A couple of things

1) Yes, I am still going to carry on with the list of programs from the OHH site. The pause is for reasons entirely unconnected with 2XGB, or even the GP2X. I will be getting back to it!

2) On the (hugely unlikely) offchance that anyone other than me actually reads this these days, please do feel free to suggest games you'd like to see reviewed.

New game: Sqrxz 3 - Adventure for Love

Retroguru has uploaded a new Jump and Run game to the OHH archive: Sqrxz 3 - Adventure for Love is (surprisingly enough) the third in the Sqrxz series, and sees the titular hero collecting rings to try to save his kidnapped girlfriend Yve. Not perhaps the most original plot in history, but then this developer is trying to be retro! The GP2X port is by Pickle.

Game review: Sponge Blob Tennis

Sponge Blob Tennis
Genre: Sport
Author: Michel Rouzic ("A_SN")
OHH download: v0.1 "FBAX2007" (12/07/07)
Size: 3.0 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
Sponge Blob Tennis is, to my knowledge, the only (non-emulated) tennis game available for the GP2X, so it's a relief that it's quite a well designed program. As its name implies, you control a cuboid spongy blob, and whack a ball back and forth over an isometric tennis court. The game implements most of the basic features of tennis, though not tie-breaks. Notably, it runs smoothly at CPU speeds as low as 80 MHz, making it excellent for battery-powered sessions on the bus or train.

Addictiveness: 8
This is not an easy game to get started with, because of the difficulty of visualising the ball's movement in three dimensions on an isometric court. However, there's a real feeling of satisfaction that comes with even scoring your first point, let alone the much harder task of winning a game. I like tennis games anyway, so perhaps I'm biased, but I think Sponge Blob Tennis has what it takes to keep you coming back for more.

Depth: 6
More complex tennis games can have a great deal of depth, but this one is just too simple to score any higher. The main thing to learn is how to use jumps, which depending on your position cause either lobs or smashes. You also have to deal with the fact that the shape of your blob changes as you move -- you can be long and thin, or short and fat, or something in between! The game starts with both blobs AI-controlled; you can take charge of one or both.

Controls: 5
I found these rather fiddly. A and Y toggle AI/human control for left and right blobs. If you choose to control the left blob (and have the right one AI-controlled) you use the joystick to move and left trigger to jump. If you control the right blob, it's X and B to move and right trigger to jump. You're allowed to use (for example) joystick and right trigger, but what you can't do is use joystick and B, which would be my preferred combination. With two players, things get a bit cramped, but that's to be expected. Serving is always automatic, for both AI and human players.

Graphics: 9
I really like the look of Sponge Blob Tennis. It has a very attractive, old-school console, appearance that I think suits the GP2X perfectly. The design of the tennis court is thoughtful, with mown grass, a clubhouse behind the court, a useful digital scoreboard, and so on. It's been thought about right down to the flowers around the edge, and the colours are bright and cheerful. There's a lot to like here.

Sound: N/A
There isn't any.

Documentation: 7
Considering the unfinished nature of the program (see below), not too bad. There's a readme that explains the general principles behind the game, which has slightly uneven English in a few spots but is fairly easily understood; and the control guide that appears if you press Select is comprehensive and reasonably clear.

One bizarre line from the credits in the readme: "Original idea and artwork : An italian artist whose name I ignore (http://itop-edition.deviantart.com/)" I suspect "ignore" is a mistranslation into English, as it's a weird thing to say otherwise.

Completeness: 6
Sponge Blob Tennis is rough around the edges, as its 0.1 version number would suggest, but it's a playable game even as it is, and it can be good fun. What might have been, though... with better AI, sound, manual serving and tie-breaks, this could perhaps have become one of the truly great GP2X games.

Overall: 7
This was a tricky game to rate, because it has so obviously been left unfinished, but what is there -- especially the graphics -- is quite polished. I would recommend Sponge Blob Tennis, so long as you don't download it under the illusion that what you're getting will be a fully-fledged tennis sim. As Rouzic says in the readme, it's really more of a cross between tennis and Pong.

A couple more new uploads to OHH

Both from Rafa Vico ("saboteur"). We have:

La Escoba, a Spanish card game. Only in Spanish, but I was taught this game (by a Spaniard) years ago, so might give it a shot at some point.

EXP for GP2X, an "achievement system" compatible with several games, including La Escoba.

Games, games, games!

The first (just over) three months of the year have seen six new games released for the GP2X and posted up on the OHH archive, the best hit rate for quite some time. I reviewed Liquid Counter a few days ago, but we also have:

Wizznic: an implementation of the arcade classic Puzznic
Puzzletube: a tube-based (surprisingly enough) puzzler
Rookie Hero: a hostage-rescue platformer
Starship Soldier: a retro-styled "simple but tricky" arcade game
Bermuda Syndrome: a port of the 1995 PC Flashback-style game

It's great to see the little old GP2X still being supported by a core of loyal programmers, and I certainly hope to try these games out in due course.

Game review: Liquid Counter

Liquid Counter
Genre: Arcade
Author: Drumpi
OHH download: v? (13/02/12)
Size: 1.6 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
Sometimes simple is best, and the brand new game Liquid Counter (yes, there are still GP2X games appearing in 2012!) attempts to bring back the glory days of LCD handhelds, a little along the lines of Game & Watch consoles. The object of the game is very straightforward: you must press a certain button, or tap the screen (on an F200) as many times as you can within ten seconds. The tap version is one-player only, but the button options allow one to four players to compete. A countdown timer and a running total of score(s) are shown, and the top score flashes at the end.

Note that this game does not quite come ready to run. Two sets of runtime are provided -- one for official firmware, and one for Open2x -- and the appropriate one must be unzipped so that the runtime folder sits next to (not in!) the game folder.

Addictiveness: 6
More so than you might think, especially when it comes to multiplayer gaming. On your own, you might play this a couple of times and then shrug and move on... but when the competitive spirit is running hot, that fabled "I'll beat you all this time!" feel is very much in evidence.

Depth: 2
It would be difficult to find a less deep game than this one, given that "push a button as fast as you can" is pretty much the entire object. It only scores as high as 2 because of the multiplayer and tap options.

Controls: 6
The joystick selects which game you want to play. The A, B, X and Y buttons are the ones the players have to press. It's a bit of a squash with the full four, but probably better than trying to make others use the volume controls, trigger buttons etc.

Graphics: 6
They may be monochrome and very simple, but if the aim of the programmer was to convey a sense of old-fashioned LCD gaming, then that aim was met. The claim of "beautiful" in the OHH description is over the top, but "retro aesthetic" certainly isn't.

Sound: 3
Beeps. Squawky, basic beeps. Not unbearably annoying, and probably true to the game's feel, but they don't really add much.

Documentation: 4
You can add several marks here if you speak Spanish, since there's a decent readme (well, "leeme") in that language. Unfortunately, there's no English documentation at all beyond what's in the game. Thankfully the brief instructions included on screen are enough to get you started.

Completeness: 6
The game works, but it's still a bit rough around the edges. I'd like to see an English readme, a level select, and a mute option. A combined, and ready-prepared, runtime folder would be welcome, too.

Overall: 5
Liquid Counter is a nice idea, and things like Game & Watch emulators have done quite well on the GP2X. However, it's too lacking in features, and not quite polished enough, to score more than an average rating.

Game review: Vectoroids2x

Vectoroids2x
Genre: Shooter
Authors: Bill Kendrick / IceOnly
OHH download: v1.1.0 (23/03/06)
Size: 2.2 MB
Licence: GPL v2

Description
Vectoroids2x is a port of, startlingly enough, Vectoroids. This in itself is a near-clone of the venerable Asteroids game from the year dot. The aim is pretty simple: you control a roughly triangular spaceship, and must blast away the large asteroids which drift about and threaten to destroy you. When you hit one, it splits into two, so later on in a level there are a lot of pieces of rock to avoid. You can both rotate your ship and use its thrusters to speed you out of trouble.

Addictiveness: 7
Not bad at all, but then it is basically Asteroids, one of the all-time classics of the early years of electronic gaming. Gameplay is very simple indeed -- you don't even get a hyperspace button in this version -- but that makes for good blasting fun. You won't play this for hours, but you might play it for a few minutes quite often.

Depth: 3
This category, on the other hand, doesn't fare so well. It's just level after level of firing away at ever-increasing numbers of asteroids. You do get an extra life every 10,000 points, but that's about as exciting as it gets. The only reason I don't rate even lower on this criterion is that learning to handle your ship accurately is something of a fine art.

Controls: 6
A little odd, but effective. The oddity comes in the fact that there's so much duplication: all four of the A, B, X and Y buttons do the same thing -- fire -- while so do all three of up, L and R -- activate the thrusters. Rotating uses left and right on the joystick. So, only four actual controls to learn, but nine possible buttons to use them with!

Graphics: 7
Rather nice, and suitably retro-looking. There's a static background of Jupiter, red spot and all, while the rest of the graphics are reasonably good imitations of real vector graphics. Your score, current level and number of ships remaining are clearly shown at the top of the screen, and it's nice that your ship is blue, to distinguish it from the white asteroids. I'm not sure about the multicoloured bullets, though!

Sound: 6
As usual, it's much too loud with the official GP2X headphones, but on this occasion the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the volume controls do nothing. That makes Vectoroids2x entirely unsuitable for playing anywhere you can't be noisy. The music itself is a little frantic, but it does the job. Other sound effects are basically bloops, but that's okay for a retro game.

Documentation: 4
Not very good. The original readme is included, but there's no specific GP2X documentation at all. Nor is there any on-screen help in the game itself. Admittedly the game is very simple to pick up, but it's a slight disappointment.

Completeness: 9
Loses a point for the documentation issue, but otherwise everything seems to be there. I can't really penalise it for not having hyperspace, as the PC version this is based on didn't have it either!

Overall: 6
Vectoroids2x is a solid, playable take on the Asteroids genre. It's nothing all that special, and though fairly polished doesn't deliver anything new -- though in fairness, it doesn't try to. If only the volume controls worked, it would have scored 7, and would have been a good game for playing in short blasts on the bus.

Game review: Bunny Traps

Bunny Traps
Genre: Puzzle
Author: Guyfawkes and Rik Nicol
OHH download: v1.1 (28/12/05)
Size: 3.9 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
Bunny Traps is essentially a version of the age-old Hangman pencil and paper game. You must guess letters that make up a hidden word, and for each you get wrong your bunny moves closer to his untimely demise. There are two game modes: Challenge, which is a ten-stage progression, and Arcade, in which you play until you die (well, until the bunny does). Only dangers which have been unlocked in Challenge mode are available in Arcade mode. Arcade has three difficulty levels, and even the ability to use a custom word list by editing a text file, though each of these must be between six and 14 characters inclusive. You score in a slightly convoluted fashion: you gain points for correct guesses, lose them for incorrect guesses, and can win bonus points for "chains", in other words multiple correct guesses with no incorrect letters intervening.

Bunny Traps has an odd clause in its licensing, as follows: "This game may not be distributed as a means of making profit, for example advertising or selling a GP2X with Bunny Traps being mentioned or being included on a compilation CD/DVD which is sold for profit. Bunny Traps is a freely available game and it should stay that way!" Taken literally, this would mean that selling your GP2X on eBay with the phrase "You can play a great word game called Bunny Traps on this console!" would not be allowed. Very strange...

Addictiveness: 5
I really like Hangman, and was expecting Bunny Traps to be just as addictive. Unfortunately, it isn't. The reason for this is its difficulty. On Challenge mode, you are allowed only five incorrect guesses before your bunny is doomed, and when on the very first level you are confronted with words like "piazza", this really is too little. I could see many people giving up on the game quite quickly because of this.

Depth: 6
I have a bit of a prejudice against games where you have to unlock levels, going right back to Lemmings days. Maybe this stems from my background in the Grand Prix Legends racing sim, which gave you all the tracks and all the cars straight away. Still, the Challenge mode is okay for what it is, and the three difficulty levels in Arcade are useful enough as a means of holding the player's interest.

Controls: 4
Odd. In the main menu, you're told to press Start to choose an option. This is strange in itself given that B is more usual, but actually it's not Start you need! The instructions are incorrect: in fact, X takes you to a submenu, while B is the cancel button. Once you manage to display the actual on-screen help this is given correctly, but still... in the game itself, yo use the stick to choose letters, L and R (not left and right on the stick, for some reason) to skip five letters back and forth, X to select a letter and Start to pause, and potentially quit.

Graphics: 7
The presentation in Bunny Traps is generally very well done. There's a distinctly cartoonish feel, starting with the opening screen with the bunny yelling, "_ELP/_E" (HELP ME) in true Hangman style. This mark would probably have been an 8 had it not been for the rather squint-inducing high score entry screen -- larger text here would have made a considerable difference.

Sound: 6
Much too loud for headphones as usual... a rather odd, speeded-up, bouncy tune to start with. You can choose in the game menu whether to have the music and/or the sound effects switched on. I suspect the music will drive most people mad after a while. The crowd cheers when you get a word correct are cute, though, it has to be said.

Documentation: 8
I was impressed to see a "How To Play" option in the menu, and this seems to explain the game in plenty of detail. I can't imagine there are too many people out there who don't know Hangman, but even if there are they should know what they're doing after reading this. There's also a readme file with the package, which you'll need to read if you want to know how to set up a custom words file.

Completeness: 9
The game is basically done: the core works, there are a decent number of levels, there's a good help screen and nothing seems to crash.

Overall: 6
Bunny Traps is an early GP2X game, from late 2005, and in truth sometimes it shows. The somewhat bizarre choices for the controls, the overly difficult Challenge level (eg on level one, "filial" -- five wrong guesses is simply not enough) and the eventually maddening music are examples. On the other hand, the cartoonish visuals are very well and amusingly done, and the ability to add your own word list in Arcade mode is most welcome. It's another game that would probably have been wonderful with another few weeks' work, but which as it stands has a few too many rough edges.

Game review: Escapa!

Escapa!
Genre: Arcade
Author: Guyfawkes
OHH download: vGBAX2007 (12/07/07)
Size: 3.6 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
Based on a Java game of the same name, Escapa is a reflex/concentration-centric arcade game. The mechanics are very simple: you control a red block (with the stick) and four blue blocks of differing rectangular shapes move around the board. If your block touches any of them, or the edge of the playing area, then it's game over. Every ten seconds, the game speed increases. The time you've stayed alive is shown (in seconds) and there is only one object: keep going as long as possible!

Addictiveness: 5
Frustratingly hard to start with, and then just very hard. That stops you wanting to go back more than a few times -- but for those few times you will get a feeling of achievement if you happen to beat your previous high score. (These are ordered simply by the time you lasted, in seconds.) I doubt you'll keep this game around for all that long, as there's no real reason to return after a while.

Depth: 2
Given that you're doing well if you last more than 20 seconds, there isn't a lot of this! Only the one level, and no options to change anything.

Controls: 7
The basic controls are simple enough: you just use the stick to move your red block around. Selecting from the main menu is also easy (see Graphics, below). The high score entry is a little unnecessarily complicated, though, and does make Escapa! feel slightly less wieldy than it might. If you have the appropriate hardware you can also play with a USB mouse, but as I don't I can't test that.

Graphics: 5
Very simple indeed: a white playfield, the red and blue blocks, and score and "Game Over" messages in a virulent light green (that last one wasn't a great choice, in my view). Excellent, smooth animation. The high score entry page is white on black, but unfortunately uses a "show-off font", by which I mean one that looks all fancy and in theory sounds impressive, but in practice is too hard to read. I do like, though, the menu screen, which apes the game mechanics: you move a red block to one of four blue blocks representing Play, Highscores, Credits or Quit.

Sound: 7
This is reasonably impressive. The background music is (again) a repetitive techno-style piece, but it has a vaguely eerie feel that somehow fits quite well. Mind you, it's likely to drive you mad if you play for more than a few minutes at a time! There is also some decent speech, which makes up for the absence of any other sound effects. (The tune plays continuously.)

Documentation: 6
Surprisingly for a three-hour contest entry, there's an adequate readme, containing the basic controls and aims (of what is admittedly a simple game) and contact details for the author. It's not exactly "The Dark Wheel" (the novella that came with the original Elite) but it does a job.

Completeness: 6
The credits state that Guyfawkes (and musician Donskeeto) finished the game in two hours and 45 minutes, so it's a little churlish to complain too much. There certainly are things that could be added, such as sound effects (and the option to turn off that damn music) and an easier difficulty level. Perhaps also there could be custom levelsets with different types of block design and/or movement. But the core game is there, and it works.

Overall: 5
An average rating for an average game. Escapa! is an interesting challenge for a little while, but most people will find that interest palls after that. It's well presented (with particular points for the smoothness of the animation) but few people will go "wow!" upon seeing it. One of those "play for a bit then delete" games.

Game review: Vektar

Vektar
Genre: Shooter
Author: GBAX
OHH download: v? (09/04/09)
Size: 69.1 MB
Licence: Freeware (ex-commercial)

Description
Vektar is a shoot-em-up game based loosely on that old classic, Asteroids. You fly a ship around a screen populated by rocks, ships and so on and blast them to bits. There's a time limit in certain levels, and you have a limited amount of shields to give you brief protection against damage. When you beat a set of waves (there are bosses, of course) another and more extensive level set will be unlocked.

Addictiveness: 8
Pretty good. It is a little bit frustrating at first if (like me) you're not particularly adept at games like this. (Memories of the original Defender, and its BBC Micro clone Planetoid, still haunt me.) However, Vektar is so well made that once you do get into it, the game grows on you greatly. It's not particularly difficult to make it onto at least the lower reaches of the high score table, which helps here.

Depth: 6
The game isn't astoundingly deep, but a reasonable amount of thought seems to have gone into the level design, and it doesn't suffer from having level after level that's nothing more than a simple rectangle. There's also an element of depth in learning how to use the power-ups, some of which are more obvious than others. You also need to judge your shooting, since (in what I think is a very nice touch) these too can be destroyed by your zapping!

Controls: 7
As with Asteroids itself, it can take a little time to get used to controlling your ship in Vektar. Stick left and right rotates you, up and down control thrust and braking, while holding down Y raises your shields. Pressing Select and Start together brings up a pause menu that allows you to continue, quit entirely or begin a new game. In the menus, you can use X to bring up the quit menu, though here you get slightly insulting messages if you leave. (Remember Quake doing that?) I wasn't entirely thrilled with the high-score entry, which worked in the usual "three initials" way but seemed a little imprecise.

Graphics: 9
These really are excellent. If you've ever played a Vectrex console (or at least an emulated one) then imagine the graphics from that, brought into the 21st century and given a beautiful colour-filled makeover. There are explosions everywhere, but even with heaps of things happening at once the animation remains decently -- if not quite perfectly -- fluid, something so important in a fast-moving arcade game. Little touches such as the angular font used for the high score list, and the "fuzzy" look in what you might call "attract mode" are welcome too.

Sound: 7
As usual, the default volume perforates your eardrums if you're using the official GP2X earphones, so you'll want to turn it right down. The music is provided by means of .ogg files, and if you do a bit of fiddling about (which will require a little internet research) you can replace the rather predictable techno-y tunes with whatever you prefer. Still, there's nothing wrong with the default ones.

Documentation: 3
Surprisingly little; really, a game that takes up almost 60 MB of your SD card ought to do a bit better than this. You have to work out a number of things, not least what the power-ups actually do, by trial and error, and while I'm all for a bit of mystery and surprise in a game I think this goes too far. Possibly the boxed commercial version had a manual, but even if it did, that's no use here!

Completeness: 9
Loses a point for not having proper documentation, but otherwise it's all here, and as it's the "registered" copy you're not going to find yourself booted out halfway with a demand to buy the full game -- since this is it!

Overall: 8
Vektar is a very good game. I might have rated it 9 had it had in-game help, and I could imagine some people marking it as a perfect 10. For me, it's a little too difficult to score quite that highly, and it does take up an awful lot of card space (though over a quarter of this comes from two thinly-disguised and mildly annoying videos). Still, it ends as a very creditable 8, and those who like their old-school arcade shooters will lap this up.

Chess2X updated

ParkyDR has released v0.5 of Chess2X. This is a useful update, which contains the following improvements and fixes, as described by the author.

1) Tighten up promote check
2) Auto repeat for joystick, L/R and volume
3) Get rid of 2 pixel gap on right of screen
4) Combine move and in game menus
5) Provide feedback on volume change

I originally rated Chess2X as 6/10 because of something of a lack of polish. This update makes enough of a difference that I am now bumping its score up to 7/10.

Game review: BubbleX

BubbleX
Genre: Puzzle
Author: PotA
OHH download: v1 (18/11/05)
Size: 0.1 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
BubbleX is a tiny little game: the archive contains nothing but a .gpe file, under 140 KB in size. It will be immediately familiar to anyone who's played "SameGame" or the like. You are given a screen full of randomly-coloured bubbles on a 2D grid. When there are two or more of the same colour touching orthogonally, you can select those and "pop" the group. Bubbles will fall if left hanging in mid-air, and gaps of full columns will be closed up. The object is to remove all the bubbles from the screen; if no legal move remains, you lose.

Addictiveness: 5
Not bad as far as it goes, and its quick gameplay helps here. The trouble is, as I'll mention in a moment, it just doesn't have much of a lifespan. The lack of any sort of scoring really hampers your ability to challenge yourself to have just one more go at beating your best.

Depth: 2
Virtually none: what you see is what you get. There's no level progression, no tightening timer (or indeed any timer), no larger grid options, nothing. This is a game you can play in two minutes at the bus stop.

Controls: 7
Very simple indeed: move around the grid with the stick and press B once to select a colour group, then again to pop the relevant bubbles. Start brings up a simple menu -- New game, Option and Quit game -- and B selects from there, although Option doesn't seem to do anything. Otherwise, nothing special, but they do a good job.

Graphics: 7
Simple and colourful, just as they should be for a simple puzzler of this sort. The grid is very clear, and the background squares don't clash with the bubbles. I'm not so taken with the menu design, which has an irritating Comic Sans-type font that seems a bit too "wacky" for BubbleX.

Sound: 4
There are precisely two sound effects: a sort of "boylp" when you select a colour group, and a "pop!" when you, er, pop it. They're quite nicely chosen, though, and for once not stupidly loud through headphones, so I'm not awarding a terrible mark here.

Documentation: 2
"Remove the marbles with the same color", on the OHH page, is the extent of it. No readme or in-game instructions whatsoever. Luckily it's a very well-known game and simple enough to pick up that you don't really need documentation, but one sentence can hardly be worthy of a good mark!

Completeness: 4
This shouldn't really have been given a v1 version number, as it's clearly still in the v0.x stage. The basic gameplay all works, but there is no score, high score or timer function, and the "Option" menu item does precisely nothing.

Overall: 5
BubbleX is a pleasant little puzzle game that can be quite fun to play for a few minutes. It has no pretensions to being anything more, though it could have rated a little higher had it not been so obviously unfinished. The file is so small that you might as well bung it on your SD card anyway, though: everyone likes bursting bubbles, surely?

New GP2X content :P

It's really nice to see that the software drought we suffered a couple of months ago has been broken. In July alone there were five new titles uploaded to OHH, which is the most in a single month since... er... March. Okay, not that long, but still. And yes, five: I'm not counting the skin for SnesGp2x as a piece of software. I really hope the full version of the Pure demo arrives soon, since at the moment I can't use it as it's not only TV-out-only but NTSC-only too; no use at all here in the UK!

Game review: Hamster's Escape

Hamster's Escape
Genre: Arcade
Author: GECA soft
OHH download: v1.0 (11/07/11)
Size: 2.2 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
This is one of the newest games available for the GP2X, and is a very simple arcade affair. You play a little blue stick man, who is being menaced by waves of approaching hamsters. At various speeds they move down the screen, going from side to side while they do so. The game continues until you come into contact with a hamster, at which point it's game over.

Addictiveness: 4
It provides some ultra-retro fun for a little while, but the lack of a high score feature means that even the usual "can I beat my previous best?" option is missing unless you have a sensationally good memory!

Depth: 2
Don't be silly. Moving around and avoiding hamsters is the entire game.

Controls:5
"FIRE" (the A button) starts the game, but then doesn't actually do anything! All you can do is to move around the screen with the stick. That's all, folks. Start quits the game (without warning) whether you're in the middle of a game or not.

Graphics: 5
There's a fairly long pause before the game starts, so don't think that the black screen means it's crashed. You then get a splash for the Crap Games Combo contest (which is awful, as it should be) and then a title screen that looks like it's escaped from 1983. A message advises you to "Press FIRE to play" and then you're into the main game. Ever played a mediocre Atari 2600 game? If so, you'll be right at home: I'd be amazed if the look weren't deliberate, as it really is very close, and though everything's very basic it's not actually too crap. (Sorry!)

Sound: 3
We're in the days of dodgy old consoles, and it sounds like it too. Only one thing is authentic GP2X, which is that the default volume blows your eardrums when using the official headphones. Thankfully the standard volume control works, though you'll need to press it plenty of times. The actual sound... well, it's bleeps and bloops, and very basic ones at that. They fit the graphics, but they'll probably drive you mad fairly quickly.

Documentation: 3
Virtually nothing: the readme doesn't tell you much beyond that Hamster's Escape was "made in one afternoon for the Crap Game Combo 2011 Contest" -- and I thought that was just a Spectrum thing! The text on OHH isn't much better, simply advising you to run from evil hamsters to stay alive...

Completeness: 5
Given that this game is supposed to be crap, I suppose a low score here may actually be a good thing! It's not exactly deep, and the documentation is awful, but then it's so simple that it doesn't need much explanation. The core game may be utterly simple, but it's there! A high score feature really would help a great deal, though.

Overall: 4
I am bearing in mind what this game was written for, but there's no getting away from the fact that Hamster's Escape is not a very good game. Even disregarding the dodgy apostrophe in its name, I really can't see anybody playing this for more than a few minutes without getting bored. It's like Centipede without the depth!

Racing games, or the lack of

It surprises me a bit that there are so few racing/driving games available for the GP2X. The OHH archive lists only about half a dozen (for some reason a completely unrelated PocketSNES adaptation is also in that category...) which is pretty disappointing for such a popular genre. I'm sure the hardware would be easily capable of running a port of the top-down racer GeneRally, for example, which is a very nice game indeed -- albeit with one idiotic bit of licensing.¹

Yes, there are plenty of console and computer racing games if you want to go the emulation route, but it surprises me that so little has been written for the console natively. Of course I'm not a good enough programmer to be able to tell whether there's a particular reason for this, but it seems very odd that even 2D racers are so notable by their absence. It's probably too late for this to change now, but it seems worth a quick mention just in case someone's got something special up their sleeve!

¹When you go to download GeneRally from the official site, you're told that by downloading it you agree to the terms in the readme file... which you obviously can't have seen yet!

Game review: NetHack (CaduHack)

Nethack (CaduHack R01)
Genre: Adventure and RPG
Author: Cadu / Dzzz (GP2X port)
OHH download: vR01 (03/06/07)
Size: 5.8 MB
Licence: Nethack General Public License

Description
CaduHack is a version of NetHack, the best-known of the "roguelike" sub-genre of role-playing adventure games. These, named after an early title actually called "Rogue", are at their simplest dungeon-based quests: you descend into the catacombs, acquiring treasure and weapons as you go, and try to get hold of a great treasure. In NetHack's case, this fabled item is the Amulet of Yendor. Winning the game is accomplished not simply by escaping the dungeon (you can aim to do that, but it isn't really a win) but by "ascending": fulfilling all the requirements of your god and thus being raised to the status of demigod(dess) yourself.

This is a turn-based game, something not very common nowadays but which it's important to remember. In the middle of a desperate melee, you can find yourself making decisions in a snap, when in fact you have time to stop and think. The basic graphics actually help enhance the role imagination plays in NetHack, and the pressure is certainly very real. One major decision enhances that: if you die, you die. You have just the one life, and though you can save your game and carry on later, you cannot return to a previous save point. On top of all that, you can choose your starting role (eg Barbarian, Knight, Tourist, Valkyrie), race (eg dwarf), alignment (eg lawful) and gender, all of which can have major implications.

Addictiveness: 9
NetHack itself gets a 10 here, easily. The only reason CaduHack doesn't is that the (inevitably) slightly fiddly control system can become a pain if playing for long periods of time. Either way, this is one of the most extraordinarily involving games ever made. The basic graphics and lack of sound don't matter one jot, and the vast variety of monsters, friendly creatures, other humans (shopkeepers, for example!) and magical beings which populate the huge playing area means that you're never going to find yourself playing exactly the same game twice. (There's a random element to the maze generation anyway.)

Depth: 10
NetHack is an absolutely massive game. Many people play quite regularly for years before winning through, and some don't ever manage to do so. You can have quite a good time just sticking to the upper levels (the Dungeons of Doom) and doing a straight dungeon-crawl, but if you do that you'll be missing out on the quests, alternative planes of existence and much else besides that give this game its enormous longevity. Even if you do manage to ascend, you can try again with another type of character, set yourself challenges (eg never eating meat) and much else besides.

Controls: 7
NetHack was written for computers with a full keyboard available, and there are an awful lot of commands, so inevitably things aren't perfect here. CaduHack does about as well as could be expected, though: all the buttons are made use of, and there are several commands which require two buttons to be pressed simultaneously: for example L+B will zap a wand, while L+Y equates to "kick". Start will bring up a menu offering a choice of the many other commands: from here (and sometimes a submenu or two) you can adjust armour, engrave "Elbereth" (there's a hint for you...) and dip things in water. I couldn't find anything that wasn't there somewhere.

Graphics: 6
Roguelike games don't generally go in for flashy graphics, and NetHack certainly follows that tradition. There are two main options for display: you can either use a set of "tiled" graphics, in which you get a teeny tiny picture of whatever's on a square (eg an open sack of gold), or you can go the old-school route and use ASCII graphics. With this second option, everything is shown with an ordinary ASCII character: you appear as an @ sign, canines as various colours of d, and so on. Many players -- including me -- prefer the simplicity of the ASCII look. None of the three text sizes is ideal, but they're all useful at times.

Sound: N/A
There isn't any.

Documentation: 7
Reasonable. There's a pretty good help option in the in-game menu, as well as two readme files: one from Dzzz's original GP2X port, and one explaining Cadu's enhancements. You don't get the very detailed in-game guides available on "computer NetHack", however, so I probably wouldn't recommend this version to absolute newcomers. The internet is absolutely stuffed with guides, spoilers and the like for NetHack, so if you want to learn then that's the place to look.

Completeness: 9
One or two bugs have been reported by users: for example, an OHH reviewer mentioned that the game hung when they tried to drop 30 items on an altar. However, that seems to be about it; I think the level of documentation included is acceptable for this port so won't knock anything off for that.

Overall: 9
CaduHack really is about as good a port of NetHack as anybody could reasonably expect on the GP2X. I thought quite seriously about awarding it 10 for that reason, but there's no doubt that the fiddly controls do have a small impact on its playability. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful game to be able to take with you, and I would urge everyone who values atmosphere and imagination over big explosions and blinding eye-candy to keep it on their SD card. Highly recommended.

Game review: Fy.WoD!

Fy.WoD!
Genre: Arcade
Author: Schnatterplatsch(Wiz) / port by Farox
OHH download: v1.1 (21/08/10)
Size: 2.9 MB
Licence: GPL v3 (says v1 on OHH, but actual archive has v3)

Description
Fy.WoD! was originally a Wiz game. It's officially described as "some kind of racing game", though you're in a race against time and the level itself rather than against other racers. You progress through a series of maps, the next one being unlocked when you have reached a set medal status in four categories: time, coins, "wall hits" and total number of points. You can then move around a "galactic map" to choose the route to your next map. If you don't get all your targets, you don't get to go on. It sounds difficult, doesn't it? Well, it is!

On each level you are shown a basic plan of the map and have to select how many units of fuel you want, from 0 to 100 -- it soon becomes reasonably clear why you shouldn't simply choose 100 every time (because your ship is heavier, and therefore slower) but as with rather too many other things about Fy.WoD!, it's very well explained either in-game or in the readme. Anyway, you then navigate your little ship around the map, collecting coins and trying to avoid bumping into the walls, while also perhaps making use of other phenomena such as speed-ups.

Addictiveness: 6
There's no doubt that Fy.WoD! has the potential to be a hugely addictive game, and its nostalgic 8-bit feel doesn't do this any harm at all. It's engaging and challenging to play -- but perhaps a bit too challenging. There are no difficulty levels, and you do rather feel that you're forced into playing it on "hard" at all times. For example, as soon as the second-level maps you can be faced with passageways barely wider than the ship. With a tweaked learning curve, so that the first few levels eased you into the game rather than becoming rock-hard after the first map, the game would certainly have scored higher.

Depth: 8
This really depends on how much time you're willing to spend on the game. As you progress, more complex maps appear, with extra features (such as the deadly skulls) and that always holds the interest. However, the game is so hard that you may well end up giving up in frustration long before you get to the (apparently) interesting thing that happens if you reach a million points. So, a high score here -- but in this case I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing!

Controls: 7
Stick left/right rotates your ship, and the B button accelerates. L acts as a sort of brake, putting the ship into slow motion. It's fairly easy to get used to, especially if you've played something like Asteroids. "Menu" (a Wiz-ism; it's Start for us, or Home if you have an F200) pauses the game -- this only works at certain points -- and brings up a menu. My main problem initially was that X, given as "Back", didn't seem to work at all; in fact it's actually used to back out of menus, whereas I'd been expecting it to give the actual ship a reverse thrust. Another bit of poor documentation.

Graphics: 8
These have a nice retro feel about them, being highly reminiscent of the better class of 1980s 8-bit computers. Actually, I could imagine a game very like this working well on my BBC Micro! The animation is somewhat like that as well: it's not absolutely silky-smooth, but it's close enough to make controlling your ship quite easy. I think the general look of the game suits it nicely, and that this is one of the most successful aspects of Fy.WoD!

Sound: 6
There's no music, and sound effects are fairly sparse but generally effective -- and they're not eardrum-perforating by default through headphones, hurrah! Your ship's engine sounds a little bit anaemic, but the explosion when you die is a pretty good one. Inoffensive is probably the best word to use here.

Documentation: 3
I was irritated by this from the (very basic) readme: "The rest is explained in the game or so easy to see, that I would waste my words on it." Sorry, but that's just lazy: it's simply annoying to assume that everyone will be able to see how to play a game as easily as you (the programmer!) can. For example, it is not entirely obvious at first how the galactic map is navigated. On the plus side, the little scrolling hints that appear at the start of each game are just right.

Completeness: 6
There are still a few translation errors to be ironed out: "uncompleten", "You hitted the death", etc, but that's minor. There needs to be better help (especially in the readme), too, and of course a more sensible learning curve and/or the choice to select an easier standard to start with, perhaps with lower scores as a penalty. The core game, however, doesn't really seem to need anything much doing to it; it's the difficulty that's the problem, not the gameplay per se.

Overall: 6
As you'll have gathered by now, inadequate documentation is easily the biggest flaw in what is otherwise an interesting, if perhaps too difficult, arcade game. Fy.WoD! has a truly ridiculous name, but then so did Sabre Wulf, and that did okay for itself. A potentially super game, but in its current form it's just too unforgiving for all but the most accomplished players and so is rated as only quite good.

Game review: Super Pixel Jumper

A while back, I reviewed Dont Get Crushed, and Super Pixel Jumper is by the same author. It's another fairly recent game, dating back just to this spring, and of course it's always pleasing to see continued GP2X development.

Super Pixel Jumper
Genre: Jump and Run
Author: ThatOtherPerson
OHH download: v1.1 (08/03/11)
Size: 2.6 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
This is a pretty simple game in terms of rules: you play the part of a little pink square, and must jump along a side-scrolling landscape of platforms made up of blue squares. As you continue, the scrolling gets faster. You must avoid touching the white squares which are scattered randomly around (and on the left and bottom sides of the screen) because doing so means game over. Your running score and the high score are always shown as you play.

Addictiveness: 7
There are some games which look as if they ought to be addictive but turn out not to be. Super Pixel Jumper goes the other way: it doesn't look that exciting in a screenshot, but the compulsion to better your score is high. I certainly found it holding the interest for longer than Dont Get Crushed did, perhaps because it's rather similar to "Rapid Roll", a favourite game of mine from an old Nokia mobile phone.

Depth: 3
Let's face it, there's not a lot of this. You run along, jump, and avoid enemies. You need quick reactions, but not much in the way of strategy. The only real development as you play is in learning how to judge the size of your jumps.

Controls: 6
Nothing much to remark upon here. Stick for left and right, and B to jump. Holding down B for longer gives you a bigger jump, which works well. There's no pause, but Select will exit:The animation is decent, too instantly, with no confirmation screen, which is a bit irritating. Between games, Start is used to... er... start.

Graphics: 7
We start with a splash for the "Pandora Angst Coding Competition", but after that everything's simply done; again, it's reminiscent of a mobile phone game. The addition of colour, even simple colour, puts it one up on Dont Get Crushed and makes the thing look significantly more attractive. The basic square-based design (hence the game's name) actually works very nicely. The animation is decent, too. One small criticism is that it's not that easy to see your score, as it's in black on a purple backround.

Sound: 5
Do I need to tell you that it's initially too loud through headphones? No, thought not. Still, you can turn it down. The background music is a looped techno sample, surprise surprise, and frankly I wasn't keen on it at all. Personal preference, of course, but then that's what reviews are for. (Mind you, it's just a .wav file, so presumably it could be changed easily enough.) Actual sound effects are limited to a few whooshy noises: two for take-off and successful landing, and one (which is disconcertingly cheer-like) when you are obliterated by a white square.

Documentation: 2
Pretty much non-existent: even knowing to press B to jump is something you have to discover for yourself! No readme and nothing in-game other than a mention of the Start and Select buttons.

Completeness: 7
Most of the way there, I think; I'd like to see something approaching a readme, at least, but the basic game doesn't show any serious weaknesses in this department.

Overall: 6
Super Pixel Jumper is another ThatOtherPerson game which makes a virtue out of simplicity: you can pick it up in seconds and yet keep playing for a while before you get bored. It nearly scored a 7, actually, but I really don't like the music at all. If you do, adjust my rating accordingly!

The end of the drought, but...

The GP2X section of OHH has seen its first upload since 16 April. It's a music game called Txishos... but I can't review it, as it's a touchscreen-only game! Argh! Ah well, those of you with F200s can snigger behind your hands at we stuck-in-the-muds as you download it. I've no idea whether the game's any good, but hopefully it'll give enjoyment to some.

Game review: REWORD

REWORD
Genre: Puzzle
Author: Al McLuckie (purplepup)
OHH download: v0.5 (19/06/08)
Size: 3.9 MB
Licence: GPL v2

Description
REWORD (yes, unfortunately the ugly ALL CAPS appearance is official) is a word game based on a Flash game called TextTwist. It has vague similarities to the Countdown Conundrum: you are shown a six-letter word whose letters have been jumbled up, and must work out what the original was. However, you also need to find as many three-, four- and five-letter words as you can before the time limit expires. When the level finishes, you're shown any words you didn't get, and can also see their definitions.

The game offers three levels of difficulty: as you go up, the time limits decrease, and more difficult words from the wordlist are used. You score according to how many words you find and how much time you have left when completing a level. There are two additional game modes: Speed6, in which only finding the six-letter word matters (you can ignore the shorter ones) and TimeTrial, in which you have an overall time limit to find as many six-letter words as you can.

You do need to remember that the word list is a British English one: "colour" is a valid choice, but "color" is not! On a rather cruder note, that also means that "piss" is there, but not the Americanism "pissy" (meaning irritable). You'll also come across the occasional irritation, such as the fact that "yip" is accepted but "yips" (the golfing term) is not; you can either edit the wordlist to suit or just put up with it.

Addictiveness: 8
Given that this is by no means an easy game, even on the Medium setting, I think it will appeal mostly to those who are already into wordplay, and who have what might be called "the right sort of brains" -- ones which are good at picking out patterns against the clock. If you do fall into that category, though, then REWORD is a treat: the compulsion to do better than last time is strong, and you'll frequently kick yourself when at the end of a level you discover that you've missed some supremely obvious word.

Depth: 8
The wordlist contains about 7,400 words (including 2,800 six-letter words) which is enough to ensure that you don't come across the same puzzle too often. By no means all the words are obvious ones, and even those who enjoy word games or play Scrabble are likely to find their brains heating up somewhat, especially when playing at the harder difficulties. Even at Medium, I've had words like "arnica" showing up in the six-letter spot. REWORD also allows you to expand the wordlist yourself, so the game should have plenty of replay value.

Controls: 7
These take a little learning, as almost every button is used: B selects a letter, X deselects it, Y submits your chosen word for checking against the wordlist, and A shuffles your "tiles" (which can help you see things you didn't before). Either L or R will bring up the last word you submitted (handy for quick plurals if there's an S in the tile set). Space is a pause button -- but this works on Easy mode only! Select brings up the quit dialog -- but the clock keeps ticking, so if you want to resume, do it quickly...

Graphics: 7
The main game screen is simply but effectively done, and the pink-and-yellow colour-scheme works better than you mgiht think. The menus are well presented, and pretty easy on the eye. The high-score tables are perhaps slightly cluttered, but not overwhelmingly so. Overall, REWORD scores fairly well in the graphical department.

Sound: 6
The theme tune to the game is a bouncy little thing, and for once the default volume isn't horrible through headphones. The in-game effects are basically a little collection of beeps (including the dreaded ten-second countdown) but they serve their purpose.

Documentation: 8
REWORD does better in this department than many GP2X games: there's both a solid and decently clear readme and a good in-game instruction section. I'd personally have put the control quick-reference screen after the overall "How to Play", rather than before as is in fact the case.

Completeness: 8
For a v0.5 game, this seems pretty much finished. There is the odd six-letter word which you're told "has no definition", which is a pain, though if it bothers you that much you can edit the wordlist to add it yourself. The high-score entry is also slightly clunky compared to some.

Overall: 8
The only thing I really dislike about REWORD is its shouty name. The GP2X is not well supplied with word games (it's actually a genre I'd like to write something in if I ever get back to learning to program) so it's pleasing that this one is very nicely done -- though not easy! If you're a fan of word games and want something that will give the linguistic part of your mind a good workout, then this might well be what you're looking for. It's staying on my card, anyway.