48 Hours Contest 2009
A Review Blitz by Paul Harrington

The 48 Hour Contest has a long, proud history in the OHR community. We've seen some memorable things produced in a very short time: some legitimately good, and some memorable for all the wrong reasons. These contests generally have a theme that authors are required to follow in addition to the time constraints involved. For the 2009 contest, Meatballsub allowed participating authors to join in during three different weekends, each with its own theme. I'll be taking a look at these games in the order in which the themes were revealed, followed by an overall listing of how I thought the games stacked up against one another.

Week 1: Thanksgiving
Fall Be Kind
by The Mad Cacti and Blue Pxl
Download Here



When I reviewed Blue Pxl/Blue Train's Indigo for the 2009 8-Bit Contest, I aired this complaint: "...if you're making a game with a non-standard control scheme, please either include a readme file explaining how to play or instructions in-game. It should take under a minute to write documentation for a game like this." Six months later, he releases another platformer, and I have the exact same complaint. The game's controls are explained on its download screen on Castle Paradox, but do you really expect people to keep that window open after they've downloaded the game? Come on, dude. This is a really low effort request. At least the appropriate Game.exe file was included this time.



There's really not much to say about the game itself. You fall onto an enemy as the game begins, and after walking to the right you'll be given vague instructions on what to do. You can aim a gun, shoot, and jump. There's a turkey in the game, so I guess that's this one's attempt at meeting the contest theme. After killing the turkey, you can take an elevator up to another level where some kind of snake monster will kill you pretty quickly.

I understand that games for this contest will be simple, but making the boss slower/easier to hit, adding any kind of exposition, not dropping you onto an enemy's head when the game starts, and not forcing you to walk in an arbitrary direction to figure out what to do would take all of maybe ten minutes. The color palette's nice and what graphics are there aren't bad, but there isn't a whole lot to see here.

King of Gourmet: Feast for your Life
by Hachi and Gizmog
Download Here
George Washington fends off the invading British through the power of food. A good concept, and interesting gameplay. You're given access to a variety of food, each with its own status-modifying properties. Eating will increase some stats, lower others, and teach you skills. Digesting will recover health, as it should. I was embarrassed by the "om nom nom" jokes, but the game redeemed itself with Metal Gear jokes.



The graphics are horrendous and the battle isn't actually fun to play, but conceptually it's very solid. This could actually be expanded into a full game, and be something worthy of playing for more than a few minutes. It fits the theme in a very amusing way, which is more than can be said for most entries this year.

Turkey Killer
by Spoonweaver
Download Here


Turkey Killer drops a goofy looking pilgrim into a forest full of rather dumb wandering turkeys. The player can then shoot at these creatures with his musket, earning a few points per hit, and losing a few points per miss. It's a simple concept, but it's well scripted, everything works, and there's nothing that really stands out as broken. You can enter a name to go along with your high score, which is then saved for you to try to top later. It's a decent little arcade game, and is one of the more well-designed entries for this contest. On top of all of that, it fits the theme well. I say this about most of Spoonweaver's (good) games, but I'd really like to see this gameplay worked into a larger game.


And so, we have one very good entry by Spoonweaver. Which leads us to...

Week 2: Christmas
A Very Funkotronic X-mas
by Spoonweaver
Download Here


If you've played Spoonweaver's Techno Ship Funkotron, you've already played this game. What we have here is the exact same game with new sprites and a different soundtrack. Like the original, you play a DDR-style mini game that syncs terribly with the game's music while sprites bump into each other and perform lewd actions. Also like the original, playing this game is a waste of your time. There's nothing clever or original here. Spoonweaver's made some very good games lately, and his entry for Week 1 was fun, so it's a shame to see him wasting time revisiting this garbage, even if it only took him a couple hours/minutes to make. The message of this game is, "God, gay people are disgusting!" If that appeals to you, this is the game for you. You're also a worthless human being. Spoonweaver should feel bad for making this game, but anyone who actually enjoyed the experience is a far worse person. I feel guilty praising his good games when I see him releasing things like this.



Wilthawiya
by Gizmog
Download Here
Nerd writes to Santa, wishing for a girlfriend. Girl appears in house. Nerd and girl walk in circles in house and say a few words. You can sleep, and time passes. Maybe something happens after a certain number of days passes, maybe not. There's nothing fun to do and the text isn't interesting, so if there's more beyond what you can see in the first two days, I didn't get to it. Someone else let me know. It would be a good test of insanity to measure just how long someone was willing to play this game.



Santa Bang Bang
by Rebobinar
Download Here
As Santa Claus, the player wanders through a factory hitting children with candy canes for points. The children don't attack back, or react, or really do anything. You can earn points and level up, but I'm not sure why you'd want to. There's no real exposition, and no apparent goal. I don't know if you gain anything from leveling, but I wasn't willing to put the time in to learn. Maybe something happens if you smack every NPC in the game, but I don't know why you'd want to put that much time into playing this game. Competent Zelda-style mechanics, but completely dull.


Maze of the Red Mage
by Moogle1
Download Here
The first thing I thought upon starting this game was, "All of these gameplay instructions would make way more sense in a readme file than in the game's opening." You're presented with a lot of information, all of it essential to playing the game, but you'll probably glaze over it your first time through. The game's relentlessly brutal, but is short enough that dying horribly won't bother you very much. You explore a randomly generated dungeon in search of the terrible RED MAGE. Along the way, you'll pick up treasure, fight quick battles, and get squashed by traps.


The game's writing is really what sells it. It's cute, funny, and won't bore you. I'll admit, in three or four attempts to clear the game, I never defeated the RED MAGE himself, but I came close, or at least I think I did. Everything works, and it's a good time all the way through. Definitely the highlight of the contest.

Week 3: Business

Wage Slave
by Gizmog
Download Here

This was the only entry for the third week of the contest, due to scheduling conflicts. Originally, the third phase of the contest was to be held on the weekend of December 19th, but was pushed back to the 26th. I know that a few people (myself included) were unable to participate in this phase due to the timing and its proximity to Christmas, so I have to give props to Giz for actually turning something in, regardless of quality.

Blank title screens drive me nuts, even in a contest with an extremely tight timing schedule. That said, this game is funnier than Wilthawiya, at least. It's also a test of how long a player can force themselves through tedium, and like Wilthawiya, you'd have to be insane to keep playing for more than a minute or two.



You play as a pig who can pick up pennies in hopes of saving up to buy bricks to build a house. The character graphics are pretty funny, and the text isn't bad. There's still really nothing to do, but it's got more going for it than Wilthawiya.

Standings

These are my opinions on how these games compare to one another. I'll be honest, there wasn't a lot that I liked this year, but the couple of standouts always make it worthwhile. These are my rankings alone and do not reflect the actual results of the contest:

8. A Very Funkotronic X-mas - A rehash of a game that was never worth playing to begin with. If you voted for this, you're scum.
7. Wilthawiya - A Torture the Player game without anything funny to make the torture worth enduring.
6. Santa Bang Bang - Well-coded but aimless.
5. Wage Slave - Another Torture the Player game, but with dialogue/graphics that actually are funny.
4. Fall Be Kind - A nice-looking but half-hearted effort. Actually has objectives, but the one boss you fight is too frustrating.
3. King of Gourmet: Feast for your Life - Great concept that could be make for a great game with a little more refinement.
2. Turkey Killer - All around solid arcade game. Let's see some more levels and enemies that fight back, and we'll have a really fun top-down shooter.
1. Maze of the Red Mage - Quality writing and design, worth playing even outside of the contest.