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GEM MANIA: "GEM QIX" by PHILLIP DONZE
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system ..... "any" TOS compatible (at least 29o * 22o pixel in 16 colours), NVDI
supports ... ST-Guide, GEMJing, MultiTasking OS'es
tested on .. Falcon TOS 4.o4, SingleTOS
genre ...... Quix clone (...)
release .... 12/o3
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"GEM QIX" is another game that tried to reanimate the starving GEM games scene
but makes, sorry to say that right now, the same failures as the most other new
released so called "GEM" games. But later for that...
As the name suggests, "GEM QIX" is another clone of the old "Quix" game that
invaded about every computer system since the eighties. Even though you know the
game, I will leave a few words about it...
You control a small spot on the edge of a window. In that window a ball is
jumping around and you have the job to minimize the room for that ball while
drawing lines with your spot through the window, but take care, neither the ball
nor the "sparx", little moving spots on the edges of the window should get in
touch with your spot as well as the ball shouldn't touch a fresh drawn line. To
get to the next level you have to fullfill a special ammount of the playfield
with your colour/minimize the room for the ball as far as possible and for your
work you have a special ammount of time.
That's it for the aim of the game in short words. "GEM QIX" changed some bits as
you now have a "Fuse" that prevents too slow line drawing. Another change is the
fact that the ball doesn's acts really physical as he changes the direction also
without bumping to the walls, but this is more or less a bit unfair. Therefore
the number of balls doesn't raises from level to level.
Ok, that were the basics of the game and it's time to get to the technics... The
first thing to mention is, why the game is announced to run on -any- TOS machine
as it wont run. As you can see in the system requirements a minimal resolution
of 29o * 22o pixels in 16 colours is needed to play the game and so ST machines
are kicked out right from the beginning as the game wont run in Hi or MedRes.
If you start the game you get a static window without the usual Gem Menu, that
you can't resize under 22o pixels in height. If you have installed ST Guide you
may get an online help but I didn't tried that out as I doubt you need an
online help for such a simple game. The game offers the most simple grafix that
are possible, only points and lines in different colours. Above the game window
a status "screen" informs you about your lives, the time for solving the level
as well as the ammount of space you have coloured and you have to fullfill to
finish the level.
Sound/FX you only get in Multitasking mode if your machine supports DMA sound
and if GEMJing is installed, meuh... I didn't checked it out yet.
Last but not least the controls. The game is completely keyboard controlled, it
gets started with shortcuts and controlled by the cursor keys. This works good
and may be a better solution as using joystick or gamepad.
You may guess that I already lost my motivation to write more about it and so we
get to the final words...
"GEM QIX" is another game that fails at the aim in reanimating a GEM games scene
as only the fact that Quix runs in a window now makes no GEM game out of it
really. Ok, you can resize the game window in here, but you can't make it
smaller as 22o pixels in height. If you play in higher resolution in a little
window the whole thing screws up. So the contents of the former levels are not
deleted completely and info tables like the highscore are displayed in totally
mixed way. So I doubt this is really the thing a GEM gamer wants to play as you
than can play a classic Quix clone that doesn't runs in GEM environment too and
maybe even smoother and more comfortable...
_______________________________________________________________moondog_o6/2k4___
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