ADVANCED LAWNMOWER SIMULATOR 2023
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Original "game" by Duncan MacDonald, circa April 1988
(if you didn't know that, and the story behind it, then why are you here?)

Rehashed, extended, supercharged and blades sharpened
by Jim Waterman, 21-28 March 2023

With:
- John Connolly: sound effect for the battery mower (cheers!)
- Kevin Bezant: explosion sound effect (i.e. I nicked it from Sheer Panic)
- Dave Hughes: author of "Flash Dance", used to make the ATTR-only loading screen
- Rich Pelley: "cheerleader"


On the green
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"I'd like to enter Crap Games 2023 with Advance Lawnmower Simulator 2023 which is exactly the same as the original but you mow right to left instead (or whatever is the opposite). Perhaps the sun is on the other side too? Could you help me?"
- Rich Pelley, 20 March 2023

Rich had contacted me about doing a "deep dive" article for the Grauniad about the long and bewildering history of Crap Games on the Spectrum. As the head honcho of "Crap Game Corner" in Your Sinclair back in the days when we all had real Spectrums (and some of us still do, and are waiting for delivery of a Next), he's in a good position to judge what a Crap Game is. As am I, after hosting the CSSCGC in 2021.

Mr Richard Pelley is not, by his own admission, a programmer. No, really - his programming experience, from what I can gather, extends only as far as trying LOAD "" and ENTER, and loading someone else's program. So here's where I come in. After drowning Rich in a torrent of everything I knew about CSSCGC history, he effectively commissioned me to make his game for him.

Only thing is... that could be done in about ten minutes. Five of those were to flip the UDGs (with the DATA in lines 1 and 2) to a mirror image of themselves (and I have a program that cam do that for me - slowly, in BASIC, but it works). The other five were to look through the rest of the listing, see what needed changing, and change it:
- line 102, change the x-coordinates of the PLOT to "255 minus the original value", and change the sign of the x-direction of the DRAW;
- line 110, reverse the direction of the FOR...NEXT loop m so that it runs from 0 to 30.

And that was it! Job done...?

I don't do things by halves...


Fairway
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"So basically exactly the same game but mirror image, and maybe some extra lawnmowers!"
- Rich Pelley, 21 March 2023

Extra lawnmowers, you say?

I'd already had new ideas snowballing in my head... and didn't want to waste them. The Patio Sprintette, the only mower anyone has been able to use in the original ALS, is a bit past it, and the other five broken mowers from the original have been thrown on the scrapheap. Now, there's a whole range of grass-cutting equipment to choose from with different propulsion methods: a push-it-yourself manual mower, four-stroke and two-stroke petrol engines, 240-volt mains power, an ultra-modern LiFePO4 battery, and there's even a robotic mower that'll do the job for you while you sit in a deckchair with a foaming pint of your favourite Best Bitter.

All the mowers are given their own description screen - and not all of them are controlled the same way. You'll still only need one control key, though. Note that not all the mowers are working, some are a bit temperamental, and some are more hazardous to use than others. By playing the game, you'll find out which is which... one of them will lead to the coveted Corned Beef Sandwich of Victory!

The opening menu has been upgraded to accommodate the new mowers, and the new setting in The Current Year with the constant threat of Climate Armageddon hanging over us (which, at the time of the release of the original Advanced Lawnmower Simulator, Captain Planet was telling us would definitely happen by 2015, possibly sooner). And I've made some extra tweaks to the "verdict" screen as well. Also, the house has sprouted some fetching 2020s solar panels on the roof; they'll be shoving out the kilowatts like there's no tomorrow (which, apparently, there isn't).

There's even... gasp!... machine code! Not much of it, and I didn't write it all (hence the opening credits), but it's not as if there was much call for it, beyond the sound effects and the sudden attribute changes.


Rough
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Duncan MacDonald died in late 2020. I dare not speculate what from, given what had also happened that year.
(Info here: https://www.yoursinclair.co.uk/wiki/Main/DuncanMacDonald)

So, I didn't want to completely overwrite his original game. I would be willing to bet that he wrote it in a single afternoon, on a rubber-key Spectrum, or at least a +2 in 48 BASIC mode, which would explain why the line numbers were all over the place. Things like that I had to tidy up, as well a couple of SPG errors that would never slide through my net. Lines had to be renumbered, broken in half, merged, renumbered again, and marinaded overnight in whisky to get the program into shape.

To show the full development process, I've kept the version-numbered .BAS files in the game package as well as the final tape. v0.0 is Duncan's original listing. v0.1 is the same listing with the bare minimum of changes that Rich was looking for, and one variable changed because BASin spat it back at me. And then, from v0.2 onwards, that's where I have my fun. Look through these and the metamorphosis of Duncan's original listing into the Gigachad 2023 Version will become apparent.


Bunker
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I've already had some ideas for "Advanced Paint Drying Simulator" for the Next, using its range of Commodore-beating colours. This is a promise... it is also a threat.


Out of bounds
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Duncan saw fit to include Flymo among the list of names in his original game. While I could have researched some real mowers, I thought I'd avoid naming anything directly, just in case any of the existing manufacturers out there are in any way litigious...

The "Handscombe, Pimms & Jacobs Splendi-Cut" is a reference to Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies - names I'd come across when I was in single digits when I read "The Fox Busters" by Dick King-Smith; the hens were named Ransome, Sims and Jefferies, but I'd missed the main reason why. I didn't know this was a manufacturer of lawnmowers until an episode of You Bet! some time in the 1990s featured some lawnmower enthusiasts. Even more amazing was that Ransomes (before merging with the other two) made lawnmowers as far back as 1832, before Queen Victoria had sat on the throne.

The "Norfolk Pony" is a thinly-disguised Suffolk Colt. My dad had one, and I've watched one been put back together from its component parts by James May on his "Reassembler" series. Yes, I really can watch Captain Slow fiddling with spanners for that long.

The "Dr. Jaggers Mightymow"... is a reference to the mower-obsessed thrash band, Lawnmower Deth. Two of their members at the time were "Explodin' Dr. Jaggers Flymo" (drums) and "Mightymow Destructimow" (bass). I made this mower a 1994 model as it's a bit dodgy, just like their 1994 album "Billy", which certainly didn't earn any of them a corned beef sandwich.

The "Tonnberg Ecomow-o-Matic" is a reference to everyone's favourite permanently-sour-faced Swedish teenager (who's now 20). You all got that instantly, didn't you? You didn't? How dare you!

The "J-Tech JTX9000" is equally obviously G-Tech with a futuristic-sounding name that's (actually not) OVER NINE THOUSAND (units of... something).

As for the "Tyson LM06", isn't that obvious? If not, the DC06 isn't a lawnmower, it's a vacuum cleaner - Dyson's ill-fated robotic model that was supposed to revolutionise floor cleaning but spent twelve years in development hell, never getting to market. And it's not as if the required technology didn't exist - the Roomba was first sold in 2002 - Dyson just had to go their own way and make it extra-complicated...


The lawn outside the clubhouse
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Yes, I have been making deliberate golf references throughout this overly waffly text file.

I had a toilet made by Qualcast once. They didn't just make mowers, so it seems. I flushed it too hard, the cistern broke and it flooded the bathroom. That was not a good day.


- JW 28/3/2023