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GEM MANIA: "PEKING v3.1o" by PINK PANTER PRODUCTIONS
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system ..... any TOS compatible, at least ST High Res
supports ... BubbleGEM, ST-Guide, Multitasking (esp. Magic), Res. enhancers
tested on .. Falcon TOS 4.o4
genre ...... puzzler
release .... current version o1/o4
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Who had thought that I will do another review of this game in that short time?
The last one was done for UCM 24 and since this time, the update and revamp
actions around this game have made big, very big steps forwards.
But so I just want to include parts of the old review here before I start to dig
around in the updated game...
---snipp---
"PEKING" is nothing more and nothing less than a complete Mah Jong clone, the
puzzle game with the stones mixed on the desk, also in several layers, where you
have to remove the whole bunch of stones while searching the counterparts of
every stone but with the problem that only stones on outer borders can be
removed and also only if they aren't overlayed by another stone. And since all
stones are included in very limited numbers, it is quite tricky, the smaller the
heap is going.
---snapp---
The many actions around the game haven't left back much of it. The biggest new
"feature" is the fact, that pure ST gamblers that just can play on the usual low
res resolutions, can't play the game anymore as it needs "a few pixels" more now
to show the complete stone heap on the screen.
Here it is a bit confusing that the game is a GEM game but don't offers sliders
on the game window to resize it and to make it digestible for ST low rez too.
As the game also refuses to run in med res, ST gamblers just can dig out their
old SM 124 and play it there. This is a big drawback, without any doubt and I
wonder, why the author is still saying 32o*2oo are enough while the smallest
tile set still needs at least 27o pixels in its height...
That this really isn't true you can see right after loading the game. The intro
picture (if we can call it so) doesn't matches onto the screen anymore and the
informations on it are completely mixed up, and so it goes with several menu's
and the toolbox later on, that can't be used in low res anymore.
It looks like that if you start the game in ST Low resolution... arf...
Next problem. The game is optimized for MAGIC or other modern desktops, and this
seems to be the problem that I can't play the game in more than 16 colours on my
Falcon. The whole stone sets are fucked up then, if I try to play with 256 colz.
This is even more worse as the Xmas stone set is just designed for 2 and 256
colours while the other available stone sets, original, traffic signs and flaggs
all support 16 colours, ... BUT... the flaggs don't support the monochrome mode
then... And here I have to ask if optimizing for Magic-what-else means that
possibilities that SingleTOS is offering can be kicked out?! Very strange idea.
Interesting is the point that the author announced that the game runs a bit more
comfortable on Multitasking systems, including MultiTOS. In fact running it on
a, to say the truth, quite old simple Magic test setup bombed the game instantly
out. Also a try with MultiTOS ended in a halted machine -every- time and so I
tested on SingleTOS only. I don't know how it works on good installed and fine
tuned Magic and MultiTOS setups, just try it by yourself.
Anyway, as you can imagine, 16 colours in at least 64o*48o makes the game most
playable on Falcon and I have to admit, that the stone sets look quite nice now,
but I still would like to see them in higher colour depths, arf. The original
set offers wonderful drawn stones, the cards set is hard to recognize, the flagg
and traffic signs are ok but not overwhelming and the xmas set looks very nice,
but only on the homepage of the author...
"playing" in ST Low... :/
The game offers now DMA sound support on the usual machines (STE, Falcon, TT)
and will support also GEMJING in future versions (maybe?) as the button for this
is already included but in the documentation is mentioned that it wont work yet.
The included samples are, erm, just a few fx, including some strange speech
samples if you try forbidden moves. If you try to play the game on machines that
don't support DMA sound you play in silence then, no musix, no fx... another
little drawback to the previous version.
Another feature is that the game supports also BubbleGEM now and so you get some
little informations while right clicking on several objects on the screen, but
the biggest problem is still ahead... the game is still completely in german,
including readme and so on. Furthermore the german readme is only availble in
ST Guide format and the help isn't available in the game itself even though I've
ST Guide installed. Dunno about this problem here.
And we still have new features and changes. At first, the countdown of still
existing tiles was removed, therefore a help mode where the computer takes over
the next turn is still included. At next a toolbox can be called now that offers
a few icons in a window that feature all the important game options so that you
don't must to go into the desk menu anymore and with BubbleGEM installed, the
icons in the tool box are selfexplaining, if you understand german language.
The highscore list is still included as well as the two player mode, where two
guys can play on the same playfield move by move. Other features like exchanging
the background colours and stuff are included as well but don't change that much
on the game itself.
I have to say, I played around with the game a lot over the past days, it surely
makes still some fun even though it is still very hard to solve. On Falcon, even
without MAGIC or something installed, it is still good playable, but taking the
focus onto the ST gamblers that were nice supported with the previous versions,
the sky gets damn cloudy now.
They are damned now to play in silence and monochrome only that doesn't makes
the game that cool anymore as not all stone sets run in monochrome and, overall,
in parts are hard to recognize in just two colours.
Ok... so we reached the final words...
"PEKING" is announced as some kind of super game on the homepage of the maker,
but if you don't own a finetuned and steady upgraded MAGIC environment, best way
also Jinnee as desktop, there isn't much left on here. ST Users get a slap into
their face as they're nearly kicked out of the game. On Falcon the game runs
quite ok, offers some sounds and nice stone sets, but wont run under more than
16 colours as the colours get mixed up then. Before I forget, best way would be
to install some resolution enhancer like Screenblaster or BlowUp, as a higher
resolution is always better.
But in the end I doubt that the latest revamping of "Peking" was the killer
idea, it leaves just a very splitted impression now and falls obviously back
again behind several other clones of that game idea.
________________________________________________________________moondog_o6/2k4___
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