#emy review

[everygame]

Special Delivery: Santa’s Christmas Chaos (C64)

Developed/Published by: Dalali Software / Creative Sparks (Thorn EMI Computer Software) Released: 1984 Completed: 05/12/2024 Completion: Got a high score of 8750. I’ll take it!

Writing about old video games for an audience of very few could seem like a thankless task–especially when they’re as awful as Christmas Crackers. But there’s a reason I do it. One, I just love playing games, even if they’re so crap I give up on them in minutes. Two, I just love learning. I love discovery, I love finding out things that are new to me about video games and their history. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, I find out some things that no one has really paid attention to before.

I never thought playing a completely random Christmas cash-in on C64 would bring me anything like that.

Special Delivery: Santa’s Christmas Chaos is a game for C64, Spectrum and Atari 8-Bit released by Dalali Software under Thorn EMI’s “Creative Sparks” imprint. At the time it sank without trace due to, apparently, a lack of marketing. After playing it–and I will get into that–I did my usual investigation into the developer, and was quite prepared to dismiss Dalali as one of the many fly-by-night British game developers of the 1980s–they appeared to be only a going concern between 1984 and 1989 and didn’t have any particularly notable games to their name. They were responsible for ports of Rescue On Fractalus and Lilttle Computer People to Amstrad CPC, but largely seem to have had the bad luck of being most related to 1986’s Biggles game. The weirdest thing about that is that not only did I really like the movie on which it was based (which I’m sure no one else remembers but me) when I was a kid, watching it on telly several times, I’ve actually played the game! It was on Amstrad Action #68’s covertape (along with How To Be A Complete Bastard!) and, as vague as my memories of it are now, I’m sure I played it loads of times. Less than How To Be A Complete Bastard, admittedly.

This led me to dig a little further, and sometimes things just fall into place, because I found an astonishingly in-depth article from Sham Mountebank’s When Were They Now? blog (a new one to me) all about Dalali. I think Mountebank slightly buries the lede however, because digging into the linked articles it seems absolutely remarkable that Dalali is not only in the ranks of the earliest companies to have been founded (or co-founded) by a woman, but very likely the first game company founded by a Palestinian: Hanan Samara.

Hanan Samara, pictured in Computer & Video Games March 1985.

Game companies had been co-founded by women before–most famously Sierra, by Roberta Williams and her husband Ken in 1979–but I think Samara’s story might be unique.  According to an interview with ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast she believes she might have been the first female assembly programmer in the UK, starting out by converting software to work for the Arabic market. Moving to work for Thorn EMI, she’d see a Humpty Dumpty puzzle game–programmed by her future husband(!) Chris James–and be “hooked.”

After coding Jumbo Jet Pilot for Atari 8-Bit for Thorn EMI, it seems that she made the leap to founding Dalali–named for her mother’s maiden name (as her mother said go for it, while her dad said to get a job at IBM...) with another ex-employee, Adrian Wadley.

Something I really appreciate about Samara’s story is that she immediately brought herself to game design, with Dalali’s first game “Jinn Genie”. While this kind of Arabic-theming undoubtedly seems stereotypical today, in an interview with Popular Computing Weekly it is clear that this is an early example of someone trying to represent their culture via the art of video games:

“Jinn Genie is a game that incorporates many of the basic myths and children’s stories of my culture–I am an Arab, a Palestinian, and all the ideas of genies and so on are familiar to me.”

Jinn Genie, on C64.

The most disappointing thing, to me, is that Samara is, at this point, unheralded outside of a blog post, one short podcast, and about… three short articles featuring three pictures that can be found on archive.org! She’s one of the UK’s earliest female programmers, game designers and founders, perhaps the first Palestinian game developer, and she has managed to run Dalali since 1984 because it’s still going–they just stopped making games.

Samara’s story isn’t mine to tell, so I hope that institutions like GDC, The Video Game History Foundation or The Strong can find out more and champion her. Figures such as Muriel Tramis have gone from overlooked to winning the Legion of Honour, and if I can help get the word out about Hanan Samara, just a little bit, I’ll feel I’ve done my part.

But I know what you’re asking now.

“But how good is Special Delivery: Santa’s Christmas Chaos???”

So let's return to regular programming. First, I’m going to note that I believe I have played the wrong version of this. When it came to games, Samara was an Atari 8-bit coder, and it is absolutely transparent that Special Delivery is based entirely on Jinn Genie–both feature a flying section, a climbing section, and a section with floors and ladders. It does feel like I should have played the Atari 8-bit version to experience the most representative version, as I did with playing the C64 version of Pirates, let’s say.

(It’s worth mentioning here also that the ANTIC podcast–recorded seven years ago now–even notes that the version of Jinn Genie that Samara coded, for the Atari 8-bit, seems to be lost, although Samara does say that she has a copy of it somewhere. Aforementioned institutions could probably help with that too. What that largely means, though, is that the Atari 8-bit version of Special Delivery is the closest you can get to playing the original Jinn Genie.)

To be fair, the C64 version seems pretty close to the original (the ZX Spectrum port is… not).

As I’ve said previously, my expectations for a Chrimbo cash-in have been low, and no matter how much this is sort of a reskin of a previous game, that it’s got an idea and an actual design exceeds anything I’ve expected. At first glance you might go “well, isn’t this just Santa Claus again?” (or even Santa’s Sleigh Ride.) But it’s honestly much more–even if it is still a bit weird.

In Special Delivery, you’re first flying across the screen in Santa’s (somewhat confusingly drawn) sleigh, collecting presents that… angels are dropping. Which implies that this is in fact the historical Saint Nicolas, or maybe I’m just overthinking it. You’re trying to collect a target number of presents, but you lose them if you crash into clouds (odd) or accidentally collect a demonic present dropped by a devil (who appear rarely, but look very much like angels, annoyingly.) Losing presents won’t kill you, but Santa has a set amount of hours in the night, and you lose an hour if you get struck by the lightning that occasionally appears from the strangely firm clouds.

If you collect enough presents, you get to land on a big house to put presents under the tree. First this requires you climb down the chimney, which in this situation is: huge, full of ladders, and lit so flames keep climbing the ladders that you have to dodge. Once you’ve done that, you’re actually in the house, where you have to Solid Snake your way to the tree, drop off the present, grab the front door key, and then leave through the front door, while the residents run wildly from one room to the next, seemingly out of their nut with either excitement for Christmas or hatred for Santa. Get hit by a flame or grabbed by a resident and you’ll lose an hour.

Interestingly, if you don’t collect enough presents, you don’t get to go into any big houses, but you do get to drop presents down the chimney of some wee houses. You only really pick up big points for going into big houses, which raises the concerning idea that Santa only gives a fuck about you if you’re rich enough to live in a big house.

But to be fair, the people in big houses seem absolutely determined to not get pressies, keeping their fires roaring and attacking Santa on sight, so perhaps he just likes the challenge. “I hope Santa doesn’t show up” they’re saying, “we’ve got all the stuff we need in this big house. We don’t need wooden toys or whatever the historic Saint Nick would be handing out, he should give those to the poor people in the wee houses.”

More fool them, I checked Wikipedia and he was dropping off bags of gold coins through people’s windows. (Admittedly to stop them being sold into prostitution.)

Anyway. Even before I knew the exciting context for Special Delivery, I was struck by how… weirdly ok it was! Maybe it’s just how bad the other Santa-em-ups have been (well, I guess I didn’t hate Merry Xmas Santa) but the different sections largely make sense together, undoubtedly because it’s based on Jinn Genie. The main problem really is that it just doesn’t control very well. Flying the sleigh is stiff, and when you’re actually controlling Santa himself, he reacts very slowly to your input, meaning you have to time presses based on the lag, and I probably lost most of my lives in the chimneys as a result–it might be better on the Atari 8-Bit, so more fool me.

Special Delivery is not really the kind of thing that’s going to hold your attention for very long, but it does actually manage to be playable and feels properly festive. I’ll celebrate that.

Will I ever play it again? I was surprised to see a non-zero number of people say online that playing this is a bit of a Christmas tradition. Well, I don’t think I will be taking it up, but I do fancy playing Jinn Genie at some point now--maybe once that Atari 8-bit version is found!

Final Thought: In my research I was surprised to discover not only had I played a Dalai Software game before, I’d also played a Creative Sparks game, similarly loads of times: Danger Mouse In Double Trouble. Strangely, it has the same multi-game design as this (and I guess, a lot of the computer games of the era) but suffered a lot more for them not having any meaningful connection and mostly being rubbish. Even as a child I remember enjoying just the jungle level and suffering through the rest to get through that. The things you’ll do when you’ve got nothing else as a child.

Every Game I’ve Finished 14>24 is OUT NOW! You can pick it up in paperback, kindle, or epub/pdf. You can also support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up digital copies of exp., a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[xjulixred45x]

Did you saw Ultraman Rising? Or more like ULTRAMAN RAISING😅 What is your opinion?

I saw it and MY GOD THE VISUAL SECTION IS CRAZY.

I heard that the company that made this movie is mainly focused on special effects, and IT SHOWS, especially in the use of lights and how the environments change depending on the context and what is happening around the characters.

The style of characters reminds me a lot of anime, which is understandable since it is set in Japan, and the small details they put into the setting are MWA.

I especially like the design of the mother Kaiju and, of course, Emi. especially how they animated the scene where the mother "dies" and how everything lights up when Emi is born.

The villain is not very deep or intimidating, but I think that was the point, Onda sees his job as eliminating an invasive species that killed his family, while Professor Sato sees them as creatures that are not conscious and it is not correct to attribute them this because they are not evil. They both have their points and are right to some extent.

I like that Onda didn't suddenly change his attitude towards his people, he really cares about HUMAN life, but only that. not the kaijus. we love a consistent villain.

Kenji is a nice character, at first a little uncomfortable for me because of his ego, but the more he shows his TRUE side, especially with Emi, the more likeable and endearing he becomes. especially with its plot with the grief of losing his mother and his relationship with his father.

How Wakita compares his relationship with his daughter and the relationship with Kenji and Emi seemed extremely tender to me because in general he does not romanticize the most important aspects of fatherhood, which I think is GREAT and that should be taken into account not only for the merit of laughs, but as a plot factor (which the movie does).

The parallels between Kenji and Emi and Mr. Sato with Kenji are adorable and painful at the same time, how Kenji really comes to care about Emi despite everything that happened to him up to that point and how thanks to her he mends his relationship with his father. seems appropriate.

I NEED AN EMI PLUSHIE I'M BEGGING YOU NETFLIX----

Although the story is somewhat predictable, I really like how it is executed and the sequel promises a lot.

Solid 8/10

____

la vi y DIOS MIO EL APARTADO VISUAL ES UNA LOCURA.

Oi que la compania que hizo esta película esta principalmente orientada en los efectos especiales, y SE NOTA, especialmente en el uso de las luces y como cambian los ambientes dependiendo del contexto y lo que pasa alrededor de los personajes.

el estilo de personajes me recuerda mucho al anime, lo cual es entendible pues esta ambientado en Japon, y los pequeños detalles que ponen en la ambientacion es MWA.

me gusta especialmente el diseño de la Kaiju madre y, por supuesto, Emi. especialmente el como animaron la escena donde la madre "muere" y como todo se ilumina cuando Emi nace.

el villano no es muy profundo o intimidante, pero justamente creo que ese era el punto, Onda ve su trabajo como eliminar una especie invasora que mato a su familia, mientras el profesor Sato los ve como criaturas que no son concientes y no es correcto atribuirles esto porque no son malvados. ambos tienen sus puntos y tienen razon hasta cierto punto.

me gusta que Onda no cambiara su actitud con su gente de repente, realmente le preocupa la vida HUMANA, pero solo eso. no los kaijus. amamos un villano consistente.

Kenji es un personaje agradable, al principio un poco incómodo para mi por su ego, pero cuanto mas se muestra de su VERDADERO lado, especialmente con Emi, se hace mas simpatico y entrañable. especialmente con su trama con el duelo de perder a su madre y su relación con su padre.

como Wakita compara su relación con su hija y la relación con Kenji y Emi me parecio tierna de sobremanera porque en general no romántiza los aspectos mas importantes de la paternidad, lo cual me parece GENIAL y que debe ser contado en cuenta no solo para merito de risas, sino como factor de la trama(lo cual hace la película).

los paralelismos entre Kenji y Emi y Sr. Sato con Kenji son adorables y dolorosos al mismo tiempo, como Kenji realmente llega a preocuparse por Emi pese a todo lo que le paso hasta ese punto y como gracias a ella arregla la relación con su padre me parece apropiado.

NECESITO UN PELUCHE DE EMI TE LO REUGO NETFLIX----

si bien la historia es algo predecible, me gusga bastante como lo ejecutan y la secuela promete mucho.

Solido 8/10

[p1xel-1mp]

I liked it a lot! I’m super interested in the world and premise, It was a decent movie! I’m obsessed with superheroes, magical creatures and reluctant parental characters that eventually let down their walls and forge deep bounds with their kids. This is all of that!

If it gets made into a series/sequel and gave me the time to really fall in love with it I would most likely acquire a new hyper fixation.

Also they made the overgrown bird fetus really cute somehow?!!!?!! HOW DID THEY DO THAT!!??!?!!!??!?! HOW DID THEY MAKE THIS UNCANNY LOOKING MONSTROSITY:

CUTE!?!?!!! ITS TERRIFYING!?!!!??! Anyways i would die for Emi, thx for listening to my TedTalk.

@s0lace-1n-s0l1tude

[stolenlandsshitposts]

Honestly at a point I've become kind of enchanted by Darven. Not because I like the character. That is impossible. Sorry Kickstarter dude. I'm just so impressed by the pure audacity of his existence. That dude is in the game. That guy is so very in the game. Every goddamn time you have to play the game, that guy is there. And maybe in a way that's kind of beautiful. Shout-out to Kickstarter dude for not only getting your OC in the game but making it so that countless people will never, ever fucking forget him. Is that not the dream we all have. My god.

[mystical-one]

awesome combo

[sgt-celestial]

currently the collection btw. This is about 1/5 the size of my dads collection which we share so theres also that but these r the ones i keep in my bedroom for casual listening 🎧💿 imagine thats a vinyl emoji

[abookishshade]

What I liked in Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, tr. by David Boyd and Lucy North (spoilers)

1) Theme of gender roles in workplaces. Shibata is the only woman in her section at the office, and all menial work like getting tea or coffee for others, cleaning up the fridge, etc. falls on her. It makes it difficult for her to focus on her actual work for which she was hired. It also gives her less time to herself at home as she almost daily ends up leaving for home from work past her time. So, one day in annoyance she comes up with the lie of her pregnancy. That solves all of the above issues for her in addition to gaining her the maternity leave that gives her a break from her annoying workplace.

2) Theme of loneliness. Shibata seeks solitude but she is also alone at times. She considers herself less miserable than the married women who despite being drained and tired themselves do the housework for their family, while she can spend her time doing what she likes. She does not like talking to people who do not care for her but would ask intruding questions about her private life and comment on what she isn't doing right according to them. Talking to those people makes her feel very alone. And it is not even as simple as avoiding the people she finds annoying because perhaps the vibrancy in those interactions makes her solitary apartment more darker: But why do I have to deal with these people who try to act like they care about me or my pregnancy while they ask the most inane, prying questions? Why is it up to me to produce answers that please them? And why is the way home so much darker and colder on nights like that? More than that, why is my apartment so dark when I come home alone from aerobics, after talking with the others about nothing in particular, snacking on whatever sweets are spread out on the table? There is also the fact that not everyone she finds annoying is so merely because they have nothing better to do or because they are inconsiderate. I think this was particularly emphasized through Higashinakano's character. He seemed annoying at the beginning, but later we find out that he has his own emotional reasons related to pregnancy and babies. At one point she also talks about family: Maybe that’s what making a family is all about: creating an environment in which people make space for one another— maybe without even trying, just naturally, to make sure that nobody’s forgotten.

3)Theme of lies. She is a 34 year old unmarried single woman living alone. But her lie turns her into an unmarried single mother, and she dedicates herself completely to this lie doing everything exactly as a pregnant woman would do for the entire period of a normal pregnancy. She does this because she doesn't care about lying to those intruding people and this lie enables her to maintain her privacy while still interacting with them: Even if it’s a lie, it’s a place of my own.

4)Theme of religion and motherhood. She talks to Mary, the Virgin Mother, in her head at parts. She sympathises with the role thrust upon Mary and the circumstances of her becoming the Virgin Mother and being eternally known as such, her personhood entirely ignored. Shibata too, after all, could get out of her uncompensated for extra duties only after she turned herself into a would-be mother through her lie. She finds solace in talking to this famous mother who must not have had it easy either, especially in those times, eons ago.

5) Theme of body. I liked how relatable Shibata's self-consciousness was: It was the bottom part of me that was different. I quickly dried myself off and tried on some skirts and jeans. Nothing looked right. My thighs were jutting out. And the way I looked from behind was . . . Well, it was just too painful to behold. This. I have felt this too. And I was happy for her when she felt better about her body after her walks and aerobics: It hadn’t even been three weeks since I’d signed up, but my body was already changing, little by little. Whenever I got out of the bath and looked at my backside in the mirror, I could see a real difference in my hips and thighs. My core felt stronger, and I didn’t feel like I was about to fall over all the time. My belly was getting bigger, and sometimes I felt a pain in my back, but it wasn’t unbearable. Honestly, I was feeling better than I ever had in my life.

6) The writing. I liked all the descriptions of the mundane day-to-day life activities. And her thoughts. Her overthinking tendency was also very relatable to me.

What I didn't like:

The visit to the doctor. It made zero sense to me. I was confused af.

[umangharyana]

Waaree सोलर ऑफर: 2kW सिस्टम से मात्र ₹600 में शुरू करें बिजली की बचत

अगर आप अपने घर की छत पर सोलर सिस्टम लगाने का सपना देख रहे हैं, लेकिन पैसों की कमी आपको रोक रही है, तो अब चिंता की कोई बात नहीं। केंद्र सरकार की “पीएम सूर्यघर योजना” के तहत आप मात्र ₹600/महीने की किस्त पर Waaree का 2kW सोलर सिस्टम अपने घर पर लगवा सकते हैं। यह योजना आपके लिए बिजली के बढ़ते बिलों से छुटकारा दिलाने का बेहतरीन मौका है। खास बात यह है कि सिर्फ 4 साल में यह सोलर सिस्टम आपका हो जाएगा, और…

[latestnews69]

Best save ever? - but Martinez can't stop 'huge moment' for Forest

Read more click here

[thenerdsofcolor]

An X-Citing Chat with 'X-Men '97' Director Emi/Emmett Yonemura 

An X-Citing Chat with 'X-Men '97' Director Emi/Emmett Yonemura  @RoboticEmmett @MarvelStudios #XMen97

It’s been over five months since X-Men ’97 debuted on Disney+, and the internet is still talking about how good this show is. It’s left a substantial mark on Marvel fandom and even garnered an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program this year for the groundbreaking, Earth-shattering episode “Remember It.” We were fortunate enough to sit down with the nominated director of that episode,…

[moviesandmania]

CORONA (2020) Infection thriller - free on Amazon Prime, Crackle, Plex, Redbox, Tubi, YouTube

‘Fear is a virus’ Corona is a 2020 Canadian thriller film about neighbours that are trapped in an elevator with a young Chinese woman they suspect has COVID-19; accusations and racism spread among them faster than a virus. Written, produced and directed by Mostafa Keshvari, the GrandMuse Pictures Andrea Stefancikova, Andy Canete, Emy Aneke, Josh Blacker, Richard Lett, Traei Tsai and Zarina…

[evaahan]

Simple Dot One: कम कीमत में मिलेगा इलेक्ट्रिक स्कूटर जैसा परफॉर्मेंस

बेंगलुरु की सिंपल वन इलेक्ट्रिक स्कूटर बनाने वाली कंपनी ने अपनी दूसरी किफायती इलेक्ट्रिक स्कूटर Simple dot one electric scooter को लांच कर दिया है। सिंपल डॉट वन इलेक्ट्रिक स्कूटर में कम प्राइस टैग और एक छोटी बैटरी पैक के साथ सिंपल वन इलेक्ट्रिक स्कूटर के जैसे ही डिजाइन और लुक दिया गया है। सिंपल डॉट वन इलेक्ट्रिक स्कूटर ओला S1, ऐथर 450X, टीवीएस आइक्यूब, ओकिनावा प्राइस प्रो और काइनेटिक ग्रीन जुलू…

[altarus]

Peter Gabriel - i/o

After more than two decades Peter Gabriel is finally back with a new album. We investigate if the wait was worth it. Continue reading Untitled

[rashid92786]

Online Mobile Shopping Sites in India.

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[mystical-one]

peer review