Nuclear Waste
Dump
Preview
WTF is Nuclear Waste Dump? Well, it's a small game which is
currently under development by Paradize, an Atari crew that
lately acquired a new member called Minz. It also seems that
Minz will completely redo all graphics of the game since STS who
was supposed to do the job quitted the project. The coding is
done by Simon Sunnyboy and the music, hmmm we don't know yet,
the preview contained a nice tune by Lotek Style.
Game Modes
The game principle is quite simple you have to pile up barrels
with nuclear waste on your screen until your waste disposal
storage is filled to the ceiling. Unfortunately there is one
thing you have to keep in the back of your mind all the time,
never put barrels of the same colour next to each other,
otherwise everything will blow up. So far so good, you can
arrange the barrels in harmless pattern for some time, but those
things keep appearing at the top of the screen and start falling
down after shorter and shorter time periods. In the beginning
you have time enough to move the barrel horizontally to a save
drop-place and press space to release the barrel. (I wonder why
you are allowed to drop them if they are so very dangerous :)
Anyway with time the period you are allowed to move the barrels
gets shorter and shorter until the barrels will just fall from
the sky. Sounds not fair? Well it isn't. Nuclear Waste Dump is
one of those games you can't win. After some time it gets
impossible to even move your barrel before it drops
automatically. I guess the Job description doesn't sound too
good eh? Better look for some other place to work at :). In the
current build of Nuclear Waste Dump there is only one game mode
included.
What about the
graphics and
stuff?
Since the game is a very early preview it only featured concept
art and music. The pixels were not really what you would call
earth-shattering but the contained chipsound by Lotek Style was
really nice. Minz has already done some promising graphics for
the game, they are still in an early stage but they are
lightyears ahead of the concept graphics from the demo version I
got.
The game mechanics work fine, but I would spend a bit more time
on the game design and especially the order in which the barrel
colours are chosen. Sometimes it's almost impossible to find a
combination that will not explode since barrels of the same
colour keep coming, predefined barrel colours for each level
would solve the problem. Also some more game modes wouldn't
hurt; they would also improve the lastability of the game. And
last not least keep in mind, gamers actually like winning a game
:)
Overall
Nuclear Waste Dump looks more like a mini game than a standalone
game to me, at least in the early state which I received for my
review. If you take the mini-games contained in the latest
Paradize release called Pooz, you can only call them addictive.
Especially "kolmik" certainly has the potential to get you
addicted. However we are talking not talking about Pooz here and
NWD surely has a lot of potential. The question is: Are the
authors are willing to see what this game could be? Considering
the planned release date, and the current workload that Simon
Sunnyboy is under atm, I doubt there will be enough time to
fully expand the possibilities that lie within the game, well
let's see...
Cyclone / X-Troll for Alive, 2005-11-12
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Game Title: Nuclear Waste Dump
Genre: Action
Supported Machines: [X] ST [X] STE [X] TT [X] Falcon [?] CT60
Minimum Memory: [X] 512 kb [ ] 1 MB [ ] 2MB [ ] 4 MB [ ] more
HDD Installable: [X] yes [ ] no
Coding Laguage: GFABASIC
Description: A little action puzzle game. Barrels full of
different nuclear waste products need to
be deposited into a concrete well. Make sure
no fallout or explosion occurs!
Game Design: Simon Sunnyboy
Coding: Simon Sunnyboy
Artwork: MinZ
Sound: Music undecided, Digi effects by Aldn
Current State: In development
Planned Release: Paracon 2005
Website: http://paradize.atari.org
Contact: marndt(at)asmsoftware(dot)com
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