Lazy Jones

Lazy Jones

Commodore 64 cover art
Developer(s) David Whittaker
Publisher(s) Terminal Software
Designer(s) David Whittaker
Composer(s) David Whittaker
Engine Proprietary
Platform(s) C64, ZX Spectrum, MSX, Tatung Einstein
Release date(s) 1984
Genre(s) Platform game
Mode(s) Single-player
Screenshot from the Commodore 64 version.

Lazy Jones is a computer game for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX and Tatung Einstein. It was written by David Whittaker and released by Terminal Software in 1984. The Spectrum version was ported by Simon Cobb.

Lazy Jones is essentially a collection of fifteen smaller sub-games. The game takes place inside a hotel with three floors, connected by an elevator. The character is a lazy hotel employee who does not much care for his work, but prefers to sneak into the rooms to play video games instead.

The main screen in Lazy Jones is the hotel interior. There, the character can use the elevator to travel freely between the three floors, but he must watch out for enemies: the current hotel manager on the top floor, the ghost of the previous manager on the bottom floor, and a haunted cleaning cart on the middle floor. The enemies only walk around and do not pursue the character, but contact with them is fatal.

Each floor has six rooms, three on each side of the elevator. Each room can be entered once. Inside most rooms is a video game, which the character immediately begins playing. As well as the video games, there is the hotel bar, a bed, a cleaning closet and a toilet. The bar works like a video game, but the bed, the cleaning closet and the toilet are useless decorations (intentionally added, because David had run out of ideas for new games).

When all rooms have been visited, the game starts over again, but increasingly faster, each time.

One of the tracks of Lazy Jones's soundtrack, "Star Dust", was sampled by German electro project Zombie Nation for their 1999 hit single "Kernkraft 400".[1]

Sub-games

The plot of the game is simple- a hotel care taker named Jones is bored and decides to go in the rooms and play games.

The various sub-games are generally simplified versions of famous 1970s and 1980s video games, such as Space Invaders, Frogger, Snake, H.E.R.O., Breakout or Chuckie Egg. Their plots and gameplay are very simple, and in most of them the player simply must avoid incoming enemies long enough to score many points. In some, the player must shoot enemies to score points.

Whittaker developed each sub-game individually in BASIC first, to make sure they worked, then converted each one of them, almost line by line, into Assembly code.[2]

Each sub-game has a time limit. In some sub-games it is possible to "die", thus ending the sub-game prematurely, while others only end after the time limit expires.

The fourteen video games are as follows:

In the hotel bar, your character stands in front of the (rather wide) bar. The barman and the only other patron, hopelessly drunk, are both moving back and forth across the bar, at different speeds. Pressing the fire button while standing in front of both a drink and the barman at the same time earns you points. The drunk patron bars your movement but can be jumped over.

The sub-games where it is possible to "die" prematurely are Eggie Chuck, Jay Walk, Res Q and The Wall.

The sub-games that only end when the time limit runs out are 99 Red Balloons, Laser Jones, Outland, Scoot, Star Dust, The Hills Are Alive, The Reflex, The Turk, Wild Wafers, Wipeout and the hotel bar.

Music
Lazy Jones - "Star Dust" (1984)
"Star Dust", from the Commodore 64 game Lazy Jones.
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The game's chiptune music has a very characteristic sound that is distinct from many other C64 games. Each of the 21 subtunes is using only two voices of the SID chip which in turn use the same sawtooth sound. One voice plays a simple octave bassline for the most part, while the other one is adding the melody. All the tunes share the same tempo as well and they change seamlessly when playing another sub game.

Subtune 21, named "Star Dust", was used by the German producer team Zombie Nation in their song Kernkraft 400 without permission. Florian Senfter ("Splank!") later paid an undisclosed sum to David Whittaker for the use of the melody.[1]

The tune and title for 99 Red Balloons comes from the English name of the song 99 Luftballons by German band Nena. (This having been the version which reached #1 on the UK singles chart).

Visage's "Fade to Grey" is also heard.

References

  1. 1 2 "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Web.archive.org. 2001-06-30. Archived from the original on 30 June 2001. Retrieved 2012-09-09.
  2. ↑ "David Whittaker Interview". C64.COM. Retrieved 2015-06-26.

External links

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