Tower of Love Was an Ambitious Idea That Failed
A nice introduction for my unfinished ZX81 adventure game from 1984.
I had lots of ideas as a teenager. Many of them became actual programs, while others languish in my notebooks. Others made it a bit further, becoming programs on my ZX81, but never finished. A journey abandoned is still a journey. Lets explore one such program this month: Tower of Love.
A quick introduction.
If you give the program a try, youll find it isnt much more than a pretty shell. But man, isnt that shell looking nice? I had a lot of fun creating the artwork for the game. Both in realistic pencil drawings and in ZX81 characters. For example, here is some of the artwork I produced.
Tower Of Love Sketches by Steven Reid, on Flickr
Tower Of Love Sketches by Steven Reid, on Flickr
Im not going to win any art contests with them, but they served as a the foundation for the game images themselves. Although one of these made it into the program, they do show you how I move from concept to implementation.
Tower Of Love Sketches by Steven Reid, on Flickr
These full screen intros are pretty commonplace now, but were still gaining ground when I was kid. For one, they took up a lot of memory. Given the ZX81s minuscule amount, most games focused on content rather than glamour. In many ways, I prefer that over today. Having good game mechanics should be first, with adding glossy images afterwards.
In my case, I focused more on the surface without digging into the depths of the game. If you read the text, I sure had some ambitious ideas for the game. Reading all that, I cant see how I would have gotten one or two of those elements actually in a game. Which, to be honest, is most likely why I never finished it.
Ambition ≠ ExecutionWhich gets to my point. If you look at the code, youll find straight forward
PRINT
routines. Nothing you wouldnt expect from any other program Id written. But the meat isnt there. Nothing. Nada. I dreamed up ideas, but this one never made the cut.
Its too bad as the game actually looks interesting. The idea of saving mankind from evil by making your way to a tower has some merit. The map I created, but didnt add, is intriguing if a bit vague. I never managed to add it, instead moving on to other programs. Which, is pretty much the norm. Not everything makes the cut.
As I noted before, my notebook is full of ideas. Some made it into games. Others stayed on paper. As the title noted, ambition doesnt always equate to execution. Tower of Love is one of many failed attempts. And, that is okay. Not everything was possible, or worth the effort.
And, if you think this is ambitious, you should see what I found when digging to find the design notes above. To my surprise, I had created a more graphic vision for the game. I have no clue what I would have done with that screen, gut it sure is nice to look at.
Tower Of Love Sketches by Steven Reid, on Flickr
P.S. that dragon at the bottom is actually from another game of mine. My remake of Dragons Lair.
Reasons to move on.
It may surprise you, but many ideas werent abandoned because they were hard. In some cases, it was because they were too easy or plain dumb. Some games were doable, but at the time I wasnt quite sure how to make them. For those reasons, they died the death of being too early.
In the case of Tower of Love, it wasnt because it was too ambitious. Instead, it was most likely due to overthinking things. I had a clear idea in mind, but no real plan. The notes above show that I spent a lot of time on the presentation, but there isnt much meat. I suspect that I gave up when I got to the point of building something.
I mean, I spent the time to build the introduction. I generally didnt abandon games once they made it to that stage. Yet, without a good path forward development stalled. If Id started with game playa task to complete, things to do, etc.Id have kept going. But, I suspect the ideas I did have led to a not so fun game. Why spend time building something I didnt want to play it myself. Worse, if Id compromised from the original promise, the game would have fallen flat. Why bother.
So, in the end all I have are some sketches and an idea. Given my intervening experiences, Im sure I could put something together now that would work. In fact, Id start with that second screen and try to make an interesting graphic game. Of course, the ZX81s limitations temper my ambitions, even today. Perhaps someone else will read this and find inspiration.