Apr
7
2010
Mar
6
2010
iPad games are landing…
Actually.. a certain game is landing to be more exact…drumroll…:
\o/
Even though I’ve worked as a freelancer for some time for just for a part of the stuff, it is always nice to see it getting picked up quite extensively.
Dec
14
2009
Planet M.U.L.E.
planetmule screenshot
Finally! An excellent remake of a legendary game called M.U.L.E. One of the first multiplayer games developed originally for Atari 400/800 and from where the 4-player gameplay originates from, but then also ported to C64 (and some others) on which probably most remember it from. It is dated to my birthyear and the cover graphics for the original is great in an phenomenal level. It doesn’t stop there: The game itself has one of the best tunes to my remembering from the 8-bit era.
Following text is about the 1.0 version of the game:
The java-version is developed by Blue Systems and Turborilla and is played over the internet while being an very accurate copy of the original gameplay wise. There is some slight cosmetic changes though and the graphics and sounds are totally new. What this really provides is to play the great original game again on a modern computer with friends sitting in their own homes. Which is one of the biggest downsides: This game was designed to be played together in real life. Even though this version does have the in-game chat there, it is still just a vague illusion of talking about the game in real time. Also what tells about the lack of intensity on that side is that every time there is waiting period in the game, it feels like forever even though it might be less than in the original. One downside is also the A.I: It currently cripples the gameplay by selling all the good straight away. But in general the game is very good and well done. Some slight bugs are still to be tackled but the 1.1 version is already on its way.
Skip this if you’re familiar with the game:
Although the gameplay probably attracts more the nerds of us it is still a great simplification of economy. In the game you buy M.U.L.E.’s to gather resources from your land plots and then use, sell and buy them between players and the common storage. Most of the resources have connection to the gameplay in clear ways and the value of certain good is dependent on the needs of both the common store and other players.
Oct
27
2009
SPEL 1.11 – Blast from the past
Oh. I found something “slightly old” on my FTP-drive. I created it in the 90′s when I had the first programming-course in school where we learned to use Pascal using Borlands Turbopascal and some libraries that had been translated in to finnish… Although I didn’t really use the finnish drawing-library for this as this is in textmode. =D I was heavily influenced by Mine Bombers at the time and so I created a multiplayer game to be played on the same keyboard. It didn’t end up to be as sophisticated as.. umm.. It is not sophisticated at all… lets face it. But try it anyway. It’s fun in the same kind of way as watching those ninja-movies from the start of 80′s…
Actually the only reason it has survived was that I submitted it to MBnet BBS back in the days and later found it from there again. (BBS went down under though but: MBnet is alive) This time I found it scrolling through my old ftp-directories.
Download ZIP: SPEL111
This is from DOS-times so there is no installer. PELI111.EXE should run the game.
I removed the readme.txt that was included as it was utterly foul English and contained my teenage-times snailmail etc. =D But I saved some of the things for you (Sorry I don’t know what is the equivalent for those å and ä-signs on other keyboards, apparently I wasn’t thinking anyone outside Finland would ever see it) :
Controls:
‘esc’ = quit
player1:
7 8 9
\ | /
4- o -6
/ | \
1 2 3
pick up: å
shoot: ä
player2:
w e r
\ | /
s- o -f
/ | \
x c v
pick up: a
shoot: z
(player shoots in that direction where you have last time moved)
(and you can hit opponent by running against him/her)
There’s supposedly three ‘C‘-signs in the level. Visiting the three will give you +1 power.
‘T‘-signs are places you can buy things. Although stuff appear in to them in a randomized matter after a while.
‘H‘-signs restore your health but drains your collected money in a 1/1 ratio.
NOTE: The most awkward thing in this multiplayer game is that the game-cycle runs on keypress. And for the sake of not overriding your friends keypresses, you need to press them repeatedly for moving. Also there’s %, ~ and X that slows down movement and some dark areas that can be seen only next to it.
The levels and weapons etc. are text-files that can be edited. You’re free to spawn an Internet-community around creating content for this! =D
Oct
6
2009
Runman.
Mar
20
2009
Three cardinal rules for game artists
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3960/game_artists_the_three_cardinal_.php
I think that’s a good read to anyone. The article is just written from the point of view of a game artist. The three main points (Ego managing, communication and Diversity of tasks) are dealt through very clearly. By reading the whole topics you realize that he’s covering a lot more under those topics so It’s not just a list of three keypoints in there.
Mar
17
2009
Tetoris
Define overkill.
But actually I just dropped couple of blocks myself and then left it run just by itself untouched for 3 hours. Then I came back and found out that it had designed a bunch of pixel characters. Check the fullsize screenshot below and try to find at least these:
- Peeing drunkard
- Two headed spider
- Jet-pack guy
- Rubberduck
- Ruby Sword with emerald handle
- Chef dropping from a box
- Snail waving a white flag
- Ice skater
- Swimmer on a stand preparing for a dive
