Dutch Boogie Woogie pianists versus Fireworks

Recently I was watching how my son played games where the music determines the difficulty of the gameplay. I am talking about "Riff Racer" and "Beat Hazard"


And I wonder how difficult the gameplay will be if you don't use the regular hard rock, metal, techno, dubstep, hardstyle, etc etc 
but music from games that use a different kind of music.

For example, I played a PC Pinball Game with Boogie Woogie music. 


What if you play "Riff Racer" 
or "Beat Hazard" with a Boogie Woogie song? 

 
Then I remembered my sister had once a 7" single of a Dutch Boogie Woogie pianist with a famous children song  
"De uil zat in de olmen" and I search on YT for names and songs. As it turned out, there are two famous Dutch Boogie Woogie pianists, Rob Hoeke and Jaap Dekker. 
I could not find "De uil", I am pretty sure it was Jaap Dekker who played it. 
Never mind, I found other Boogie Woogie songs on YT and made a short playlist of these.

Note: For Boogie Woogie music you need a piano, bass, and drums. It's a kind of rock n roll, rockabilly, blues all into one piano. If you want to learn, try this.

PS: 
On Fireworks 2 and 3 musicdiscs of the MSX club MCD, I found 2 short Boogie Woogie shortof songs. Check out Pub Boogie 3 and 2 Thanks to FRANK MSX DEMOS FOR YOU AND ME for uploading this.

Best wishes for 2018 to you all !!!
 

Xmas 2017: Antartic Adventure vs Andre Rieu

There are just a few minutes left for Xmas before we must go on doing or regular businesses.
But I had to try to post this before the 27th of December. Let me try to explain the strange title first. 

"Antartic Adventure" is a famous Konami game made for MSX and a couple of other home-computers. 
You are a penguin racing around the South Pole and stopping at every station of different countries. 

It was the first game I ever played on my new MSX-2 
(a Philips VG 8325). I had to say it was an illegal copy on tape. I bought my MSX-2 computer also an MSX modem, an MSX joystick and an MSX tape-recorder (all Philips), cause at that time all MSX games where cartridges or tapes and never on disk. 
 
I wasn't good at "Antartic Adventure" and never made it till stage 10, I enjoyed the gameplay and of course the music.The music Konami used was "The Skater's Waltz" of Émile Waldteufel.

 
Why I got this idea for a las Xmas post? I watched Andre Rieu, a famous Dutch orchestra leader, and his Xmas concert at The Royal Albert Hall. The first song his orchestra played was: "The Skater's Waltz". And I remembered playing "Antartic Adventures" on my MSX-2.

It's great to see how just a piece of music can trigger some memories, good or bad. In this example very Xmas like.


Check out who Andre Rieu is and his music. Then see this playthrough of "Antartic Adventure" the MSX Konami game.
 

Biscaya - James Last - TnC Instrumentals

I just hate any song with accordion. It is the musical instrument only made for playing songs only drunken people would sing along. And the famous arranger/orchestra-leader James Last creates a song with a leading role for the accordion, "Biscaya."  


It is a great song for playing at sunsets. James Last was very popular in The Netherlands and he gave a lot of concerts there. He also released a couple of arranged Dutch children songs, which made him even more popular. 

He released countless albums in the 60s and 70s, mostly arranged versions of famous pop songs but also classical music or film music. "Biscaya" is no cover and it made me sad he didn't write more original stuff. I guess he didn't have the time for it.

According to wiki James Last wrote a couple more songs, some recorded by famous artists.
Well, check the wiki for more info.

Here is The Best of James Last and here is another one, 
it's a matter of taste, I guess. To be honest, I really don't like most of the music he made, 
it reminds me too much of German Octoberfests. I guess I had to be drunk to like this kind of part band music for more than 4 minutes.

Despite all this, I enjoyed "The Seduction" and "The Lost Shepard" too.

James Last is no longer on this earth, but his legacy is enormous.
Have a listen to "Biscaya"
 

Electric Adventures MSX Basic Games Video's

I followed this guy on YouTube for a very long time. He plays everything, collects everything and makes videos about both. Ellectric Adventures is not a real MSX collector, but in lost of video's there is some MSX stuff to see. I posted earlier about his A-Z favorite MSX Games, now he has a new serie for MSX (and Spectravideo) , which is even better: his collection of MSX/SVI Basic/ML games, created by the man himself. 

I saw his 2nd video in this serie and ask him if I could download the MSX Basic stuff 
(he is still selling his machinecode games).
He told me where to look on his website and there I find each MSX-Basic game with a screenshot and a download link. I am not putting a download link to a disk with all MSX-Basic games, I prefer you check his website and download only the ones you like.
 
While browsing throught his website I learned he was a important member of the Australian and Tasmanian MSX/SVI scene, some time ago. 
So he was more MSX minded than I expected.

Back to the Basic games, there are at the moment 2 videos to watch, Lunar Lander and Road Racer. 
Where mr. Electric Adventures plays the games and shows lot of the technics he used to create the game. 
It's really usefull to see how he uses MSX-Basic to the max.

Well, I played all his MSX Basic games now (yes, including Painter) and most of his games are just Basic versions of famous Arcade games. 
There is nothing wrong with that, the playablity is very high, but I just dont want to play another Frogger (Chicken) 
or Pacman (Munchman) or Robotwars (Android). 
However I find some treasures in his collection:


* Demon Attack ( space shooting game with only 2 enemies, dont get hit by bombs)
* Dungeon Hunter ( Text adventure with some graphics, fight or run is the question)
* Parachute ( catch all paratroopers with you boat, they cant swim)
* Skybase ( space shooting game with 4 enemies who will ram you, needs docking too)

There are also a couple of platform games, but I dont know why I was loosing lives so quickly and another platformer looked a lot of a game, I already used in my 112 MSX-Basic games list. I leave those for better players than me.

So if you like MSX-Basic and you like playing MSX-Basic games, go to the Electric Adventures website.
 

Xmas 2017: Forgotten MSX Demo's

Maybe this will be the last post about Xmas. Every year I am afraid I have run out of ideas. Let's face it, there is not much MSX Xmas related stuff to find. And there is too much Xmas music in any genre to post about. Just Google and you will have it. This year my idea for an MSX post about Xmas was: collect all Xmas Demo's of any Diskmagazine I could find, upload it to YouTube and blog about it. I started with the famous Sunrise Picturedisks and I found one. Then I browsed to all files on the MCCM CD1 and CD2 trying to find more. 
Just 2 more.

While I tried to buy any diskmagazine on any MSX fair and was subscribed on Future Magazine, MCCM and Sunrise, still my collection was incomplete and the Xmas came nearer and nearer. I decided to put the 3 demo's I found on YouTube and finish that MSX post about Xmas 2017.

That wasnt easy, cause somehow my video-editor did some terrible things with the original audio,  making it sound like a speaker with bad wires. I had to re-record the sound and put it together with a silent video to make it work. I was always a big fan of Microsoft Movie Maker, but in Windows 10 it just kept on crashing. For these 3 demo's I used a very old ShowBiz DVD 2 of ArcSoft from 2004. It's still works on Windows 10, but most of the Export formats are no longer functioning.

Hereby info about each demo:

DTC XMAS Demo: 

This is the intro demo of Paradise 2, 
a Dutch  MSX diskmagazine of MSX Club DTC. There were not many issues, only 3.

Their most famous member was JetSoft, who made very nice pictures on MSX-2. 

The demo itself is short and makes good use of the standard MSX-2 startup screen. 
It had no sound so I search at MSX.org for Xmas music made on a MSX computer. 

They had a competition MuSiXmas with the original MSX format and a mp3 version.

The first mp3 track I played was Iceworld of Frederik Boelens. I loved it for the start and it fits the DTC XMAS Demo like a glove. 

IOD XMAS Demo : 

This is one of the demo's on Sunrise Picturedisk 10, made by a famous MSX group called Instruments Of Darkness. 

Their little demo puts falling snowflakes to a small animated picture. And the worst MSX version I ever heard of "Jingle Bells". 
The samples are funny enough, but they better asked member DanDan to compose some sounds.

The easiest way to play the demo on a MSX is by starting XMAS.LDR, otherwise you have to play some levels of Pixess to get to the demo.

Harald Stutz / Patrick Leijt Kerst Demo:

I am not sure if Patrick Feijt changed more than just the Dutch xmaswish at the end of the demo, but Harald Stutz made a nice demo with 2 animated parts with music. 

It's completly written in MSX-BASIC,  but uses some BGM files ( Bit2 Synyhesaurus ) to play music. That BGM replayer is so good ,you can execute other Basic commands without interupting the music. 

The first part looks a bit like the IOD XMAS Demo, I prefer this one. Great job mr. Harald Stutz and thank you Patrick Feijt for sending it to the Dutch MCCM, so I can add this nice demo to my collection.

All these 3 demo's can be found on a playlist on YouTube.

Earlier I made an other playlist with MSX XMAS Demo's.

I hope you enjoy these demo's. Happy Holidays !!!

Btw : I have no plans for post I ng about New Year, but you never know.

Dicte Intro ( Dragonborn feat. Jacob Bellens - The Words )

Those Scandinavian countries know how to make a serie of  detectives, where there is a main story (about all people involved) and story/stories about crimes other people commited. 

Just like "The Bridge" is "Dicte" a woman the main character, but this time not a police woman, but a reporter. 


She's not so tough and had to be rescued now and then by Wagner and his partner, she is very nosy, makes mistakes and doesnt rest until she know the truth. I watched earlier this year season 1 and 2 (the makers just kept counting the episodes, not seasons) and was so happy I could see season 3 this month. Some characters disappered, others came, but Dicte and her family stays. In every season all stories are cut in 2 episodes and every time they manage to put in the end of each episode a cliff-hanger, so you cant stop watching, until...the season ends.

To be honest, season 1 and 2 has not many changes in the cast, in season 3 there are almost too many. Sadly Wagner and his partner are only seeen in the first episodes.The interaction between Wagner, his female partner and Dicte is very enjoyable.

I forgot this post was made because of the new wave music you heard in the intro of Dicte (sometimes in the outtro too). It's called "The Words" from Dragonborn 
feat. Jacob Bellens.

It was easy to find the complete song on YouTube and what a great dissapointment it was.

The creators of Dicte used only 1 refrein and edited it at the begin and ending. And I knew why. Jacob Bellens maybe be a good singer, but not in this sing. 
Also the song "The Words" is totally broken, no good intro, no good melodies and no good ending. It's a mess. If I was the manager of Dragonborn, I re-recorded the song with the sound-editor of Dicte as producer.

Enjoy the intro and forget the whole song and his performers...
 

Sint 2017: Satanklaas trailer for Sint/Saint horror-movie

Of course I am too late. Damn this shit. Sinterklaas evening was on the 5th of December. For those who don't know Sinterklaas, there is also wiki to help you out. But I don't want to post about Sinterklaas parties, but about a very bad Dutch horror-movie Sint, which does the complete the opposit, a Sint slaughter party. 

 
Is it a good movie?
You have seen all the scary parts too many time in other movies 

and the script is not really good. 

So why I liked it?
I like the idea of a zombie Sint, the setting where the film takes place, yes Amsterdam again, and the Dutch humor in the dialogs and the whole movie. 

When you have seen the trailer, you have seen almost half the movie, and here comes the reason I want to post this. The music in the film and in the trailer are so easy to forgot, another thumbsdown. However some inspired YouTuber took the (Dutch) trailer of Sint (Saint for the rest of the world), replace the violins and the singing child with a metal parodie on the first modern Sinterklaas song, originally from Henk & Henk, now performed by Henk samen met Goddess of Desire.

It's called: "Satansklaas, je kent hem wel". I just wanna say, better one bad Sinterklaas metal song, than 10 children’s choirs singing Sinterklaas stuff.

I had an idea to subtitle this clip with English lyrics, but then I had to re-upload it.
Too much work. So here are the lyrics in Dutch and English (sort of - powered by Bing -).

SATANKLAAS, JE KENT HEM WEL (DUTCH)	SATANKLAAS, YOU KNOW HIM (ENGLISH)
Godverdekut!	Damnthisshit!
Toen me werd verteld	When I was told that
dat Sinterklaas niet echt bestaat,	Sinterklaas doesn't really exist,
knapte er iets in mijn kop.	something was snapped in my head.
Zo wat was ik kwaad.	So what was I evil.
Ik raakte aan de zware shag	I hit the heavy shag
en werd een satanist.	and became a Satanist.
Laat mij maar naar de hel gaan.	Let me go to hell.
Hier is niemand die me mist.	Here is no one who misses me.
Wanneer ik naar de hel toe ga	When I go to hell
wat vast niet lang meer duurt,	which doesn't last long,
weet ik dat ik een plekje krijg	I know I'll get a spot
bij Satan in de buurt.	near Satan.
Dan zeg ik rooie rakker,	Then I say grubbing R,
moet je horen, ouwe pik.	you must hear, Ole Dick.
Heb jij voor mij wat water	Do you have some water for me
want je huis staat in de fik.	because your house is in the flame.
Refr. (2x)	Refr. (2x)
Satanklaas, je kent hem wel.	Satan Klaas, you know him.
Satanklaas, Satanklaas,	Satan Klaas, Satan Klaas,
met zn allen naar de hel.	with Zn all to hell.
Wanneer ik slechte dingen doe	When I do bad things
dan hoop ik op bezoek.	then I hope to visit.
Mijn koffers staan al ingepakt	My suitcases are already wrapped
in één of andre hoek.	in one or Andre Hoek.
Satan, alsjeblieft heb je	Satan, please
een vuurtje voor me, vriend.	have a fire for me, friend.
Wanneer kom je me halen	When you come to pick me up
want de hel heb ik verdiend.	because the hell I deserved.
Refr. (2x)	Refr. (2x)
Lucifer	Lucifer
Hellehonden (4x)	Hell Dogs (4x)
Corps paint Piet	Corps Paint Piet
Hete vlammen (4x)	Hot Flames (4x)
Eeuwig vuur	Eternal Fire
Hellehonden (4x)	Hell Dogs (4x)
Zes, zes, zes,	Six, six, six,
zes, zes, zes.	six, six, six.
Hete vlammen (4x)	Hot Flames (4x)
De slechtste mensen zijn er allemaal.	The worst people are all there.
Branden voor eeuwig (6x)	Burn Forever (6x)
Een warm onthaal.	a warm welcome.
Toen ik erachter kwam	When I found out that
dat Sinterklaas niet echt bestaat,	Sinterklaas doesn't really exist,
knapte er iets in mijn kop.	I snapped something into my head.
Fuck, wat was ik kwaad.	Fuck, what I was evil.
Ik raakte aan de sterke drank	I hit the liquor
en werd een satanist.	and became a Satanist.
Laat mij maar naar de hel gaan.	Let me go to hell.
Hier is niemand die me mist.	Here is no one who misses me.
Refr. (4x)	Refr. (4x)
Zes, zes, zes,	Six, six, six,
zes, zes, zes.	six, six, six.

 See the differences between the Dutch and English film posters ?

Xmas 2017: Alternative Christmas music

2017 is almost gone, so we prepare ourselves for the holidays at the end of the year.  First comes the Christmas days and then the Happy Old/New Year days. And everybody is pushing Xmas stuff to the internet, hopefully, somebody picks it up and you have your own viral video, tweet or...

I feel like I have to post something with Xmas and this year I had no ideas at all. One evening I let my son listen to some tunes of the 8-bit universe, cause I know he likes to sort of chiptunes music (Zombie Party). Well...not from 8-bit universe anyway. Then I finally had my first idea for a post about Xmas this year. Searching for Xmas chiptunes I found:

This Week in Chiptunes

With 2 episodes about Xmas or at least Xmas spirit.

But I wasn't satisfied, I want more Alternative Xmas music. So I search for Xmas DubStep, Trap, EDM mixes on YouTube and found out that DubStep was already 5 years old (at least on YouTube). There were so many mixes and YouTubers that repost the same mixes with a different screenshot I gave up. This is not alternative, it's already very common.

I felt there was not much Xmas spirit left in me, my last attempt was Xmas rock mixes.
Between the same old mixes with the same old Xmas rock songs, I found this gem.

alexrainbirdMusic 

He collects very regularly the finest indie music and creates one big video of it, with all the links to the artists you hear in the mix. If you like the soundtrack of the game "Life Is Strange" you should listen to his mixes on YouTube. I subscribed already after maybe 5 minutes playtime. Of course, there are Xmas mixes too and I made a playlist.
Here it is.

Now I will search for some MSX XMAS stuff to post about. 
Happy Listening and Merry Christmas to you !!!

Fan Of: Deacon Blue ?

You may ask, why the question mark. I had to think about it and this is what I can remember.

Once I bought "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing"  and I was very pleased by it. 
Popsongs with a rocksound and a bit of electronics. Then I bought an earlier album "When the World Knows Your Name" . It sounded nothing like that other album, almost every song had strong parts and very weak part. In the end I was soo disappointed I never played it again or bought more albums of Deacon Blue. I guess my musictaste was changed, cause the album contained hits like "Queen of the New Year", "Wages Day", "Real Gone Kid", etc.

So I was fan of Deacon Blue for only 1 album and then they split.

This was another group I completly forgot, just like The Waterboys and recently dicovered again. I was searching on YouTube for The Waterboys songs for the playlist and on the right side YouTube showed me all at once "Real Gone Kid" of Deacon Blue. I played the song and started to look for more Deacon Blue and as a result I made also a playlist of my Deacon Blue favs. Yes, those 3 songs I mentioned are also part of it, they were not so bad at all and sounded "live" much better than the studio-version.

While I was compiling the playlist I found "Cut Lip" (also from  "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing" ) and I remembered I used a sample of the song, while I was fooling around with a free Windows Store software-program called Music Pad. And all these samples came from a very old disk which I created for use in a Windows Sounds scheme (very populair on Windows 98).

For me more reason not to ignore "Deacon Blue" songs, but you will see in my playlist that most songs are from "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing" my fav album of Deacon Blue.

My Music Memories: The Whole Of The Moon - The Waterboys

It's strange how some long forgotten music comes back to me. 
Like this one: "The Whole of The Moon" of The Waterboys.

I was with my wife on a long journey with our car and there was not much good music on any radiostation. My wife asked me to search for the music CD-Rs I made for our marriage ceremony and reception, so we could listen next time to those old songs we loved both.

Back home I started the search for the CD-Rs and found 5 out of 6. I remembered I made also tapes of these CDRs in case the CDRs was not working (indeed, in the town hall they had to play the tape instead). In the end, I had more than 10 tapes I liked to have recorded as mp3, still tape 6 kept missing. I guess there was never a CD-Rs with number 6.


So I started playing the tapes on my Hifi-system, while converting them on-the-fly to 
mp3-files. As always I listen to the first part of the first song of every tape sides. 

Then I heard a piano, battling with an organ, some weird violin notes. The voice of Mike Scott started and the song stayed in my head for more than a week. 
Backing vocals, some trumpets, a saxophone solo, it was all too much for me to take. 

I started searching for more of The Waterboys, found other songs I was forgotten 
(I bought once The Best of The Waterboys 81-90 on cassette, I lost it somehow) 
and created a playlist on YouTube.

Now I have listened to a lot of The Waterboys (aka Mike Scott and others) and 
there are 3 albums you should listen if you like this song "The Whole Of The Moon" 
(from "This Is The Sea")


In the right order, they are: A Pagan Place, This Is the Sea and Fisherman's Blues.

And you can listen to the rest as a bonus. 

Well, you might think Mike Scott is not a good singer, but he knows how to put emotion in each song that will going straight to your heart.

I wasn't sure I should post it on Fan Of or My Music Memories, cause after I bought "The Best of " (mainly cause I like "The Whole.." and "A Girl Called Johnny" ) I never had the urge to buy more albums of The Waterboys.


Today I might be a fan, considering I like at least 3 albums very much.
U2 ?

 

MSX Demo: MSX Animated Painting

PAINTING.DEM is an MSX-1 Basic animation like I have never seen before. Of course, there are plenty MSX-1 demo's made in machine code that can do so much more than this simple Basic program, but you are missing the main reason why I posted it.

If you have ever written an MSX Basic program that created graphics in SCREEN 2, you know why I like this short demo. Still not impressed? The demo moves all the waves of the sea, the birds, and the sailing ship, without any delay. I never saw a sea of changing waves on SCREEN 2 and moving more than 1 sprite at the same time is not easy in MSX Basic.
I needed KUN Compiler in my MSX-1 Paranoid Demo to get some speed with sprites.

The real programmer is unknown, I found it on a disk full of MSX Basic games I collected many years ago and I really feel bad, not able to giving this MSX-er the credits for this simple but wonderful demo.

There were minor editing by me, I put the title on the screen, correct the tree a little bit
and remove some spaces to get some extra speed.

Hurray to this unknown MSX-er.


Mediafire / Pcloud

112 MSX Basic Games presents: SWATFLY.GAM (67)

Finally not an MSX Computer Magazine listing ! 
It's a listing from C.U.C. Computer Journaal Issue 22 !

Whenever I met these C.U.C. guys on MSX fair, I tried to bought every magazine they had.
Their cassettes were a bit overpriced, so I bought only a couple and typed over every listing from those C.U.C. magazines. 


Any way, the original Dutch name was "Vliegenmepper" and was made by J.P. Zeedijk, 
who published plenty of high quality MSX Basic programs. 

I had to create a new name and I think SWAT THE FLY describes perfectly what the game is all about. SWATFLY.GAM is a shooting game, Space Invaders style. 

The fun is that the only enemy you have to shoot, can move randomly slow/fast in any direction. That can make timing your shots difficult. 

You can use for 2 difficulties/skills, the Normal skill is of course the hardest. I tweaked the difficulty a lot, cause Easy was not easy but boring and Normal was still easy. 
I created a new difficulty, so the old Easy was replaced by the Normal and the Normal was replaced by my new difficulty.

I like the intro screen a lot, I just didnt like the color white in the C.U.C. logo, so I replaced it with magenta. Check out the % of Swatted Flies! And ofcourse I translated the listing and the texts to English.
The game was so simple, all the info you need was already seen in the intro or play screen.
It saves me a lot of time of creating an English manual ...

I just made a few graphics changes so you can see the differences between playing Easy skill or Normal skill. You will noticed if you play it. I also had the correct some sprite errors when you played the game more than once. 

Some notes about this game: 
- you can shoot more than once on the enemy, 
  but mostly 2nd time you are too late
- the enemy will not fire back at you, lucky for you
- if you miss 10 times the enemy the game is over, 
  try to swat at least 10 flies to get a decent %

Well I talked enought about the SWATFLY.GAM, let's play...

Mediafire / Pcloud

112 MSX Basic Games presents: ICECREAM.GAM (68)

This game was a nightmare to translate. 

So many texts and so less space to show it, without getting out of boundaries. 

I had earlier tried to translate and failed. 
This time I do better, although I'm not sure if I correct every text the right way. 

   
It's playable now, so I post it here. Maybe I forgot some texts I don't wanna know...

ICECREAM.GAM is a text-only game. That means it could run on any computer with a Basic interpreter. I liked it above many other text-only games, the cause of the subject 
(try to make money from an ice factory in 2 years), the number of choices you can make every month and I found 
a way to beat the MSX high score of 2500.

A few tricks:

- have at least 3 ice machines ready and make as much 
  ice cream as possible before its month June-August in 
  April/may
- advertise every month except June-August with 25 dollar
- advertise and you will sell 3x more ice cream
- don't produce more than 1000 from August until the 
  new year
- don't produce 3 months before the end of the game
 - sell every machine in November of the 2nd year

My high score was 2675, with advertising. Without it's hard to beat the MSX high score.

The original name of the game was "IJSFAB.BAS", or "IJsfabriek" in Dutch. 
I translated to ICECREAM.GAM, cause it's about ice cream, not jeans or cheese 
or cd-players...
And once again, this was a listing from that Dutch MSX magazine, which name I have 
typed too many times now. 

Mediafire / Pcloud ready 

112 MSX Basic Games presents: HAL.GAM (69)

Yes, yes, it's another listing from MSX Computer Magazine, that famous Dutch MSX magazine. I only picked up the game, cause it's one of the very few platform games, completely made in MSX Basic without any machine-code and still have enough speed to let enemies and player move without any delay. Most action type games made in MSX Basic are struggling with the delay, especially platform games. 

It was big fun to translate (took me half an hour) and to play. If I remember correctly I only changed the default controls to cursor keys, that would be it.

HAL.GAM is a very big MSX Basic program, so most MSX computers with disk drives will have to reset with CTRL pressed to have enough Basic memory left, to run it (1 drive).

And it takes some time to generate the SCREEN 1 graphics and sprites. It's worth the waiting, I can tell you. The game has also it's only Demo Mode, I never saw that in any other MSX Basic game. Watch it for some tips. Of course, it looks like other commercial platform games, like Manic Miner, but it looks good, it plays well. I don't complain, I just want HAL.GAM in my 112 MSX Basic Games.

HAL is a Dutch initials for "Heel Apart Labyrinth", in English it is (I think) "Very Odd Labyrinth", but I don't want to ruin the nice title screen, so now it's still called HAL.

I hope you will make it to the exit, it's not that easy.


Mediafire / Pcloud

112 MSX Basic Games presents: ADD221.GAM (70)

I found recently so many good MSX Basic games, that seems only to be translated into English I just wanna post more about them.

Still, some games need more re-work than expect, like this one: ADD221.GAM.


It's a strange name, but the original Dutch name was "VANGSPEL.BAS", which translated will be "CATCH GAME". And I have already posted a game called "CATCH"...



So I had to invent a new name. The game is all about catching digits with your own digit.
The digits are added together and you have 5 rounds to get to the value of 21.
Instead of ADD 221, you must say ADD to 21. Get it? 

Changing the name and translating the in-game manual was not the hardest part. 
After I played the game for a while I felt the urge to have some kind of Highscore to beat.
I knew what to do and (again) a few days later I was testing my code to set the best score. 

The high score is 1000 and almost impossible to beat without cheating, cause you must get 21 in 2 rounds at every level (total = 5). The best score I got was 976.Can you do better?

Also, I noticed the difficulty was not very high, so I tweaked it.
It's so much better now I could not improve my previous scores...

I changed the sounds here and there, removing sprites when needed and some other things I forgot. 

ADD221.GAM is a very simple game to play with cursor keys or joystick. 

There are no graphics at all, only some big sprites. Yeah, I could have drawn a different background for every level to make the game more interesting to look at.
I just liked the simple game-idea and speed, I didn't want to wait while the background is being drawn. Still wanna try ?

Mediafire / Pcloud