Good game. The reprogramming you did with ZZT is impressive. But next time,please don't recode the ZZT engine itself, people will only yell at you for this cause they want to stick to the stuff they are familiar with. Plus, due to the recoding of the ZZT engine in this game,the ZZT to MZX converter will turn most of the commands into comments.
What the heck is BOV supposed to mean? I have to question the reasoning for making your own ZZT engine. But overall,This is one of the first ZZT games I have ever played. Still one of the more complex ZZT games. You have a stareing contest with a potato, And how the heck do you change an avicado into a banana? It makes no sense! But I like it anyway.
Uhm, jokes are funnier when they're ORIGINAL... that's why no one laughs at 'why did the chicken cross the road' anymore. The graphics were really pretty and felt like some sort of imaginary cartoon world that you somehow got stuck in but there were downsides like picking up all those bananas and running into monkeys again and again. A good game but not a great one.
BQ is, hands down, my favorite ZZT game I've ever played. What is the reason for this you may ask? Let me take you on a wonderful boat ride.
Firstly, the game is simple. You are given a simple task of collecting bananas. No complicated plot to follow, no twists, no lofty goals, just banana retrieving. The idea of item collection works for almost all platformers and it works just as fine here.
Secondly, the programming in this game is amazing. He really pulled some awesome stunts here with the different engines and stuff. WiL knows what he's doing with zzt-oop and does it creativly. However, it uses a different zzt-oop so it might not be the best game to dissect apart and learn from. The altered exe is also a different touch and gives the game a little more of a "stand alone" feel.
Thirdly, and this is just iceing on the cake, is the graphics. Amazing, really really well done here. Along with the sound and everything else, it creates a game that FEELS like banana quest. Very good work here. However,some of the engineshad a few sour graphics, but that could hardly be avoided.
The game isn't perfect however. Some engines, like the swimming one for example, are a bit flawed and create a very difficult game. There are parts of the game where you'll get fustrated. All I can suggest is that you need to save a lot. It also does get a bit slow inparts, and will have you lostin others, but you can hardly blame him.
Good work. You get 5 avacados.
Ohh, and the Bov thing did get a bit annoying, but you wont be losing points over it.
It's safe to say this is WiL's best game. It's also pretty safe to say this is the most overrated game since Chrono wars, and it's not even half as good.
Of course, the graphics and the sound are AWESOME, don't get me wrong. Very few people can even begin to approach WiL in those catagories. However, everybody has their weaknesses, and WiL's are pretty huge.
The game has virtually no plot, other than that which Wells mentioned, and it doesn't help that what plot it has is interspersed with words and sentences I think only WiL understands, and stupid catchphrases that really got on my nerves. 'But what about YAY SIRS' fishfood, I hear you cry. Let's remember though, I wasn't TRYING to sound funny or get my phrases to be popular, WiL is trying. Way, way to hard.
Wells calls this game trippy. It's not, at all. There is a fine line between trippy and dumb, and this review is far on the dumb side. It's to straight and boring to be trippy to and to retarded to be serious. Of course thats when you get to play the game, which primarilly consits of ENGINE, another ENGINE and then another ENGINE and then some walking and then game over.
Addictive? No. Tedious and boring? Hell yes.
In short, it's a typical WiL game. Totally unbalanced, with some of the best graphics and music you'll ever see, but nobody goes far on eye candy, and WiL is too busy trying to be funny to bother making any kind of plot. Emphasis on the word 'trying' there.
this has got to be my favourite ZZT game of all time. i love the humor and craziness of WiL's work. you just have to look at places like 'the sock library' to know that it's going to be a funny game to play. plus, there's a TON of quotes to remember from it. not as much impact as something like 'halucina', but good all the same. it also had me saying 'bov' for weeks... the font that it uses is quite a nifty feature too, and WiL's coding is impeccable. and the music will stick in yo' head! forever!!
(In the interest of cutting down on my verbosity, I am writing the following review in sentence fragments. Enjoy.)
Plotline:
GET THE BANANA KEYS AND GO AROUND THE ISLANDS TO RESCUE WOSSNAME FROM MR. SCRUTHERS THE APEMAN!
Leaves something to be desired.
Gameplay:
Engines, engines, engines, and plenty of replayable segments. Generally trippy, in that it involves finding bananas for the "man with a handheld monkey." Oddly addictive.
Graphics:
Good, with a nice font. Very good, in fact. Some nice programming tricks.
Music:
WiL. Very nice.
Overall:
A fun, lightweight, cleverly programmed game that's easily worth at least one playthrough, and perhaps another replay.
