Licence to Mow - Ed Toovey

Gentlemen, start your mowers

More Advanced Lawnmower action - I'm shaken, but not stirred. Although, I am delighted to present Licence To Mow, by Ed Toovey. A 'Super advanced' lawnmower simulator for the ZX spectrum. 

 Ed writes:

Following the thread here 

Specifically this post

"Note: there are two ALS - Adventure games in the database. And probably more in the history of the competition...

Super Advanced Lawnmower Simulator The_Sequel(1993)

Advanced Lawnmower Simulator - The Adventure(2008)

Apparently the idea is resurrected every 15 years.

It was clear that the time has come round again for a lawnmower based adventure. Therefore I am proud to present Licence to Mow, an adventure game in no way inspired by Ian Fleming. 

Verbs of use are:

GET, DROP, R, REDES, QUIT, Q, STOP, SAVE, LOAD, RAMSAVE, RAMLOAD, LOOK, EXAMINE, X, TALK, SHOW, TURN, GIVE, KILL, OPEN, TYPE, RING, SHOOT, THROW.

Enjoy

Back to my review...

Licence to Mow has a lovely loading screen. The use of black and red is a strong visual in its own right, but the colour choice also evokes a sense of the gun barrel and blood of the famous Bond franchise opening sequence. Wonderful!

As the game loads we are treated to a little beeper track. It sounds great! The tune seems familiar, but I can't place what it is. Not the Bond theme alas! The beeper tune ends a little abruptly, suddenly cutting off without a proper ending. But hey, the game HAS music and a loading screen - I'm not complaining. In fact the initial impression is of a game that is not at all crap.

The only real warning bell is that the post that Ed cites as the inspiration for this game was not that long ago. Clearly then, Ed can't have had very long to plan and make this game - will the limited time show in the execution?

The other thing that is immediately disappointing is Ed's verb list - There is no "mow" verb. This seems a criminal oversight! I mean instead of to KILL you could use 'mow down' at the very least.  

Pun-tastic

Saying that, the parser seems very good, and the things I tried actually worked. One major barrier to text adventures for me is when a game just keeps saying things like "I'm sorry I don't understand" over and over again, while I exhaust every possible way of saying "open door" before a rage quit in utter frustration and defeat.

My earlier concerns about the speed of this game's production start to become reality as I head SOUTH towards the submarine that is to the NORTH.

Things soon take a turn for the worse. I travel to an area of the game, there is no mention of a man being there. I can't talk to him, or see him, but he blocks my access even though he's not here. He also has the same dialogue as another man somewhere else in the game - is this a bug?

But, Licence to Mow feels like a proper puzzle game, which I will try not to spoil in this review. I will say that the game has a nice sense of humor and lots of mower based Bond puns. This is holding my attention and making me want to play on!

There is certainly lots of mower based fun to be had. 

The goal of Licence to Mow is to solve the puzzles that will allow you to find the six mowers hidden around the map. As you go you will upgrade your mower, which will unlock access to different areas of the game. I haven't completed it yet, but I'm making good progress. The game seems fair, simple enough and fun. OK, it is a little rough around the edges (a couple of typos mainly, and some of the locations are a little bland), but its quite an achievement given the short time scales Ed had to make the game.

Mrs Bizzle's remarks

I am disconcerted that we are wandering around naked!

And rather prophetically.... "No one will be interested in that book".

  

Final remarks

This is a proper little text adventure, with an amusing theme, that responds nicely to the thread that was it's inspiration. The game is jampacked with humor and interest details. You should go play it, for sure (here).

PS, 

Since reading this review, Ed has updated his game to make it even less crap, and the link above now takes you to the new version. Please redownload.

New verbs!!

M, MOW, ENTER

Lovely.