Cursed Earth - The banned MacDonald's Episode
"This is a ZX Spectrum adaptation of a BASIC game I wrote earlier this year for the BBC micro. It's a mashup of The Oregon Trail from 1975 and the Judge Dredd epic The Cursed Earth from 1978. Written in C using z88dk."
- Kweepa
In the Cursed Trail
You play a band of Judges (think Judge Dredd not Judge Judy) traveling across a dangerous post apocalyptic landscape, in the hope that you can cure a terrible virus before its too late. The game is text based and menu driven. The player is asked to manage resources, make decisions and respond the random events along the way. Sometimes the player has to fight and this is done by typing random words as quickly as possible. The faster these are done, the better the outcome.
A little about the Cursed Earth
In the year 2100, Mega-City Two, on the West Coast of North America, becomes infected with the virus 2T(fru)T (a play on tutti frutti), which drives people violently insane before a painful death. Scientists in Mega-City One manage to develop a vaccine, but authorities find it impossible to safely land at Mega-City Two's airports. The only option is to send a land expedition of Judges across the "Cursed Earth"–the remnant of Middle America that multiple nuclear (and conventional) wars have reduced to a barren wasteland.
As one of Mega-City One's most active and celebrated lawmen, Judge Dredd is assigned to lead the mission. The bulk of the story detailing the many savage and bizarre perils Dredd's party encounters along the road.
A little about Oregon Trail
It is s an educational computer game, developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971. It was developed as a computer game to teach school children about the realities of 19th-century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail. In the game, the player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding a party of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon via a covered wagon in 1847. The original versions of the game contain no graphics, as they were developed for computers that used teleprinters instead of computer monitors. Since then, many version of the game have been developed with graphical minigames.
Oregon Trail running on the Z88 (lookout CSSCGC24)
Now back to Kweepa's submission
There are no graphical mini games here, but the game is competently made using Z88DK all the same. The 'mash up' works very well and the Cursed Earth story is well suited to the game play of the Oregon Trail. As such, the game is nicely atmospheric, and I can't fault it for that.
Oh dear!
So is it crap?
There is no loading screen, no music or sound effects and the game itself does not advance the original gameplay to make for a more interesting and fun game. As such the game feels highly random, and there are only a few limited decisions that can be made on each turn.
I feel like BDAM, BLAM and BAM could have become a more futuristic ZAP, PEWW-PEWW, KABLAMO etc.
The crap must be weighed against the non crap - the nice atmosphere and clever concept as well as the competent use of C to program the game all raise the games standing in this competition.
Final Judgement
Around here I AM THE LAW, and I say the Cursed Trail is far from judged 'dreadful', but it is a little bit Judge Judy. Make of that what you will.
Get it here!
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