Zooming Secretary

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Zooming Secretary
ZMGSCTRY.png
GenreAction Platform
DeveloperLee Weber(D3thAdd3r)
Code licenseGNU General Public License version 3
or (at your option) any later version.
Media licenseCreative Commons Attribution Share-Alike version 3.0
EngineUzebox 3.3
Video Mode3
Latest releaseFinal Version
Release dateAugust 29, 2017
LanguageEnglish


Zooming Secretary is an action platform game reminiscent of earlier classic arcade games, with new original concepts. This game is based on the NES port(an original title) by Shiru(programming) and Pinwizz(media). You take the role of an overworked secretary who must answer phone calls before they hang up. Each phone call requires information related to 4 different topics: Earth, History, Literature, and Space. By going to a file cabinet with the specific icon, she will acquire the information related to the topic and can answer any phone call requiring this type information.

The player will need to use quick thinking and cunning to minimize travel time between points and avoid unnecessary trips which may mean answering calls out of order or damage control sacrifices; too many failures and the secretary will be fired(though they have no replacement)! Avoid the boss who slows the secretary down with babble, the unmovable gossiper, the confusing assistant, the wreckless moving man, the creepy secret admirer....all while using healthy dosages of caffeine to speed through the level, and catch her dreamy but elusive "bad boy love interest". After all this, she is really going to need a vacation!

Features

  • High accuracy to the original NES version
  • Attract Mode
  • Test Mode
  • Catchy and minimalist music

Controls

  • SNES Pad:
    • D-PAD - run left/right and climb up/down ladders
    • start - bring up in game menu
  • Nes pad supported.


ROM

Play In Browser

See the forum thread[1]

Sources

GitHub

Game Manual

Zooming_Secretary_Manual

Credits

This is based on the source code to Zooming Secretary(NES) by Shiru, and the content(graphics/sound) is based on the content from Pinwizz. It should be mentioned that this source code bears a striking resemblance to the original state of the Alter Ego source code before the port to Uzebox(where the Uzebox source code is very different now). It should be understood, that Shiru did not program in a way that would be the easiest to read, instead he programmed in the way that is the absolute most efficient for the CC65 compiler targeted at NES. This causes some extra complication, but due to the architecture of the 6502 and CC65 itself, things like global variables used across different functions, pre-incrementations where possible, and various other items were done throughout the source code to produce smaller and faster code for the NES version. The 6502 was never designed with the things that a C compiler requires in mind.

As said with Alter Ego, I would not have started if I didn't think the game was great and having source code available was extremely handy to ensure the gameplay is an exact match. Also like before, it requires a surprisingly large amount of recoding and translation(and content translation is not trivial...to say the least!) to make a game that is very specific and targeted to the NES hardware work on Uzebox. I have converted(for better or worse) all the code to basically my usual style, but did not change the global variables and many other things..because it already took too long to make this all work right.

Printable Box Art

Source

TO BE CLEANED UP