Spheres Of Chaos Now Free
…and you can’t get a much bigger bargain than that ladies and gentlemen.
With its roots in the world of the Acorn Archimedes, Iain McLeods Spheres Of Chaos is, without a doubt, a work of complete and utter genius. Having had its fair share of problems during its life in the world of shareware, it’s nice to see the game now being made available to everybody under the sun for nowt because it’s one of those rare games (that sadly don’t come along so often) that love it or hate it, you really should at least play it once to experience it because there’s nothing else like it out there.
Only Minters recent XBLA opus Space Giraffe comes as close to sheer headfucking visuals, and without taking anything away from Jeffs superb game - there’s something about the lower resolution effects of Spheres Of Chaos that induces a more tripped out zone to slide yourself into. It will break your eyes, if you’re squeamish it may even break your mind. If you’re epileptic - I’d probably avoid it. But if you’ve not seen it at all? Shame on you.
I can’t promise it’ll be the game for you, but I can promise that it’s certainly unique -still- at the time of writing and at the cost of zero pounds and zero pence you’d be a fool not to invest your time in it.
You can download the game here. It’s available for Windows, Linux, RiscOS and even PS2 Linux.
I also heartily recommend checking out the pics from Spheres Of Chaos 2008. I laughed. Hard. And Iain, if you’re reading this… I can’t wait.
28th November 2007
I walked into this really, didn’t I? Calling a section hot off the press then getting stuck off line and having the home life continue in its usual spurious manner.
Oh well, these things happen.
First up, apologies for the lack of updates round these here parts of late. It’s not that there’s nothing going on per se - more that life has taken most of the admin team away from the site for a short while. You may have noticed a couple of new faces in my absence, so a very public thank you to both Scottige and Spraydough for a pair of posts whilst I was away. I’m not out of the woods and into peace-time yet, so I can’t promise entirely regular posts right now but I’ll do my best. Mind you, it’s not helped by Vista killing off my Wifi connection at irregular intervals seemingly for no other reason than it fancies it.
Moving swiftly along and onto some news then… what’s been going on in Retro Remakes Land?
As Scottige pointed out, the competition is flowing along alright - mildly interrupted by the release of the Ovine chaps controversial Exile II as the world stopped for a few folks to wander away and complete the game. Personally, I have no idea if I’m going to find the time to get much further on my own entry - but there’s a few sweet ones on their way and one already finished by GeeKay as detailed in a post elsewhere round these parts.
Rumour has reached me of a top secret Ovine project which may/may not make an appearance before Christmas. I can’t tell you much more than that, but I will say that if it does happen it’ll be bedlam on the internets upon its release.
Dan O is driving us all Batty with promises of a remake. I never quite got the fuss over Batty when it was first released (ok, just because it was free doesn’t mean a thing…see GGOTD for example), but then aside from Gunbarich I’m not much of a Breakout fan. But, you can’t knock the reasoning behind this remakes creation - Dan is creating it for his kid, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while (write a game for my own, not Batty for Dans…) so I applaud that.
Madgarden recently entered the Allegro Retrohack competition with a rather nice carroty flavoured beat-em-up entitled Tom The Tomato 2 (it does have carrots, I promise!). As you’d expect from the gentleman, the graphics are lovely old skool pixel loveliness, and the game itself ain’t arf bad either.
Oh, and I really should mention Carnivac/Wolverines incredibly gorgeous Qwak-styled platformer that’s in development. It’s called Booze N’ Balls and it’s bountiful.
Once again, sorry for the infrequent updates and catch you all soon.
Fast Manic 2
Less than a month after the release of his mini Manic Miner remake - Fast Manic, Musti is back with a complete overhaul of his baby which he’s chosen to call… Fast Manic 2.
Now, I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence here by trying to explain the concept of Manic Miner. To be fair, if you’ve not played it, or one of it’s various sequels, clones, remakes or homages then I have difficulty believing you even exist. This interpretation, however, is different.
The game is, as the name suggests, a quick-level (and when I say quick, I mean quick) Manic re-remake. You’ll find that you are through the first few easy-peasy levels in no time at all. But it gets harder. Oh yes, it most certainly does!
The game has been enhanced graphically and musically since FM1 and a shedload of new monsters have been added to boot.
The forum thread is here. It’s not a bad way to waste a few hours you know….
Stay on target, stay on target…..
Right, I had a wee bit of fun with this mini comp and managed to pull the finger out of my hiatus. Catacombs of the Damned, albeit short, marks a notch in representing another game that I’ve managed to trudge through to completion. This made me ponder about projects that never see the light of day. I was inspired by this compo idea as it was quite open ended within the genre. I thought this would encourage a good number of mini games that would be fun to play. There has been quite a good few been mentioned, but I fear that quite a few will never see the light of day.
RR, In my opinion, has always had 2 camps, and that settles down to 2 quite simple ones - those that do and those that don’t.
People like Smila, Ovine and Musti & Gigatron are quite prolific releasers. These are chaps that say they are going to do something, do it with the miniumum of distractions, then announce a successor. I admire the continuity of their releases.
The other camp are the eternal wipsters (/me waves at Minion). They are simply project workers, who easily get bored when the challenge of coding the difficult parts is over. The fun is gone and the next thing comes along. Perhaps once in a blue moon, we get a full release from them.
In truth, there is actually a third group. Those are the septic beings who always seem to talk a good game, but we never seem to see even the teeniest of an alpha from them. They want the social graces, and the glory and seem to bullshit about every aspect regarding coding/remaking without ever producing one line of code.
It’s Camp Number 2 though, that inspires me for this article. Why, when someone has made it so far, they give up before the finishing line? I don’t believe for one minute that they have the attention span of a goldfish, but sometimes it seems this way when the other Camp is churning out release after release.
I personally think that staying the course is more important than the coding itself. This site would not exist if it weren’t for the completed releases. Look at the excellent releases of the last few years. In taking one of many examples, Head Over Heels looked like a gargantuan project and my hat’s off to Goring and Tomkat for their endurance. That’s a marathon achievement lads.
I became a remaker because I wanted to release games that I loved. I know that mine are far from perfect, but I don’t have that perfectionist streak in me that others may do. Those that have this trait always see it as an art project that is never done.
I’m glad I don’t suffer from that and can move on to the next project once one is completed. Perhaps that can be said of everyone in Camp 1.
I Will Call You……Mini Comp
Well chaps and chapettes, the dungeon themed competition is now under full sail.
In case you don’t know, we are having a fun wee competition to create a dungeon themed game. Purely for fun, the competition is starting to yield some very tasty results.
There is plenty of eye candy on display in the forum thread.
First over the finish line, and he will be fully drug tested believe you me, is Geekay with Catacombs of the Damned.
An ickle but atmospheric romp which ironically includes a dungeon.
This can be obtained from the aforementioned thread.
Please drop by to look at all the hard work on display and remember that there’s still time to knock one out.
Exile II - The Nameless
Ok, so this is where things get a bit weird because despite being called The Nameless, Exile II has a name. It’s called Exile II - The Nameless.
Have I lost you yet? I thought I might have. Anyway, bare with me here because if you’re reading this then Ovine and Smila’s Exile II is now available to download.
Starting from your atypical science fiction plotline, it’s your last trip on a supply mission around The Rim (don’t worry - I laughed too) and something has gone seriously wrong on a Martian base. With your trusty blaster and jet pack it’s down to you to find out why the base is curiously desolate and solve the riddle of The Nameless.
In keeping with the spirit of the original game you’ll find yourself dropped onto a sprawling world with very little clue or explanation of how to progress next. Investigation is the key to the game here, the more you discover along the way and begin to unravel the mystery - the more of the world opens itself up to you. Previously impassable areas become passable and you’ll find yourself dipping ever deeper into the Martian mystery to find out just what did go tits up along the way.
To aid you in your quest, you come equipped with a set of teleportation units that you can dump around the map to make quick access to locations easier. Objects litter the world to aid and hinder your quest and saving is done with the slightly curious method of having a “save bar” that empties when you save and you have to wait for it to refill.
It’s hard to believe that it’s close to four years now since Smila announced his intention to get this game out there, has the wait been worth it? Is it a worthy sequel to Exile? You decide.
Exile II - Website Link / Forum Link
