Draughts Genius - Bored Games..
Dear reader, picture the scene if you will. It's a grey , cold , damp Saturday in November. Far too wet and cold to go to the woods or ride your bike up and down the road. You are an only child , both parents are doing something very adult and probably very important, but you do have a ZX Spectrum and a cassette that looks like this.
Well, it would be rude not to accept the invitation to have a game of draughts. But before we dive into the exciting gaming action from 1987, let's just remind ourselves of the days of board games. Like most people of my generation board games had been a constant in my youth. As you can see from below.
But I had one problem, no one to play against. Very often instead of a bedtime story I could score a game of snakes and ladders, ludo, steeplechase etc before bed ( with Dad throwing the board across the room when he lost for comic effect!) . But, if the ZX Spectrum was offering to play against me than all my problems were over!
But I had one problem, no one to play against. Very often instead of a bedtime story I could score a game of snakes and ladders, ludo, steeplechase etc before bed ( with Dad throwing the board across the room when he lost for comic effect!) . But, if the ZX Spectrum was offering to play against me than all my problems were over!
Draughts was one of the games that Dad and I would sometimes play, well play in my case , cheat in my Dad's case, (sneezing loudly and knocking the board to move pieces was one of his favourites.) However, that was one advantage to playing on the computer, he could sneeze as much as he liked and those pieces were not going to move.
The great thing about this game was playing against the computer controlled Einstein. Now Einstein does get quite animated about the game, sometimes he gets so animated he falls asleep , he breaks into a little sit down dance at the end of the level. He does rather like the phrase invalid move as well, in the easier levels if there is a piece that can be taken , you have to make that move as all other moves are called invalid. No tactical play allowed here, which in my earlier teens rather suited me.
Now, I have to admit there isn't really a lot you can say about this game, you move the pieces , you take turns. First one to lose all their pieces loses. It is a nice simple little game. But here we come to why this game is in my list of memories.
The words nice and simple, there are no guns, no bombs, no space ships, no car chases, no helicopters, no missiles . You are not running away from ghosts, jumping over mutant penguins , there are no power pills to be gobbled here.
The words nice and simple, there are no guns, no bombs, no space ships, no car chases, no helicopters, no missiles . You are not running away from ghosts, jumping over mutant penguins , there are no power pills to be gobbled here.
It's a nice civilised sit down, you can just imagine there is a pot of tea brewing in the background, quite possibly a tray of cherry bake-wells in the offing as well. It was almost a shock to the system after all the running around and shooting things. This is why I think I returned to this game time and time again.
There are retro games and there are retro games, some games take you back to the early days of computer games when graphics were simple and sounds were minimal. But there are games that take you back further, back to the days when a piece of cardboard and some counters took the place of a TV screen.
It's good to be reminded of those simpler times, but when you are an only child it's also good to have that little black box to play against , especially when all the adults are busy.
It's good to be reminded of those simpler times, but when you are an only child it's also good to have that little black box to play against , especially when all the adults are busy.