Lazy Jones
Encyclopedia
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.
The various sub-games are generally simplified versions of famous 1970s and 1980s video games, such as Space Invaders
, Frogger
, Snake
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.
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.
Subtune 21, named "Stardust", was remixed by the German producer team Zombie Nation
(initially unlicensed, which caused the producers to pay an undisclosed amount of money to Whittaker.) in their song Kernkraft 400
. The remixed version became immensely popular around the world hitting number 1 in charts of many places, especially in the United States, where spectators chant to the music at sporting events. "Stardust" was later also covered by Dutch hardcore production duo Roland & Sherman as "Jonge Edammer".
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
, MSX
MSX
MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...
and Tatung Einstein
Tatung Einstein
The Tatung Einstein was an eight-bit home/personal computer produced by Taiwanese corporation Tatung, designed in Bradford, England at Tatung's research laboratories and assembled in Bridgnorth and Telford, England. It was aimed primarily at small businesses....
. It was written by David Whittaker and released by Terminal Software in 1984. The Spectrum version was ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
by Simon Cobb.
Lazy Jones is essentially a collection of fifteen smaller sub-games. The game takes place inside a hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
with three floors, connected by an elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
. 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
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
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
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
, a bed, a cleaning closet and a toilet
Toilet
A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...
. 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.
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
Space Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
, Frogger
Frogger
Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was developed by Konami, and licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of...
, Snake
Snake (video game)
Snake is a video game that originated during the late 1970s in arcades and has maintained popularity since then, becoming something of a classic...
or Chuckie Egg
Chuckie Egg
A&F Software's Chuckie Egg is a home computer video game released in 1983, initially for the ZX Spectrum, the BBC Micro and the Dragon. Its subsequent popularity saw it released over the following years on a wide variety of computers, including the Commodore 64, Acorn Electron, MSX, Tatung...
. 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.
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:
- 99 Red Balloons: Red balloonBalloonA balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
s continuously fly towards the top of the screen. You have to grab hold of two balloons to fly upwards, to get to kiss a woman. Then you need to grab hold of one balloon to fly back down to kiss another woman. A bowBow (weapon)The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.-Description:A bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles by means of elastic energy. Essentially, the bow is a form of spring powered by a string or cord...
tries to shoot arrowArrowAn arrow is a shafted projectile that is shot with a bow. It predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.An arrow usually consists of a shaft with an arrowhead attached to the front end, with fletchings and a nock at the other.- History:...
s to puncture your balloons. - Eggie Chuck: A simplified Chuckie Egg clone.
- Jay Walk: A simplified Frogger clone. You have to cross a street without hitting any of the cars, to get to kiss a woman. Then you cross the street back to kiss another woman.
- Laser Jones: A Space Invaders clone where the aliens do not shoot back.
- Outland: A very simple shoot 'em upShoot 'em upShoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
. SpaceshipStarshipA starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
s descend from the skies and you can shoot them to score points. - Res Q: A simplified H.E.R.O.H.E.R.O.H.E.R.O. is a single-player video game published by Activision. First developed for the Atari 2600 and released in March 1984, the game was ported to many of the home computers and gaming consoles of that era...
clone. A game of skill where you have to rescue men trapped in a caveCaveA cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
without touching the cave walls. - Scoot: A game of skill where you have to steer some kind of hovercraft in a cave.
- Star Dust: A shoot 'em up where you can shoot balls of dust.
- The Hills Are Alive: A shoot 'em up very similar to Outland except this time the spaceships fly horizontally.
- The Reflex: BoneBoneBones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...
s fly down from the top of the screen and you have to bounce them back up. - The Turk: One of the strangest settings. Roast turkeyTurkey (bird)A turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris. One species, Meleagris gallopavo, commonly known as the Wild Turkey, is native to the forests of North America. The domestic turkey is a descendant of this species...
s slide on a conveyor beltConveyor beltA conveyor belt consists of two or more pulleys, with a continuous loop of material - the conveyor belt - that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley...
and you have to fire a forkForkAs a piece of cutlery or kitchenware, a fork is a tool consisting of a handle with several narrow tines on one end. The fork, as an eating utensil, has been a feature primarily of the West, whereas in East Asia chopsticks have been more prevalent...
at them to score points. A telephoneTelephoneThe telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
flies diagonally around the screen, getting in the way of your fork. - The Wall: A simplified Snake clone. You must steer a continuously growing garden wall without hitting yourself, the screen boundaries, or any of the plants.
- Wild Wafers: A shoot 'em up where you can shoot spinning wafers.
- Wipeout: A simplified Breakout cloneBreakout cloneA Breakout clone is a sub-class of the "bat-and-ball" genre introduced with the Magnavox Odyssey's Tennis and Atari's Pong...
.
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 references in the sub-game names
- "99 Red Balloons" is a 1983 pop musicPop musicPop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
song by the singer NenaNenaGabriele Susanne Kerner , better known by her stage name Nena, is a German singer and actress. She rose to international fame in 1983 with the New German Wave song "99 Luftballons". In 1984, she re-recorded this song in English as "99 Red Balloons". Nena was also the name of the band with whom she...
. During game play, the song can be noticed in the background music. - "The hills are alive" are the first words in the title song from the Rodgers/Hammerstein musical The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
. - The WallThe WallThe Wall is the eleventh studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. Released as a double album on 30 November 1979, it was subsequently performed live with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a feature film, Pink Floyd—The Wall.As with the band's previous three...
is a famous album by Pink FloydPink FloydPink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
. - Excerpts from "Fade To Grey" by Visage and "Living on the CeilingLiving on the CeilingLiving on the Ceiling is a song by Blancmange which appeared as the fifth track on their 1982 album Happy Families. It was released in 1982 as the third single from the album. It was a surprise hit for the band, reaching #7 on the UK charts and #5 on the Australian Singles Chart .Blancmange...
" by Blancmange can be heard in two of the sub tunes. - The first 5 tones from subtune 16 are originally from the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
. - "The ReflexThe Reflex"The Reflex" is the eleventh single by Duran Duran, released worldwide on 16 April 1984.The song was heavily remixed for single release and was the third and last to be taken from their third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger.-Song history:...
" is a 1983 pop song by the band Duran DuranDuran DuranDuran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
.
Music
The 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 "Stardust", was remixed by the German producer team Zombie Nation
Zombie Nation (band)
Zombie Nation is a German techno and electro project of the Munich based DJ and producer Florian Senfter.-History:The first Zombie Nation five track EP was released in the spring of 1999 on DJ Hell's label, International DeeJay Gigolo Records...
(initially unlicensed, which caused the producers to pay an undisclosed amount of money to Whittaker.) in their song Kernkraft 400
Kernkraft 400
"Kernkraft 400" is a song performed by German techno and electro artist Zombie Nation and the first single from their album Leichenschmaus. The first Zombie Nation record contained the song "Kernkraft 400", German for "Nuclear Energy 400", which is a remix of a tune from the 1984 Commodore 64 game...
. The remixed version became immensely popular around the world hitting number 1 in charts of many places, especially in the United States, where spectators chant to the music at sporting events. "Stardust" was later also covered by Dutch hardcore production duo Roland & Sherman as "Jonge Edammer".