Weekly Round Up 29/02/08
Better late than never, but the date threw me. It’s a funny old day isn’t it, 29th February? Happens only 1 day in 1461 and gives the ladies the opportunity to snag the man of their dreams. I dunno, next thing you know they’ll get the vote! Well, if you don’t have an impending marriage to look forward to, it’s just lucky that we have enough WIPs to fill the void……
Let’s take a look at, in no particular order……
Game Over. Well, when I say no particular order, obviously I couldn’t let this one go without announcing it first. The delicious irony of having Game Over at the start - hahahahaha… I’ll stop shall I?
Nightwolf has brought us this remake of the classic 8 bit runny, shooty, diey thing (well, that’s how it always used to be for me anyway) and I got to say it’s just like I remember. I ran, I shot, I died. The beta (rapid share - sorry) is hard as nails and I couldn’t get too far so it would appear to be a pretty accurate remake :(
Attracting a lot of interest is Head Over Heels Editor, an editor for, you guessed it, Head Over Heels style isometric games. Global I’s idea is simple, you bung in your graphics, tell the engine how they interact and just, well, play. Sounds ideal to me! Now all I need to do is get someone to write me an engine that draws stuff and I’ll be well away!
Which leaves us with….. Omar’s Orthogonal Oyster Outing Now, I’ll admit here and now that I know nothing of the origins of this game. It certainly wins ‘most bizarre title of the week’ though. Not had a chance to try it yet, but you can get the beta from here and give it a go yourself (you need the VC runtimes installed though)
Right - time to go find me a Seismometer JUST IN CASE…..
Colonization (FreeCol)
Go West - Life is peaceful there.
Go West - In the open air.
Go West - Where the skies are blue.
Go West - This is what we’re gonna do!
You Meier may not know this but Colonization was the follow up game that came after the very well known Civilisation, and was coded by the aforementioned Mr Meier, and also by Brian Reynolds.
No Romans or Greeks this time around though as the game is based on the European conquest of the New World, starting you off in 1492 rather than way back almost to the stone age.
FreeCol, which has been in the works since 2002, has the goal of recreating the game in a higher res but keeping the core gameplay intact (at least until v1.0). After hitting that version they are planning on expanding the game even more and reaching towards a v2.0. Certainly sounds interesting.
If you fancy a bit of domination and conquest then launch your armada in the direction of www.freecol.org where you can pick up copy of v0.7.3 for your Windows, Linux or OSX computer.
If you see Sid, tell him.
Block Invaders
Our very own Mini-Comping machine Endurion has released an alpha version of his latest game, block invaders.
It is of course, his new take on the grand daddy of them all,Space invaders.
“Oh no, not another Space Invaders Clone”, I hear you cry, and yes I can actually hear you!
You are correct in your assessment but incorrect in your despair as Endurion has come up with quite an interesting take on the invading ones.
Yes, as the title suggests, blocks are involved in the game play, more specifically in the make up of the baddies and the player them self.
You shoot the baddies as is done in the standard space invaders fare but as you shoot them, you destroy only the blocks you hit, leaving the rest to invade as they please.
Only upon destroying a majority percentage of said blocks do you send the invaders back to where ever they are invading from.
The same applies to your ship however so watch out as damage to your guns can effect your fire power.
As it is only at the alpha stage at the moment the design is still evolving and is subject to change but if you nip along to our forum thread, you can grab the alpha ( which already features 5 waves ) and as always, post your thoughts and suggestions.
Alien Deathmatch
Here’s an interesting little game.
Top down shooters are a fun way of passing time and this is no exception to the rule. Jayenkai has, once again, come up with the goods in the new game department with Alien Deathmatch. Your task is to rid the map of the spawning aliens whilst picking up weapon upgrades and multipliers, both of which are time limited. that’s it, simple, easy, fun.
And that’s what makes it so damn good. It’s an easy game to pick up and play.
Not one for laptop touch pads though, as I found out to my peril…
You know the system by now… game, play, contribute. It’s that easy :)
Weekly Update - 22/02/08
Well, owing to unavoidable demands put upon me from the Spraystress meaning that the whole of the Valentines week was effectively crossed off of the calendar, we have a fortnight’s worth of Work In Progresses(es?) to examine, ingest and rip to shreds.
As the more regular readers will know, we at RetroRemakes Towers love nothing more than seeing you, dear gamer, telling the world in general what you think about other peoples dreams and ideas as they lay their souls bare by announcing their WIPs on our little forum. Let’s see what treasures you can hark on about today shall we?
Fresh from his ‘Love Me Do’ competition entry, Endurion brings us ‘Block Invaders’ which, you may not be surprised to learn, is a game inspired by Space Invaders, Galaxians and the like. The game has been added to the ‘Games in a retro style’ forum, but in truth, I’m not sure I’ve ever played anything quite like it. The concept of wiping out invading alien hoards block by block owes nearly as much to Arkanoid as it does to your standard retro shoot-em-up and it’s a superb concept.
With your ship itself being made of the same style of destructible block the action focuses on survival as much as it does firepower and with levels ranging from your bog standard Space Invader style waves, Moon Cresta swoopers and, of course, big bosses the variety is also enough to keep you playing. Don’t take my word for it, Get it here and then tell Endurion about it here
Now would be a good moment to mention happymonster and his little app wouldn’t it? You see, for the first time this year I can report on something that’s not STRICTLY a game. In fact, it’s not a game at all, but so many people are having fun with it, it would be a crime not to give it a mention.
Richard’s Evolving Sprite Tool is a neat little tool that allows even the most graphically challenged amongst us to create lovely sprites for our games. At the moment it’s mostly being abused and played with on the forum, but it could turn out to be a useful asset. You can grab a copy from over yonder and show us what rude pics you can make….
Now, I’d never let it be said that religion is my strong point, but good looking DS games are. If only there was a WIP that could enhance my spiritual side whilst pandering to my handheld gaming addiction… You know, I think there might just well be!
Bible Adventures is a remake of the NES / Sega Genesis game of the same name which Indigo has been playing and now reckons he can better. From the initial screenshots he’s posted, I think he might have a point. The game is split up into different ‘verses’ from the afore-mentioned holy book putting the player back in the time of Moses, Noah and David (he of Goliath fame). I’m actually quite interested in the progression of this, good DS homebrew isn’t easy to come by and a game is, after all, a game. If this raises my beliefs in the ways of the Lord, then all the better.
Lastly, let’s have a quick gander at AndyH’s latest sideline. Mouth Trap was a game that came with STOS, a game programming language for the Atari ST. Ms Mouth Trap is AndyH’s take on this theme. Now, never having been in front of an ST long enough to play anything other than Virus on it, I don’t know this game too well, so let’s let the man himself explain….. ‘Object of the game for those that don’t know (that will be most of you):- Simply eat all the food to advance to the next level. There are germs that get in your way and a number of power ups and bonuses to collect.’
More information when we get it on this one, but feel free to track its progress yourself by the power of linkage.
And so concludes another weekly round up. I’ll be back next week, assuming the boss agrees, to fill you in on the latest news from the site.
Until then, be lucky.
The Hobbit
You know, I could have SWORN I’d completed The Hobbit way back when. It was easy, a good game, no, a CLASSIC game, but easy.
Jonathanmcc has proved me wrong once again! And he’s done it in style.
The Hobbit, for those of you who have never played it (you never know, there might be a couple out there) was one of the most famous and, many would say, one of the best text adventure games ever released. It had an awful lot going for it, colourful graphics, a great story, a huge volcabulary and it was a sod to complete too!
Playing with this version for a couple of hours on and off over the past few days I’ve already got lost in the Misty Mountains, Been eaten by Trolls, lost the will to live because of Thorin’s insistance on singing about gold… It’s just like having the old Speccy in front of me…
I can’t recomend this highly enough. Grab a copy at your leisure, get addicted, go into rehab and talk about it to people who have been through the same thing
Spraydough sits down and sings about code…..
