by Kempston
A Post-Apocalyptic Fruit Salad Nightmare for ZX Spectrum. CRAP GAME 2026.
Spoiler warning: Download and play the game first if you'd rather experience the fruit-based carnage fresh.
The Earth has passed through a region of space bombarded by unusually intense radiation, breaching the heliosphere and triggering a chain of mutations in all living organisms. Humans, fruits, and vegetables have merged into horrifying new forms of life. Otherwise, everything remains perfectly normal. You are a banana. The artichokes are furious. A mutant coconut awaits your confrontation in what can only be described as the most ambitious RPG ever coded in Sinclair LOGO—a programming language designed to teach children basic geometry by moving a turtle around the screen.
Let that sink in for a moment: someone has weaponised an educational tool from the 1980s to create a text-based dungeon crawler about anthropomorphic produce engaged in mortal combat. The turtle, mercifully, was not harmed during development, though your dignity certainly will be.
You begin in THE FRUIT BOWL with 15 hit points (represented as "YOUR PEEL" because of course it is) and must navigate a randomly generated nine-room labyrinth featuring such delights as A CRUMBLING COMPOST SHRINE, THE CENTRAL SUSPICIOUS PANTRY, THIS ROOM SMELLS OF OLD SALAD, and the ominously titled SOMETHING HAS BEEN PEELED HERE. The map layout randomises each playthrough across three configurations, and certain passages are "PEELED SHUT"—locked doors that require a BANANA PEEL KEY to unpeel. Yes, you read that correctly. Your own discarded skin is the key. The existential implications are staggering.
Random encounters with HORRENDOUS ARTICHOKES punctuate your journey, triggering turn-based combat where you can either attack (A) or run (R). Fleeing causes you to "SLIP AWAY ON YOUR OWN PEEL" whilst losing 2 HP, which is both mechanically sound and deeply embarrassing for a banana. Victory heals you for 2 HP, encouraging aggressive play, whilst defeat results in being "MUSHED"—the botanical equivalent of a gruesome death. Reach zero peel points and "YOU HAVE GONE BROWN," which is game over in the most organically depressing way imaginable.
The endgame awaits in room 9, where YOU SENSE A HARD PRESENCE. That would be the mutant coconut, a 15 HP monstrosity that "ROLLS AT YOU" with murderous intent. Crack the coconut and you win. Fail and you're compost. Upon victory—or your inevitable mulching—the game cheerfully asks "FRUIT AGAIN? Y/N" as if you haven't just endured botanical warfare. Press Y and the madness begins anew with a fresh random map. The entire adventure is navigated with single-keypress commands (N/S/E/W for movement, A/R for combat), because LOGO wasn't designed for complex input and neither, apparently, were you.
The writing is where this shines. Every message drips with produce-based wordplay: doors are peeled rather than opened, your health is your peel, death is going brown or being mushed, and the atmosphere oscillates between absurdist comedy and genuine dungeon-crawling tension. It's a proper roguelike—permadeath, randomised layouts, resource management—implemented in a language meant to teach seven-year-olds about angles and loops. The fact that it works, let alone entertains, is a minor miracle of vegetable violence.
Created with Sinclair LOGO and ZEsarUX by Kempston.
Download, here
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