Yams are fun

Yams. They're cute and cuddly. But when there's millions of them, run like hell. You see, I bought a new laptop the other week.

Ok, there's more to this article than that. I was preparing to get stuff to run on it. You know, stuff I don't have. One of the things I don't have which I've avoided successfully for the last few years was Amiga games. I had a few back in the good old days when Amiga emulation was shit, and sure, I got an Amiga 500 with a few odd thingies and some games that I won at an IRL auction (REMEMBER THOSE??!?!?!?!?!?/1/1/1/1/) . So, first place I went to was the place synomynous with non-illegal Amiga stuff: Back To The Roots (note: As of July 2007, this site is 'temporarily' offline). While looking for games that might be fun or just plain funny - and there was lots, that I WILL come back to some other time - I couldn't help but notice this one in particular.




Both the name AND the screenshot were funny! How could this game disappoint? In my mind, I envisaged this rather crappy Lemmings clone I'd play for 2 seconds. I mean, they're cute, they're cuddly, and they're small. And they make you go 'oh no'! What more could you want from a game? An added element of anticipation was the fact that this was evidentally made by everyone's favourite kangaroo, Skippy!! All the same, I downloaded it and kept it for my laptop, fully expecting it to be a shit game by that point. As such I really didn't rush to play it. Okay, that's bullshit. I actually ended up playing it on this pc first cos I couldn't contain my anticipation to play goddamn Yams. 'What is Yams?', I asked. THIS is Yams:



That's right. Yams is a goddamn Boulderdash clone. But not just any Boulderdash clone. It's an unofficial release of a set of mines for a particular clone called Emerald Mines. Emerald Mines adds many things that were not in the original: Doors (the yellow things), dynamite, bombs, wind, unlimited lives (thank god!), two different kinds of diamond, a two player simultaneous mode, and most of all: YAMS. Everyone knows that in Boulderdash, Fireflies turn left a lot and Butterflies turn right a lot. Or some bullshit like that. Yams do neither! They go in random directions when they hit a wall, and when they explode, they turn into USER DEFINED OBJECTS. That means the sick bastard who made the level could make them ANYTHING. More Yams, for instance. And the best thing about Yams is, when they hit a wall, they stop and they briefly animate and go "Yam yam yam yam yam yam yam" at you! YES YOU CAN HEAR THIS AMAZING SOUND! These are absolutely the best enemies in a boulderdash clone or game ever. They piss all over the previous winner, those little teeth dudes from Boulderdash III, and the runner up, the little eye dudes from Boulderdash III. In fact, I'd dare say Yams are the best goddamn enemy in a video game ever. I mean, let's face it. They run around aimlessly, there's thousands of them, they eat diamonds (did I mention that?), they eat you, they're stupid and bounce of walls randomly, and they make awesome sounds, and they have an awesome name which is synomynous with wierd farm produce! Who's the only other bad guy I've just described? Goddamn Eggplant Wizard. And nobody likes him. I'm pretty sure he eats diamonds. And lets face it, he was stupid and bounced off walls a lot in Captain N.

Anyway, we've since established that Eggplant Wizard was an asshole and Yams are the best video game creatures EVER. But! I did a little tracking and guess what? While I couldn't find the other 5 'Oh! No more Yams' games (what's with that wierdly placed explanation mark anyway?), I did find: 1. There's actually 9 games in the series, and 2. There's a lot more of these Emerald Mines hacks or edits or whatever. I found sites full of them! What's more I found two more Yam games, 'Revenge of the Yams 2' and 'Through the Yam Caves'! Of the two, the latter is the best. Just for the AWESOME intro. Here is a picture:


Actually I'm not going to put a picture up. It's too hard. I'll just describe it. This wierd looking long haired dude comes screaming across the screen, you know, screaming. Like a girl. Only I assume it's a guy. And then a Yam comes on the screen, chasing him, and cackling like a maniac! It is goddamn AWESOME. BEST INTRO TO A GAME EVER. For gods sake, I ripped it out at the party, when everyone was trying to sleep, and everyone pissed their pants. Probably because the volume was on full. But laughter MAY HAVE CAUSED IT. YAMS EVEN SAVED SOULFIRE'S LIFE. Trust me, it did. I am not kidding. He swears by Yams now. In fact, I'm thinking of starting a cult where we worship sweet potatoes and everyone is happy and we get drunk and then we eat lots of stuff and then we run around bouncing off walls going "Yam yam yam yam yam yam". But it's all just an idea at the moment.

I even found Yams in MAME. I found them in a game called 'Diamond Run'. See if you can spot them! (sorry though, they don't go "Yam Yam Yam Yam Yam"). And also this 'Emerald Mine' thing is on Commodore 64, but goddamn it sucks. Argh. It makes me want to KILL. STAB. Also, don't mix it up with that Diamond Mine thing on NES by that crappy Color Dreams mob. I'd really like to see them make Yams into something religious and resell it, though. That would be funny. They managed with wolf3d, so who knows?

Should you actually wish to play Oh! No More Yams, Revenge of The Yams 2 or Through The Yam Caves, go to Back To The Roots, download them and run them in WinUAE. Cos' the emulator is an asshole, I'll just give you one pointer: that 'ecs13' thing in the top screenshot indicates the settings (something about ECS graphics, which is standard or something, and the Kickstart boot ROM version 1.3 - but anything above 1.0 works fine). If you have problems, just set the machine's RAM to 1mb instead of 512k. Follow these guidelines and you should be yamming it in no time!