> THE TRAP DOOR by Piranha

COMMENTS:

• Vinny: Before creating this ending page, I emailed Frank Gasking telling him that the ending to Trapdoor wasn't particularly good, but I didn't feel too comfortable giving the ending such a low score because the programmer may have had memory limitations due to packing so much in to the actual game. Frank agreed (see below) and so I think I am going to leave the scoring out on this and also future endings where it would appear that there was no more space for an ending.
  

• Frank Gasking: I'm not surprised about Trap Door either... There is a heck of a lot in it, I guess there was just no room. Actually it makes me wonder, could it be that we being a bit harsh on some endings? If a game is being pushed to the limits in a single load, should the ending score reflect this? So for instance, if a multi-load game has a simple text ending... then that's pretty pathetic, as they could have had an extra little load for something special. Whereas something like Power Drift, Chris has crammed everything into a single load which is an awesome achievement (Even so - he still managed to get a half decent ending, which is a credit to his skill! :-). It's an interesting one to ponder :-)
  

• Brendan Phoenix: My personal opinion would be to leave the scores in for the endings - we are reviewing the ending after all. Appreciate about a game being squeezed into a single load and all, but surely there is always room for an ending - even if it came by way of a separate load ( not too sure on this as I'm no tech expert )
  
  I think it is even more annoying if someone has squeezed loads into a game, great graphics, sound, etc, so obviously a load of thought in there and then they just tack a 'well done  on. I don't think any of us expect animated endings, new tracks, etc, in every ending we see - but surely there is memory to put something on the end other than 'Well Done' or 'Congratulations'?
  
  Regarding Trap Door, was impressive at the time what with the big graphics, but it moved like an elephant, so slooooooooooow. I also thought the gameplay was a bit boring with the mixing of ingredients not really holding me. I think the end ( if we are rating it ) is pretty poor, not sure what the memory constraints were, but I don't remember it having much of a soundtrack or different levels - just those great big sprites. 0.5/10.