Santa's Slip-Up

By Ross Little

Originally published in EUG #17

Hello and welcome to this debut article by me, Ross Little. Yes, it's true. From now on I hope to have a regular article to you every issue of EUG starting from now. The full feature will consist of this little bit of waffle from me and a few games every other month. Hopefully, the only time that you won't have a few games will be this month, because this time there's only one offering, written by me for you.

If any of you want to know about me (and I doubt that by now anyone will!) then I'll tell you. I have owned an Acorn Electron for nine years now; it was bought at Christmas in 1985 for the whole family. When it eventually retired, I bought another one for five pounds from a car boot sale then upgraded to ADFS and added a Plus 1 so I could receive EUG on disk. My first disk on subscription was EUG #15, although I have back issues to EUG #13. Because I thought there were too few submissions, I decided to have a go myself. And so here I am now.

As I said, I only have one game this month, but I have written out the instructions below. Hopefully we'll have more next time if you send them in and I have time to write them.

I thought I would go for a topical one this month, being Christmas and all that. So here it is, Santa's Christmas Slip-up, the game to beat all others. Yes, you can stop zapping those aliens and play my game. Otherwise, my ego might disappear altogether.

The aim of the game is to help Santa Claus deliver all the presents to the little children. Ten houses are displayed on the screen and Santa tells you whose present he is holding. You then guess where the child lives and Santa will go there to deliver it. If you get it right, the house vanishes and you score a brownie point with Santa, otherwise he tells you who actually lives there and it's time for you're next move. Try playing this game and see what you think. I suppose you'll be able to tell it only took me a week to write. If you make any vast improvements, then send them in and I'll republish it (credited to you, of course!) but remember, no digitised level introductions! It's designed to look like an early Eighties' game.

Well, it's nearly time for me to go but if you have any games that you have written then don't hesitate to send them to me either on disk or tape at the address above. Please enclose an sae for the return of your media and also provide me with a declaration that it is all your own work, that it has not been submitted elsewhere and that EUG has your permission to publish it. Thank you and goodnight.

Ross Little, EUG #17