CEEFAX: IN THE TIME OF PLAGUE

Learn what food is safe for your kids to eat by reading BBC Ceefax. Bleak? Maybe. Tasty food? God, no. Chill music? Oh yes.

The first time you play you'll need to click on the number input field, but it will auto-focus after that. You can safely read the menu with 998.

Why make a Ceefax game?

One of my earliest memories is sitting in front of the TV in the morning, before cartoons started, and playing with Ceefax on the TV.

Weirdly, I remember reading all of these dark and horrible news stories - as the news often is - but still having a good time because the music was so chill and relaxing.

Nothing did tonal disconnect better than Ceefax in my eyes.

So I wanted to bring that into the plague theme too. Obviously plague times are dark and horrible, but that classic Ceefax music makes your potentially life ruining meal decision just a little better, right?

But what was Ceefax?

As some background, Ceefax was a news service introduced in 1979 that was beamed to your TV through the actual TV signal. For a lot of people it was their quickest and main source of up to date news, but the service also had games, weather, whole magazines, and you could even book holidays. It sadly died in 2012 because of the digital switchover, but it remains an iconic part of British TV history.

Game Jam info

TECHNICALLY, the game also does all of the wildcards, but in the vaguest way possible: 

80's Baby - This one it actually does do. Ceefax was introduced right before the 80s and so the visual style IS 80s. Just not a part of it that media usually shows.

Take a chance on me - The food that is safe from plague is randomly picked each time, and some clues are more hidden than others.

I wish it would rain - There is a weather page, and that weather page has changing weather...

See more lovely CEEFAX music on YouTube:

"Smooth Lovin" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Lobby Time by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3986-lobby-time
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Carefree by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3476-carefree
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/