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### Farmer Jack In Harvest Havoc [Spectrum 48/128K]

#### http://www.cronosoft.co.uk/

#### Reviewed By SirClive

Reading the instructions for Harvest Havoc shows that and me Jack have something in common, because Jack loves his home-brew wine. But whereas I just like the odd glass every now and then (just to be social like), Jack has turned his hobby into big business. Unfortunately the more successful he got, the more jealous his competitors became and before long they were ganging up to send mechanical menaces to wreck his orchards. "By eck! Me 'arvest!" exclaims Jack as he jumps in his shiny red tractor. And that's where you come in. The aim of the game is to drive said tractor around the orchard collecting all the fruit whilst avoiding the metal beasties. To fight back you can drop rocks on the evil machines by removing the soil from beneath them (is this starting to sound familiar yet?) and you also have a limited number of bombs at your disposal.

Now if you ever went into an arcade in the 80's then you will surely recognise the premise (and even more so the graphics) as none other than the wonderful Mr. Do! So how well has the game been converted to our rubbery friend?

Bob Smith has done a great job with the visuals and whilst the game is almost a direct copy of Mr. Do! He has managed to add some new character to the graphics, particularly in the brilliant little tractor that jaunts along and actually looks sad when you crash him into a bad guy or he gets crushed by a rock. The gameplay is not quite a smooth as the original, but is more than adequate and when you add in the wonderful AY music and sound effects by Lee Du-Caine you have a great game that is easily worth the £1.75 download fee (or £2.99 for the cassette version). Don’t believe me? Well grab the free 3 level demo and try it out for yourself.

It's only fair that when a game is led by the kind of Somerset philosopher of Farmer Jacks stature that we let him have the last word. Go on jack give them the benefit of your wisdom...

"It's a rum-do this!"

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It's no secret that I have a lot of love for Harvest Havoc - which is admittedly a bit odd as I'm not at all keen on the original Mr Do!. Maybe it's because I prefer Jack's Bomberman-style explosives to Mr Do!'s naff bouncy power-ball? Perhaps it's because I find Angry Farmer & Tractor vs. Robots a more agreeable scenario than Clown vs. Dinosaurs? Or it could be because (like Jack) I'm a West Country lad with a special place in my heart for Sir Clive's 8-bit opus. Oh, and that's the *real* Sir Clive Sinclair I'm referring to there - unfortunately, 'SirClive' (the RGCD reviewer) did not invent the Spectrum, although I'm sure he wishes that he had.

Quite simply, this is the best single-screen arcade game I've ever played on the 128K Spectrum - if I'd reviewed Farmer Jack it would have probably ended up with an overall score in the 90's. Everything about it is pure class, from the ace backing music to the crystal-clear graphics and pixel-perfect collision detection. The game-play and difficulty curve are spot-on too, and every time I play it I succeed in progressing a little bit further. Anyway, you don't have to take my word for it - install the demo and give it a blast. If you're a fan of old-school arcade games (like me) then I expect you'll soon be shelling out the highly-reasonable £1.75 download fee for the full version...

J. Monkman

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Graphics: | 86%
Sound: | 89%
Game Concept: | 82%
Gameplay: | 85%
Lasting Appeal: | 86%

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Q1. As way of introduction, please could you give a brief paragraph or two about yourself and Cronosoft as a retro publisher?

A1. Cronosoft is a 'not-for-profit' software house dedicated to releasing new (and sometimes older, previously unreleased) games for old systems, that are no longer commercially viable for 'big business'. We started out in 2002 with our first release 'Egghead in Space' for the ZX Spectrum.

Q2. Where did the idea behind Cronosoft come from? Was it difficult to convert the concept of becoming a retro publisher into reality?

A2. There wasn't much thinking or planning to begin with - I noticed that emulation of old formats was popular, and there was a vibrant and active community of fans and users of these systems, brought together by the power of the internet; Communities such as Worldofspectrum.org and Lemon64.com.

However, while emulation is great, there was something missing... For the games player, there wasn't the option to buy a game on a physical cassette, with a smart inlay - as well as the enjoyment of ordering a tape, anticipation of loading it on a real machine etc. Also, for the authors of games, the only option was to make their game available for free to everyone to download and play on an emulator. Whilst this is fine for some, I believe the authors work isn't really appreciated in the same way.

For example, if a games player downloads a free game, (s)he may give the game 5 or 10 minutes play before going on to the next one. Whereas, if the player has gone to the trouble of paying £2.99, they get a nice looking tape through the post, something to keep, and really get the best out of a game, being likely to spend much more time playing it. Also, the author will get a payment for every copy sold, and will know that the work is given the attention it deserves.

It wasn't difficult to start - luckily, I made a posting on the World of Spectrum forums, expressing my ideas, and Jonathan Cauldwell offered one of his games for release. Since then, more and more games have appeared, on several formats, from many more authors.

Q3. What work goes into publishing a retro release, could you describe the process? On a related note, generally speaking, do developers contact you with games ready for release or do you actively search for (or contract) new releases to publish?

A3. Normally an author contacts me and sends a game, or maybe a 'work in progress'. I'll check it out, and if it's a good quality game, then it'll be added to the catalogue as soon as possible. Sometimes, we release games that are already freely available - people still buy the games on tape, even if they can download them for free.

When the game is accepted, we'll get some artwork drawn up - much of our artwork is done by a good friend of Cronosoft - Graham Richards - who's a wizz at producing professional quality artwork. Sometimes, the authors supply their own artwork. It's put into a set template (so that the tape inlays look uniform as a whole). Duplication of tapes is normally done manually using a variety of computers - sometimes PC to tape, sometimes from the real machines to tape etc. Inlays are printed on glossy card to make them look decent. It's all a fairly simple home-produced thing, but (hopefully) it looks alright!

Q4. Working with programmers (and indeed a team of reviewers) is often compared to as being as difficult as herding cats. Do you find that you are constantly chasing up people to meet deadlines, or is Cronosoft a fairly laid back, casual organisation?

Q4. Haha... quite the opposite! I'm the disorganized and lazy one... There are certainly no deadlines or anything like that. Everything is completely informal. Because I only have limited time and a very small budget, it's unfortunately myself that delays the release of some games. Often there are problems that crop up with tape mastering (especially with games on formats that we haven't released much stuff for). We're having problems with a couple of games at the moment - our first releases for the Commodore 16/Plus 4 and Dragon 32/TRS 80. The games are all written and ready to go - just getting them put reliably to tape is the problem...

Q5. Is there any money to be made in publishing games for otherwise commercially unsupported machines, or is Cronosoft a labour of love?

A5. No - you certainly couldn't make a living from it! Out of a £2.99 game, £1.00 goes to the program's author, leaving the remainder to cover the tape costs, printing, materials, and whatever is left over goes into the kitty for attending computer shows and stuff like that. As long as the costs are covered, then I'm happy to spend a few afternoons churning out the tapes!

Q6. Do you have a favourite 8-bit/16-bit machine? Also, how many (if any) retro gaming machines do you possess?

A6. What a question...! I'd have to say the ZX Spectrum, though there are many other machines I have a special interest in, like the Oric (I used to edit the last remaining UK Oric magazine until it's closure a few years back), Vic 20, Commodore 64 and ZX81.

I've got literally hundreds of retro machines at present - Sord M5, Vectrex, Laser 200, Sharp MZ-700, a Jamma arcade machine with Neo Geo 6-slot, TI99/4A, Colecovision, Wonderswan, Dragon 64, Commodore 128D, Atari 400, Tandy MC10 - those being the slightly less common ones.

Q7. Aside from the new game being coded by Jonathan 'Joffa' Smith, what new releases are in the pipeline, and roughly when can we expect to see them?

A7. There are quite a few new ones coming... STRANDED 2.5 (Spectrum), QUANTUM GARDENING (Spectrum), STRONGHOLD (Spectrum), BOMB CHASE 2007 (Commodore 64) and WARFLAME (Commodore 64) will be some of the first ones, hopefully in a few weeks time.

After those, there are GLOVE (Dragon 32/Tandy Color), Lunar Blitz (Vic 20), Reaxion (Commodore Plus 4), Castle of Madness (C64 disk) and Church of Death (Commodore 16)

After a bit longer, we'll have BALLOONACY (Spectrum version), as well as some others that are in the early stages of development.

Q8. What (if any) new 8-bit/16-bit games have captured your attention recently? Are there any active developers out there who you'd be particularly be interested in signing up?

A8. There are some great new games appearing from Russia and Eastern Europe at the moment, as well as from Spain, which are often overlooked. Whilst the former are very well known for producing demos, there are some very impressive games appearing too.

I'm very proud to have our existing submissions from Jonathan Cauldwell, Bob Smith, Jason Kelk, Richard Bayliss etc., and would like to thank them especially. I would love to release a Matthew Smith game, having talked to him at the CGE show in Croydon. Maybe something too by legends such as Jon Hare (Sensible Software), Archer Maclean, Jeff Minter - Maybe they have some old forgotten projects somewhere... I live in hope :)

I must admit, I nearly had kittens when Jonathan Smith contacted me.

Q9. What are your plans for the Retro North event this year?

A9. I'll try and bring as many different systems as I can fit into my Bedford Rascal - and as many tapes as it's possible for a human to copy! Quantum Gardening and Stranded 2.5 will be there for everyone to play, as well as maybe some other 'unseen' things...

10. Thank you for participating in this interview. Is there anything else you'd like to add before signing off? (This is your chance to speak, ask questions, plug your website, etc.)

Thanks for the interview, and good luck with the disk mag! If anyone is interested in submitting games etc. then feel free to contact me - my email address is chaosmongers@yahoo.com and you can find our games at http://www.cronosoft.co.uk/