Knock-In Queens
by GameCorner
A boxing demo which needs more work.
| There are two boxers, Maik Taison and Muhamet Yli. Come out fighting! | |
| Sometimes people think that QBasic is only good for turn based multiplay. This game kind of lends weight to that argument, since having two people at the same keyboard is bad enough but it also requires some fast paced action. Still, its design is simple, but the keyboard handler requires you to keep hitting at the keys. It seems that INKEY$ was used, so it can be easy to keep punching away even if you let go of the keys; however, if you are playing with another person, as this game requires, you can be almost sure that if both of you are pressing the keys, you will have no way to "queue up" hits in the buffer. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, imagine it to be like rapid fire on a video game, only it keeps going a little bit longer after you let go of the button. Basically you have to win three rounds, each lasting up to 300 seconds or five minutes. Unfortunately, the clock doesn't refresh on the screen until you press a key, so 5 minutes could be a little closer than you think. What I found was that if you end up running out of time, and the score is tied, Maik Taison wins by default. Also, Maik is on the right, yet his name is on the top, which is counterintuitive. I also don't like games that automatically stop running once the game is over. At the very least have a menu or an intro screen so I, the user, can decide when I am finished with the game. Imagine if you are playing Super Mario Bros. and once you get a game over screen, it says, "Thanks for playing!" with no way to start a new game. This game could have had more, but it is only a demo, so let's hope the finished product will be better. An active clock display, more simultaneous actions, more complexity, and fixed logic errors in the timer, and this game will be much more playable and better...also a menu would help keep people from being frustrated when the game is over. |
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| The graphics are simple, as well as the animation. You can see blood as you hit the opponent, but the animation is so quick that it can be hard to catch. The flicker is terrible, especially when you are really trying to hit the opponent. A lot could be improved here, such as adding a nice background to go with the boxing environment. | |
| At first I thought that it was not that well done, and while it could still use some improvement, in a two-player fight, the controls do relatively well. The buffer is not a problem, and so long as both players are moving, the only reason the game isn't smooth is because of the flickering graphics. Perhaps some more complexity would have helped, but the simple controls really helped here. This even had a context sensitive key, where you cover and uncover depending on the state you are in. | |
| No sounds. | |
| The only challenge in this game comes from the human opponent, since there is no AI player. To that end, the controls do not make the attacks easy to land. You have to get in close enough, but while you are moving in, the opponent could be throwing a punch. So one player could seriously try to move in to attack while the other plays defensively. While this doesn't always work, it can give someone an advantage which might not be fair. | |
| Oddly enough, multiplayer games always have this appeal when you have more than one person in the room. I played this with my sister, and even though I thought that it wasn't going to be fun at all, we actually played 12 rounds or so. If the controls and the graphics would have been better, perhaps we would have wanted to play more. As it was already, the game was a little fun. Perhaps an AI would have worked out nice for when you are not fortunate enough to have anyone around. | |
| As you can see, there is a lot to be desired from this game. If you are fortunate enought to be able to play with someone else, try it out. You might like it for its simplicity. Still, the graphics need work, the controls need work, and the design itself needs a little work. This shows a lot of potential though, and hopefully we'll see a well done finished version of this game soon. | |
| .zip file: 48.9 KB download |