This is a magic eight ball PC simulation that was made to entertain rather than to be used as a fortune teller. It uses corny jokes, and very few answers, and if you were planning on using this program like you would a real eightball, you would be quite frusterated. |
| Other things you should know |
This is such a simple program that anyone could write it in one line (if you use colons in between statements). Heck, I'll make one here:
DO UNTIL a$="q" : INPUT "Please input your (yes or no) question:",a$ : b%=INT(RND*2) : IF b% = 1 THEN PRINT "The answer to your question is yes." : IF b% = 2 THEN PRINT "The answer to your question is no." : LOOP That's my two minute magic eightball program :). This one is a lot more complicated, but I'm assuming it works the same way, using random numbers to choose a response, and printing it, then going on to the next question. If you're bored, copy that mini-program above and paste it into notepad, save it as a .bas file, load it in QB and run it. :) This one will actually give you an answer every time! |
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| Graphics |
The graphics in this game are just your normal QB gfx statements (LINE and CIRCLE). In the actual game, graphics are not used. Just text. The menu is graphically pleasing, but the graphics are still simple and boring. (Except for the rotating colors of the selection cursor. :) When you start the game, a very simple opening 'movie' plays where an eight ball zooms in and takes up the hole screen. That's it with the graphics.
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| Sound |
A beep for the menu. I don't know what to give this, but you can choose whether it's on or off, which is a plus. It's kind of pointless, though. Just a little additon that doesn't really add or subtract from the game. If you ask me, too much time was spent on the menu and too little was spent on the game itself.
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| Flexibility/Features |
Take a look at the menu page, and you'll see some very simple features (choose what size font you have, and also if the sound is on in the menu. You can also view the credits if you want to. In the game, there really isn't much. There are lots of different answers you can get, but most don't answer your question. :( When you ask a question that you want an answer for (ie: Will I pass my next math test?), you're more than likely to get a stupid response that has nothing to do with an eightball, and wouldn't be able to fit on the little floaty eightball shape either. (ie: The Ninja Turtles Animated Series theme song lyrics are your answer. What significanse is that?)
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| Gameplay/Control |
The menu use is very simple. Arrows move your 'cursor', and space selects the current selected item on the menu. In the game screen, you type in questions, get your answer, then (this is everybody's favorite line) "Press any key to continue", then repeat the process...forever... I haven't found out how to exit the program without using control+alt+delete. I'm also wondering why the program was compiled. It's not like the source is complicated and you don't want it stolen, or it would optimize the program's speed or something... I guess it's nice to have compiled programs once in a while.
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| Overall Impression |
The jokes aren't really funny (some are okay, but the idea where you get sung some crappy commercial jingle when you ask a question gets old after a few seconds.), the game is annoying, the graphics aren't all that great, the gameplay is boring, and...um...that's all I can think of. BattleCraft99 should have spent less time on trying to make us laugh at his jokes and more time trying to keep us from laughing at this stupid program. If a nice, graphically driven engine was incorporated, and most of the dumb responses were weeded out, we would have a pretty cool game here, but right now, this game is only worth a...
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| Total | 58% |