Whilst having a hunt through some things that I had placed in storage a couple of years ago (and then forgot about) I happened across my original CD of Serious Sam - The First Encounter.
As this is one of the games where Loki games provided a proper Linux installer for it I thought I'd give it a bit of a blast.
Problem 1 - Tracking down the installer.
This should have been easy - ie. go to the Croteam website and download the installer, right?
Nope. They had some archived patches for a Linux installation, but not the damn installer - or if the do have it they've hidden it well.
I eventually tracked down the installer here:
Loki Installers for Linux Games
Problem 2 - Installation
So far, so good. Apart from the fact that the installer doesn't work (at least, not without some effort).
So here is a quick rundown on how to get the installer working.
First, move the installer into its own directory:
mkdir ssam
mv serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run ssam
cd ssam
chmod +x serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run
Make sure the original Windows CD is in your drive. And if you want you can try and run the installer.
./serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run
If you are lucky it might work. If so then go, play, enjoy. See you later.
However, you may well find that you see the following:
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Serious Sam: The First Encounter 1.05beta3-english-2 Installer.............................
after which you are back at the terminal prompt.
If this is the case, then you can try the following, which worked for me.
./serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run --tar xvf
sudo ./setup.data/bin/Linux/x86/setup
And that should be it. The installer should run and you can choose where to install it and finally play the game!
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Chaos Caverns II - Dev Diary
Updated 21/08/2009
A couple of months ago there was a discussion on Retro Remakes relating to creating platform games. The discussion grew to the point that I got a bit carried away and added an early (very early in fact) version of the source code to Chaos Caverns, as well as writing some pseudo-code to demonstrate how simple it is to make a basic platform game.
The thing is that once I'd written the pseudo code I found myself wondering if it would actually work, and the only way to test this is to bloody well write it. And so, using my pseudo code as a template I wrote a basic platform game engine. It works too. In fact in some respects it works better than the code for the original Chaos Caverns.
So now I'm in a bit of a quandry as I'd already been planning an update of Chaos Caverns and was in the middle of fixing up the old code.
So on the one hand is the original Chaos Caverns, which has already been expanded to allow me to create a flip-screen arcade adventure in a similar style to Jet Set Willy and pretty much only needs the levels completing to make it into a completed game.
On the other is the new code sitting in the Testplatform2 folder. This isn't quite as complete as the other but has some important improvements:
1 - It has been upscaled to 640x480. This is double the resolution of the original and does look a lot nicer.
2 - I've written the new version using Object Oriented methodology, rather than the spaghetti code of the first one. It has taken longer trying to remove things like the level transitions from the old one than it has to write the new one from scratch. Also I've got the benefit of a couple of years experience compared to when I started writing Chaos Caverns.
3 - Even on the short test level I've created it feels rather nice to play.
4 - It should allow me to create a much better game, more in a 16bit retro style than the 8bit style of the first one.
Point 4 is the decider really. Even though I could knock out a quick game using the old code base I wouldn't be as happy with it as I think I could be with the new game engine. So I'm re-implementing the functions that are still missing, which is a slightly frustrating exercise, but the new features (such as animated tiles, and each tile being available in multiple states) already there makes up for this.
So here we are at the birth of what I'm currently calling "Chaos Caverns II".
I'll be updating this post with the development diary as time goes on, so stay tuned!
2/8/2009
Level switching code has been added to the game, so now I can start building the game proper. I've put together three screens as a test and it all works rather well. At this point it is starting to feel a bit more like a proper game.
Next step: Items and enemies.
12/8/2009
Summer time isn't the most productive time for programming, but have managed to track down and fix some bugs, including an extremely annoying one which caused the player to fall through the floor, but only when existing the screen to the left. Exiting from the right worked fine. Finally managed to fix it by re-arranging the movement code to make sure that the move down / platform checking code ran before the left / right movement and exit code.
I've also spent some time tidying the code up a tad, and starting to add in the code for the enemies.
I'm dealing with the enemies in a different way to how I did in Chaos Caverns. This time all the enemies from all the levels are read into a single array when the game initialises - rather than refreshing the list at each level change. This allows me to "kill" enemies and for them to stay "dead" between screen changes.
I'll be dealing with objects in the same way. Some objects will allow you to destroy enemies, so for example, collecting a pin will allow you to destroy the giant beach balls. More on that later...
To make the game feel a bit more like a game and less like a demo I've added a place-holder title screen.
OK, so that's a long way from brilliant, but at least it makes testing the game a whole lot easier in that once you've lost all your lives you return to the title screen rather than just quitting or jumping straight back to the first screen.
I've also added a music track for the title screen - again this will probably change before the game is finished - but for now I'm using Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca (thank God for classical music in the public domain).
As a side note - if any budding musicians are reading this and feel like donating a music track or two then please get in touch.
As of midnight I've got a moving enemy on screen (at last!) and can move onto the enemy collision detection routines tomorrow. *yawn*
13/8/2009
Oh no, Thursday the Thirteenth!
I'm not superstitious about the number thirteen, but today hasn't been a great day, work-wise.
At lunchtime we lost access to the internet, email, our advertising system AND our page transmission system - while we were half-way through transmitting a newspaper that had a 1pm deadline. It was down for a couple of hours due to an alleged power-cut in Oxford.
So we had three hours of dealing with complaints about something that we've got no control over.
Wonderful.
Follow that up with me being on call, and getting called back in twice (although as luck would have it I was able to deal with both calls remotely).
On the bright side I've got collisions with the first (and currently only) enemy in the game working. So that's nice.
15/8/2009
Motivation is often an issue when writing software for yourself. When things get tricky, I try and add "one feature a day". This at least gives some impression of the game developing rather than just lurking there waiting for me to complete it.
OK, so sometimes you miss a day - but today's feature is one that makes the game a bit more tricky - and that is allowing the player to die if they fall from too great a height. Not a difficult thing to add but something that I had deliberately left out of the original Chaos Caverns.
This time, however, if the level designs that I have in mind are going to work then this is a feature that I need - otherwise there won't really be any challenge.
Features remaining to be added (and this isn't a full list):
Other things to do:
16/08/2009
Today's new feature: Lifts. In getting the lifts working I've had a think about how I'm coding the game, and more importantly, how to reduce the amount of routines that I need whilst achieving the features that I require.
The lifts are a case in point. I'd considered making a new game object for the lifts, but then realised the obvious: "a lift is just a platform that moves." So by adding some new parameters to the platform object and creating a "move" method I've got a basic lift working with very little new code required.
I've still got to code the interactions between the player and the moving platform (ie. if the platform is moving left or right then the player's movement follows it). Easy for left to right, slightly more complex for up and down. Especially when I need to find a way of slowing down the lifts a bit as by default they are a bit nippier than I'd like.
I was also going to add another object for "traps" - basically killer objects. Thinking about it what is a killer object? In the terms of this game it is an enemy that doesn't move, so if I just use the existing enemy routines with a static enemy then job done!
18/08/2009
Still working on the lifts. As they were running a bit faster than I'd like I've added in some code to create a delay between each move - so the lift will only move every x number of frames. This works well and allows me to have fast and slow lifts as required.
Moving and jumping whilst on the lift works but... sometimes whilst jumping you fall through the lift, and I can't see why. Ah well, tracking down and squashing bugs is all part of the fun.
I've also been re-jigging the player movement code a bit so it should be a wee bit more optimised, as well as a bit smaller. For those interested, at present on a P4 2.8ghz the game uses around 4% of the CPU time.
Update: Bug fixed, so the lifts are now fully working (vertically at least). I've adapted the second screen so that it can only be traversed by using the lift - and it all seems to work nicely so far.
19/08/2009
Now that the lifts are working it is time to start expanding on the code to make this less of a demo and more of a game. With that in mind I've started adding a fairly basic score / level / lives display at the bottom of the screen.
The strange thing is that this revealed another bug: if you dropped from a height into water you'd lose two lives instead of just one.
After one hell of a lot of hunting through the code I finally realised that I was forgetting to reset the fall height, so when the water code killed you the fall counter still contained a value, and because you re-spawned on a platform it treated it as if you'd landed after a long fall, which kills you a second time.
An easy one to fix, but a bugger to track down.
20/08/2009
Today I've been expanding the code a touch (extra baddie movement types, horizontally moving platforms and some other bits).
I've also put together a short video showing the game in action. Not a lot to see so far, but you can get the general idea of the progress so far.
Tomorrow I'm planning to add the code for collectible objects into the game. Once this has been done then the game engine will be basically complete and it will be time to start adding enemies and designing some proper levels.
21/08/2009
Found and eliminated another bug - one that allowed you to pass through a solid block if you hit it precisely on the top corner whilst falling.
I've amended the second screen to add in a horizontally moving platform - which worked first time without problems. Mind you, once you've got the code working for the vertical lifts there really isn't a lot you need to change to get it working for horizontal ones.
I've also posted about this game on the Retro Remakes forum - so a big hello to anyone visiting from there.
Update: Collectible items are now working. Quite simple to add really, providing you remember to use methods rather than functions for your reading / drawing code. Why? Because functions can't access an objects fields (the variables that the object uses). This is a "it's too late at night for this shit" type bug.
22/08/2009
Today has been mainly spent "enjoying" a bout of either man-flu or hayfever. Either one gives the same result - my IQ has dropped so far that it now has a negative value, my nose and eyes are taking it in turns to drip, different parts of me are competing in the "most painful" competition (I think that my back is winning so far). Not surprisingly I've not been especially productive on the old programming front.
That said, I've started expanding the baddie routines a bit, so the beach-ball enemy now rotates as it bounces (which looks cool), I've added a balloon as another enemy, which is also semi-transparent. This also looks pretty cool in action.
I've also started tidying up some of the routines, and simplifying the code in a couple of places.
Continued in Part 2
A couple of months ago there was a discussion on Retro Remakes relating to creating platform games. The discussion grew to the point that I got a bit carried away and added an early (very early in fact) version of the source code to Chaos Caverns, as well as writing some pseudo-code to demonstrate how simple it is to make a basic platform game.
The thing is that once I'd written the pseudo code I found myself wondering if it would actually work, and the only way to test this is to bloody well write it. And so, using my pseudo code as a template I wrote a basic platform game engine. It works too. In fact in some respects it works better than the code for the original Chaos Caverns.
So now I'm in a bit of a quandry as I'd already been planning an update of Chaos Caverns and was in the middle of fixing up the old code.
So on the one hand is the original Chaos Caverns, which has already been expanded to allow me to create a flip-screen arcade adventure in a similar style to Jet Set Willy and pretty much only needs the levels completing to make it into a completed game.
On the other is the new code sitting in the Testplatform2 folder. This isn't quite as complete as the other but has some important improvements:
1 - It has been upscaled to 640x480. This is double the resolution of the original and does look a lot nicer.
2 - I've written the new version using Object Oriented methodology, rather than the spaghetti code of the first one. It has taken longer trying to remove things like the level transitions from the old one than it has to write the new one from scratch. Also I've got the benefit of a couple of years experience compared to when I started writing Chaos Caverns.
3 - Even on the short test level I've created it feels rather nice to play.
4 - It should allow me to create a much better game, more in a 16bit retro style than the 8bit style of the first one.
Point 4 is the decider really. Even though I could knock out a quick game using the old code base I wouldn't be as happy with it as I think I could be with the new game engine. So I'm re-implementing the functions that are still missing, which is a slightly frustrating exercise, but the new features (such as animated tiles, and each tile being available in multiple states) already there makes up for this.
So here we are at the birth of what I'm currently calling "Chaos Caverns II".
I'll be updating this post with the development diary as time goes on, so stay tuned!
2/8/2009
Level switching code has been added to the game, so now I can start building the game proper. I've put together three screens as a test and it all works rather well. At this point it is starting to feel a bit more like a proper game.
Next step: Items and enemies.
12/8/2009
Summer time isn't the most productive time for programming, but have managed to track down and fix some bugs, including an extremely annoying one which caused the player to fall through the floor, but only when existing the screen to the left. Exiting from the right worked fine. Finally managed to fix it by re-arranging the movement code to make sure that the move down / platform checking code ran before the left / right movement and exit code.
I've also spent some time tidying the code up a tad, and starting to add in the code for the enemies.
I'm dealing with the enemies in a different way to how I did in Chaos Caverns. This time all the enemies from all the levels are read into a single array when the game initialises - rather than refreshing the list at each level change. This allows me to "kill" enemies and for them to stay "dead" between screen changes.
I'll be dealing with objects in the same way. Some objects will allow you to destroy enemies, so for example, collecting a pin will allow you to destroy the giant beach balls. More on that later...
To make the game feel a bit more like a game and less like a demo I've added a place-holder title screen.
OK, so that's a long way from brilliant, but at least it makes testing the game a whole lot easier in that once you've lost all your lives you return to the title screen rather than just quitting or jumping straight back to the first screen.
I've also added a music track for the title screen - again this will probably change before the game is finished - but for now I'm using Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca (thank God for classical music in the public domain).
As a side note - if any budding musicians are reading this and feel like donating a music track or two then please get in touch.
As of midnight I've got a moving enemy on screen (at last!) and can move onto the enemy collision detection routines tomorrow. *yawn*
13/8/2009
Oh no, Thursday the Thirteenth!
I'm not superstitious about the number thirteen, but today hasn't been a great day, work-wise.
At lunchtime we lost access to the internet, email, our advertising system AND our page transmission system - while we were half-way through transmitting a newspaper that had a 1pm deadline. It was down for a couple of hours due to an alleged power-cut in Oxford.
So we had three hours of dealing with complaints about something that we've got no control over.
Wonderful.
Follow that up with me being on call, and getting called back in twice (although as luck would have it I was able to deal with both calls remotely).
On the bright side I've got collisions with the first (and currently only) enemy in the game working. So that's nice.
15/8/2009
Motivation is often an issue when writing software for yourself. When things get tricky, I try and add "one feature a day". This at least gives some impression of the game developing rather than just lurking there waiting for me to complete it.
OK, so sometimes you miss a day - but today's feature is one that makes the game a bit more tricky - and that is allowing the player to die if they fall from too great a height. Not a difficult thing to add but something that I had deliberately left out of the original Chaos Caverns.
This time, however, if the level designs that I have in mind are going to work then this is a feature that I need - otherwise there won't really be any challenge.
Features remaining to be added (and this isn't a full list):
- Collectible items
- Killer items
- Special items
- Lifts
- Conveyor belts
Other things to do:
- Add more levels
- Add more enemies
- Add more graphics and sounds
- Write a proper front-end to the game
- Add an end sequence
16/08/2009
Today's new feature: Lifts. In getting the lifts working I've had a think about how I'm coding the game, and more importantly, how to reduce the amount of routines that I need whilst achieving the features that I require.
The lifts are a case in point. I'd considered making a new game object for the lifts, but then realised the obvious: "a lift is just a platform that moves." So by adding some new parameters to the platform object and creating a "move" method I've got a basic lift working with very little new code required.
I've still got to code the interactions between the player and the moving platform (ie. if the platform is moving left or right then the player's movement follows it). Easy for left to right, slightly more complex for up and down. Especially when I need to find a way of slowing down the lifts a bit as by default they are a bit nippier than I'd like.
I was also going to add another object for "traps" - basically killer objects. Thinking about it what is a killer object? In the terms of this game it is an enemy that doesn't move, so if I just use the existing enemy routines with a static enemy then job done!
18/08/2009
Still working on the lifts. As they were running a bit faster than I'd like I've added in some code to create a delay between each move - so the lift will only move every x number of frames. This works well and allows me to have fast and slow lifts as required.
Moving and jumping whilst on the lift works but... sometimes whilst jumping you fall through the lift, and I can't see why. Ah well, tracking down and squashing bugs is all part of the fun.
I've also been re-jigging the player movement code a bit so it should be a wee bit more optimised, as well as a bit smaller. For those interested, at present on a P4 2.8ghz the game uses around 4% of the CPU time.
Update: Bug fixed, so the lifts are now fully working (vertically at least). I've adapted the second screen so that it can only be traversed by using the lift - and it all seems to work nicely so far.
19/08/2009
Now that the lifts are working it is time to start expanding on the code to make this less of a demo and more of a game. With that in mind I've started adding a fairly basic score / level / lives display at the bottom of the screen.
The strange thing is that this revealed another bug: if you dropped from a height into water you'd lose two lives instead of just one.
After one hell of a lot of hunting through the code I finally realised that I was forgetting to reset the fall height, so when the water code killed you the fall counter still contained a value, and because you re-spawned on a platform it treated it as if you'd landed after a long fall, which kills you a second time.
An easy one to fix, but a bugger to track down.
20/08/2009
Today I've been expanding the code a touch (extra baddie movement types, horizontally moving platforms and some other bits).
I've also put together a short video showing the game in action. Not a lot to see so far, but you can get the general idea of the progress so far.
Tomorrow I'm planning to add the code for collectible objects into the game. Once this has been done then the game engine will be basically complete and it will be time to start adding enemies and designing some proper levels.
21/08/2009
Found and eliminated another bug - one that allowed you to pass through a solid block if you hit it precisely on the top corner whilst falling.
I've amended the second screen to add in a horizontally moving platform - which worked first time without problems. Mind you, once you've got the code working for the vertical lifts there really isn't a lot you need to change to get it working for horizontal ones.
I've also posted about this game on the Retro Remakes forum - so a big hello to anyone visiting from there.
Update: Collectible items are now working. Quite simple to add really, providing you remember to use methods rather than functions for your reading / drawing code. Why? Because functions can't access an objects fields (the variables that the object uses). This is a "it's too late at night for this shit" type bug.
22/08/2009
Today has been mainly spent "enjoying" a bout of either man-flu or hayfever. Either one gives the same result - my IQ has dropped so far that it now has a negative value, my nose and eyes are taking it in turns to drip, different parts of me are competing in the "most painful" competition (I think that my back is winning so far). Not surprisingly I've not been especially productive on the old programming front.
That said, I've started expanding the baddie routines a bit, so the beach-ball enemy now rotates as it bounces (which looks cool), I've added a balloon as another enemy, which is also semi-transparent. This also looks pretty cool in action.
I've also started tidying up some of the routines, and simplifying the code in a couple of places.
Continued in Part 2
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Arcadia - Test 4 coming soon
As I said in my previous post I'm updating and polishing some of my existing games before moving on to the new stuff, and Arcadia is the second game to get the treatment.
I've had a lot more to do here to get the code up to scratch, but now there are separate Windows and Linux releases of the game (rather than two binaries in one archive), all the graphics are embedded into the game, the joystick code has been updated to include a "deadzone" (required for some analogue joypads), separate DirectX and OpenGL modes for Windows and some other bug fixes and code cleanups.
All in all the game isn't in too bad a shape now, so once I've compiled the Windows and MacOS X versions (and uploaded them onto the site) then it'll be on to the next target: RetroVaders.
I've had a lot more to do here to get the code up to scratch, but now there are separate Windows and Linux releases of the game (rather than two binaries in one archive), all the graphics are embedded into the game, the joystick code has been updated to include a "deadzone" (required for some analogue joypads), separate DirectX and OpenGL modes for Windows and some other bug fixes and code cleanups.
All in all the game isn't in too bad a shape now, so once I've compiled the Windows and MacOS X versions (and uploaded them onto the site) then it'll be on to the next target: RetroVaders.
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - Episode 1
I've made no secret of the fact that I use Linux as my OS of choice on my home PC. For me it does what I need, and doesn't get in my way. The only disadvantage I've found is that there is a severe lack of games available, so when a new game supports Linux it tends to be a newsworthy event.
Today is such an event.
I'm sure you've heard of Penny-Arcade. If not then may I say welcome to our planet, and I hope the cave you were living in was pleasant. It has been no secret that they were developing a game, but what was less well known was what systems it would be released on.
Windows, MacOS, XBox Live and. . . . . . Linux.
Damn it, they are supporting us! Bless their black and jaded hearts they are supporting us!
Download the demo here and see what you think.
Today is such an event.
I'm sure you've heard of Penny-Arcade. If not then may I say welcome to our planet, and I hope the cave you were living in was pleasant. It has been no secret that they were developing a game, but what was less well known was what systems it would be released on.
Windows, MacOS, XBox Live and. . . . . . Linux.
Damn it, they are supporting us! Bless their black and jaded hearts they are supporting us!
Download the demo here and see what you think.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Cavern Lander - Tech Demo 1
Over the Easter weekend I've had a browse through the code for "Cavern Lander", which started as an experiment with the RetroRoids code to see how much work it would take to add in gravity effects.
I'd got it to a point where it pretty much worked before a large dose of the curse of the hobby programmer known as "real life" stepped in and curtailed my coding activities for a couple of weeks.
To get myself back up to speed I decided to pick up the code again - and after sorting out some niggling bugs and cleaning the code up further I'd got a stable code-base to build the game on.
I'm not counting this as a proper demo release purely because the game is so early in its development - but as a technical demo to see how a gravity game would work I think it does its job quite well.
The initial feedback has been positive too so I'll spend some more time on the game over the next couple of weeks and see what I end up with.
The game itself plays a bit like a cross between Lander, Thrust and ChopLifter, in that you have to pilot your ship through a series of caves, land to rescue miners and transport them to the blue landing platform at the start of the cave complex.
Currently the main hazard is gravity itself, but the final game should add more features like fuel and gun emplacements into the mix.
For more information (and screen shots) head on over to http://dans-remakes.sytes.net.
I'd got it to a point where it pretty much worked before a large dose of the curse of the hobby programmer known as "real life" stepped in and curtailed my coding activities for a couple of weeks.
To get myself back up to speed I decided to pick up the code again - and after sorting out some niggling bugs and cleaning the code up further I'd got a stable code-base to build the game on.
I'm not counting this as a proper demo release purely because the game is so early in its development - but as a technical demo to see how a gravity game would work I think it does its job quite well.
The initial feedback has been positive too so I'll spend some more time on the game over the next couple of weeks and see what I end up with.
The game itself plays a bit like a cross between Lander, Thrust and ChopLifter, in that you have to pilot your ship through a series of caves, land to rescue miners and transport them to the blue landing platform at the start of the cave complex.
Currently the main hazard is gravity itself, but the final game should add more features like fuel and gun emplacements into the mix.
For more information (and screen shots) head on over to http://dans-remakes.sytes.net.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Taking the rough with the smooth
Blogging gives you a whole lot of freedom. As someone who in real life works for a newspaper (albeit in an I.T. role) I can appreciate the fact that as a blogger I have complete control over what I write.
Admittedly there have always been ways of doing this. A couple of years ago I could have started a fanzine which, if I was lucky, would have reached a hundred or so people a month. With a blog I can reach that many people in a day.
It is the same with programming. Back in the day (pre-internet) most of the stuff I created would have ended up either being sold through the small-ads of a computer magazine or via a budget software company. It would have reached maybe a couple of thousand players. Publishing it myself for free doesn't make me any money, but on the other hand has reached many thousands of people.
One of the high-spots of doing this is getting positive feedback, either in comments or via email. I've had my fair share of both, but don't let that put you off telling me how great I am! Someone telling you that your game is one of their favorites, or that they really enjoy reading your blog is the payment that we are after.
On the flip side however are the people who don't like my stuff. This can be damn depressing, but as I remind myself "You can't please everyone."
When it comes to the games I take negative comments very seriously, as long as they aren't just "your game is bad, and you should feel bad". Just telling someone who is giving you something for free "you suck!" doesn't help anyone.
If they tell me what they don't like and why, then it gives me something I can look at improving. Changing someones mind about a game by fixing what they hated about it is the biggest challenge you can face, but can certainly improve the quality of your output.
The same goes for blogging. Hopefully over time you find your own voice, and maybe an audience to go with it. If you take the time to read what people say, and take notice of constructive criticism, then you can improve the quality of your output.
Just remember though, that behind every blog post and every bit of freeware software is a person. Be constructive when giving feedback, not destructive. Who knows, they might thank you for it!
Admittedly there have always been ways of doing this. A couple of years ago I could have started a fanzine which, if I was lucky, would have reached a hundred or so people a month. With a blog I can reach that many people in a day.
It is the same with programming. Back in the day (pre-internet) most of the stuff I created would have ended up either being sold through the small-ads of a computer magazine or via a budget software company. It would have reached maybe a couple of thousand players. Publishing it myself for free doesn't make me any money, but on the other hand has reached many thousands of people.
One of the high-spots of doing this is getting positive feedback, either in comments or via email. I've had my fair share of both, but don't let that put you off telling me how great I am! Someone telling you that your game is one of their favorites, or that they really enjoy reading your blog is the payment that we are after.
On the flip side however are the people who don't like my stuff. This can be damn depressing, but as I remind myself "You can't please everyone."
When it comes to the games I take negative comments very seriously, as long as they aren't just "your game is bad, and you should feel bad". Just telling someone who is giving you something for free "you suck!" doesn't help anyone.
If they tell me what they don't like and why, then it gives me something I can look at improving. Changing someones mind about a game by fixing what they hated about it is the biggest challenge you can face, but can certainly improve the quality of your output.
The same goes for blogging. Hopefully over time you find your own voice, and maybe an audience to go with it. If you take the time to read what people say, and take notice of constructive criticism, then you can improve the quality of your output.
Just remember though, that behind every blog post and every bit of freeware software is a person. Be constructive when giving feedback, not destructive. Who knows, they might thank you for it!
Thursday, 21 February 2008
This Week I Have Mostly Been Playing: Hover Bovver 2
Most games easily fit into one or more categories. Shoot-em-ups, platformers, RPGs, there is a category for pretty much every game. Then there are games like this. Mow-em-up perhaps? Third person lawner? I'll have to think about this.
It's a lot less bovver. . . . .
So what is the game about eh? Well, in a nutshell, you need to mow your lawn. Sounds simple? Not in this garden it isn't. You see, you've had to borrow your neighbor's lawnmower and he wants it back. Not only that, but if you mow the flowers you'll have an angry gardener to deal with.
Luckily your dog is on hand to chase off your pursuers, but watch out, the more he chases them, the less happy with you he'll be. As if that wasn't enough you also have to make sure your mower doesn't overheat, so don't mow too much grass in one go. Mow enough of the lawn and sheep will come out to help eat the grass
Not to mention the mole hills, dog mess and other obstacles that you'll encounter as the game progresses.
With comical sound effects, cute graphics and frantic gameplay this is one time you won't mind mowing the lawn.
The game runs under Windows, and Linux users can run it under Cedega (like I did).
Head on over to Llamasoft to give it a shot. Ewe won't regret it!
It's a lot less bovver. . . . .
So what is the game about eh? Well, in a nutshell, you need to mow your lawn. Sounds simple? Not in this garden it isn't. You see, you've had to borrow your neighbor's lawnmower and he wants it back. Not only that, but if you mow the flowers you'll have an angry gardener to deal with.
Luckily your dog is on hand to chase off your pursuers, but watch out, the more he chases them, the less happy with you he'll be. As if that wasn't enough you also have to make sure your mower doesn't overheat, so don't mow too much grass in one go. Mow enough of the lawn and sheep will come out to help eat the grass
Not to mention the mole hills, dog mess and other obstacles that you'll encounter as the game progresses.
With comical sound effects, cute graphics and frantic gameplay this is one time you won't mind mowing the lawn.
The game runs under Windows, and Linux users can run it under Cedega (like I did).
Head on over to Llamasoft to give it a shot. Ewe won't regret it!
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Dan's Remakes February update.
The latest from Dan's Remakes.
First things first, RetroRoids has been updated to 1.20. This will probably be the final release of the game. It was partly a bugfix release, adding things like a joypad deadzone to allow XBox 360 controllers to work with the game, and partly a release to add the final "polish" to the game.
Following on from RetroRoids there will be another new game, based around an updated version of the game engine.
Gravity has been added into the mix and a new original game will be coming soon. Yes, that's right, original. Well, fairly original. It won't be directly based on any existing game, although it obviously bears some resemblance to Gravitar, Thrust, Space Taxi, Lander and probably others too.
Now onto Batty Junior. Although this game has been "on holiday" for a bit, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and finish off the single player game. In all honesty there isn't a lot left to do, so once I'll have to look towards finishing that bit off before moving on to the new (unnamed) game.
There may be some (minor) updates to some of my other games too. Chaos Caverns has had a bugfix release to add in a DirectX version of the game. There may well be another update to Chaos Caverns and RetroVaders later on this month to add in the deadzone for the XBox 360 joypads.
First things first, RetroRoids has been updated to 1.20. This will probably be the final release of the game. It was partly a bugfix release, adding things like a joypad deadzone to allow XBox 360 controllers to work with the game, and partly a release to add the final "polish" to the game.
Following on from RetroRoids there will be another new game, based around an updated version of the game engine.
Gravity has been added into the mix and a new original game will be coming soon. Yes, that's right, original. Well, fairly original. It won't be directly based on any existing game, although it obviously bears some resemblance to Gravitar, Thrust, Space Taxi, Lander and probably others too.
Now onto Batty Junior. Although this game has been "on holiday" for a bit, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and finish off the single player game. In all honesty there isn't a lot left to do, so once I'll have to look towards finishing that bit off before moving on to the new (unnamed) game.
There may be some (minor) updates to some of my other games too. Chaos Caverns has had a bugfix release to add in a DirectX version of the game. There may well be another update to Chaos Caverns and RetroVaders later on this month to add in the deadzone for the XBox 360 joypads.
Thursday, 31 January 2008
Released: RetroRoids v1.10 - RetroRoids Deluxe
RetroRoids 1.10 (codename: RetroRoids Deluxe) is now available for Linux and Windows. The MacOS version will be ready later on tonight.
So what's new I hear you ask?
Quite a bit. There are now two game modes: RetroRoids and Original.
Original mode is basically the same as RetroRoids 1.00 (minus the power-ups). As in the original asteroids there is a chance of the ship exploding when using hyperspace. The speed of the asteroids has been reduced slightly, and the ship rotates slightly faster.
RetroRoids mode is the new version of the game. The asteroids start slower (but increase in speed with each new level). Destroying the UFO (which now appears from both sides of the screen) drops a random power-up.
Clearing a level without loosing a life activates the bonus multiplier (x2 and x4 all scores).
After the first level as well as the standard asteroids you may also (but not always) encounter the Killer Satellite. Shooting the Satellite causes the fragments to home in on you - so make sure you've got somewhere to run to. . . .
There are other tweaks to the graphics and sound (and some bugfixes too) - check out the changelog for the full list.
Available to download now at http://dans-remakes.sytes.net.
So what's new I hear you ask?
Quite a bit. There are now two game modes: RetroRoids and Original.
Original mode is basically the same as RetroRoids 1.00 (minus the power-ups). As in the original asteroids there is a chance of the ship exploding when using hyperspace. The speed of the asteroids has been reduced slightly, and the ship rotates slightly faster.
RetroRoids mode is the new version of the game. The asteroids start slower (but increase in speed with each new level). Destroying the UFO (which now appears from both sides of the screen) drops a random power-up.
Clearing a level without loosing a life activates the bonus multiplier (x2 and x4 all scores).
After the first level as well as the standard asteroids you may also (but not always) encounter the Killer Satellite. Shooting the Satellite causes the fragments to home in on you - so make sure you've got somewhere to run to. . . .
There are other tweaks to the graphics and sound (and some bugfixes too) - check out the changelog for the full list.
Available to download now at http://dans-remakes.sytes.net.
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Released: RetroRoids v1.00
RetroRoids, the second in the series of "Retro" games from Dan's Remakes is now available for download from http://dans-remakes.sytes.net.
Featuring asteroids, animated backdrop, power-ups and more. As with RetroVaders the look of the game can be tweaked from the options menu.
Currently available for Windows and Linux, with the MacOS X version following soon.
Featuring asteroids, animated backdrop, power-ups and more. As with RetroVaders the look of the game can be tweaked from the options menu.
Currently available for Windows and Linux, with the MacOS X version following soon.
Friday, 18 January 2008
RetroRoids: Update 1
As promised, here are some more details on RetroRoids.
The game itself is pretty much the same as the original arcade game Asteroids. Shoot the large 'roids which split into medium ones, the medium into small. Clear all the 'roids from each stage to go onto the next. Each level has more asteroids than the previous one.
A bonus life is awarded at 10,000 points.
Every so often a bonus UFO will appear, shoot it for extra point and a bonus item. Collect the bonuses for shields (5 seconds worth), triple shots. (100 shots worth) or an extra life.
I may add in extra bonuses later.
The game itself is pretty much the same as the original arcade game Asteroids. Shoot the large 'roids which split into medium ones, the medium into small. Clear all the 'roids from each stage to go onto the next. Each level has more asteroids than the previous one.
A bonus life is awarded at 10,000 points.
Every so often a bonus UFO will appear, shoot it for extra point and a bonus item. Collect the bonuses for shields (5 seconds worth), triple shots. (100 shots worth) or an extra life.
I may add in extra bonuses later.
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Announcing: RetroRoids
Announcing: RetroRoids.
In case you can't tell from the title, this is my take on the old classic Asteroids.
Available soon for Linux, Windows and MacOS X from http://dans-remakes.sytes.net
More details soon. . . .
In case you can't tell from the title, this is my take on the old classic Asteroids.
Available soon for Linux, Windows and MacOS X from http://dans-remakes.sytes.net
More details soon. . . .
Monday, 31 December 2007
Batty Junior - Demo 1
Now that Christmas is over and the new year is nearly upon us, 'tis time to release a non-seasonal demo of Batty Junior.
"What is different from the last version?" I hear you ask. Quite a bit. Most of the power-ups are now in place, in fact only two things are missing from the single-player game - the gun power-up and the gravity distort.
I should be uploading this later on today (once I get home in fact). The Windows (DirectX and OpenGL) and MacOSX versions are ready to go, so I'll just have to get the Linux one ready.
"What is different from the last version?" I hear you ask. Quite a bit. Most of the power-ups are now in place, in fact only two things are missing from the single-player game - the gun power-up and the gravity distort.
I should be uploading this later on today (once I get home in fact). The Windows (DirectX and OpenGL) and MacOSX versions are ready to go, so I'll just have to get the Linux one ready.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Batty Junior - Video Preview
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I wonder what a video is worth?
This is a short clip from the first level. The game itself is far from finished, but this gives a general idea of the current state of play.
(Remember kids - games seen on YouTube may appear crapper than they actually are)
This is a short clip from the first level. The game itself is far from finished, but this gives a general idea of the current state of play.
(Remember kids - games seen on YouTube may appear crapper than they actually are)
Sunday, 2 December 2007
A Very Monty Christmas!
Christmas has come early for us UK retro fans with the release of Trevor (Smila) Storey and Scottige's homage to Monty Mole - Monty Christmas!
For those of you unfamiliar with Monty Mole, he was the star of a handful of games in the late 80s (Wanted: Monty Mole, Monty On The Run, Aufwiedersehn Monty and Impossamole).
He also featured in a mini-game on Your Sinclair magazine called Moley Christmas. History has repeated itself with this Retro Gamer magazine instigated game. The plot (if you need one) is that Sam Stoat has stolen the pages of the Christmas issue of Retro Gamer, and you have to get them back.
The game itself is a typical 80s platform game - fast, unforgiving, difficult and fun, with graphics and music that would have been at home on a C64. There are plenty of tricky jumps to be made, items to collect and surreal baddies to avoid.
To make the game easier there are save points every 20 pages (press L on the menu screen to reload the last save point). So far I can only get 30 pages (out of the 100 needed to finish), but I'm working on it and thoroughly enjoying the challenge.
All in all this is a really nice game for us fans of the original Monty games, and will certainly keep me busy over the festive season.
Ho! Ho! Ho! Moley Christmas everybody!
For those of you unfamiliar with Monty Mole, he was the star of a handful of games in the late 80s (Wanted: Monty Mole, Monty On The Run, Aufwiedersehn Monty and Impossamole).
He also featured in a mini-game on Your Sinclair magazine called Moley Christmas. History has repeated itself with this Retro Gamer magazine instigated game. The plot (if you need one) is that Sam Stoat has stolen the pages of the Christmas issue of Retro Gamer, and you have to get them back.
The game itself is a typical 80s platform game - fast, unforgiving, difficult and fun, with graphics and music that would have been at home on a C64. There are plenty of tricky jumps to be made, items to collect and surreal baddies to avoid.
To make the game easier there are save points every 20 pages (press L on the menu screen to reload the last save point). So far I can only get 30 pages (out of the 100 needed to finish), but I'm working on it and thoroughly enjoying the challenge.
All in all this is a really nice game for us fans of the original Monty games, and will certainly keep me busy over the festive season.
Ho! Ho! Ho! Moley Christmas everybody!
Monday, 26 November 2007
The Name Game
Jeff Minter, The Man, The Myth, The Yak. A true legend in the annals of games programming. As far as the games industry in the UK goes, Jeff was there before there was an industry. He is unique in that he has remained untouched by the big business atitude to modern software and still writes games tailored to what he feels a game should be, rather than aiming for market share.
So the following livejournal post about the sales of his latest game on XBox Live Arcade came as a bit of a surprise.
"not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games, at this point, when a remake of Frogger, one of the worst games in the history of old arcade games, can outsell Space Giraffe that we put so much love and effort into, by more than ten to one, in one week.
OK, we get the message. All you want on that channel is remakes of old, shite arcade games and crap you vaguely remember playing on your Amiga.
We'll shut up trying to do anything new then.
Sorry for even trying." - Jeff Minter, LiveJournal entry, November 2007
I can't say that I'm surprised that Frogger (a straight port of the original game) outsold Space Giraffe. Now before anyone gets on my case about this I'd like to make a couple of things clear.
1 - I like Jeff Minter's games. Always have. Probably always will.
2 - I haven't played Space Giraffe as I don't have an XBox 360, but would really like to, especially if it is anything like as good as Tempest 2000 was. Personally I would much rather play that than Frogger any day of the week.
So why do I think that Frogger would outsell Space Giraffe then?
Easy.
Hands up everyone who has heard of Frogger? Quite a few hands there. In fact, pretty much everyone. OK, now raise your hands if you have heard of Space Giraffe. Not quite as many hands there, much less in fact.
This is the crux of the problem. Frogger is a recognised name. It is available cheaply on XBox Live Arcade and could easily be an impulse purchase. Space Giraffe on the other hand. . . . .
The name doesn't really say a lot about what the game is. It doesn't immediately make you think "gosh, I'd better buy that as it is obviously a Tempest 2000 style game by the legendary Jeff 'Yak' Minter" does it ? Tempest 4000 would sell like hot cakes, I've no doubt about that. Even Jeff Minter presents Space Giraffe would probably do quite well.
Hopefully as time goes on and people discover how great the game is, Space Giraffe's sales will pick up and it will end up as the success that it deserves to be.
Hopefully as time goes on and people discover how great the game is, Space Giraffe's sales will pick up and it will end up as the success that it deserves to be.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Arcadia Test 3 released for MacOS X
Pretty much every programmer has a guilty little secret, a game that was abandoned before its time, never to be completed.
This is the story of mine.
Many moons ago (back in 2002 in fact) I started work on my first games remake - which was of Imagine Software's Arcadia, a shoot-em-up from 1982. The game code (and pre-rendered 3d graphics) went quite well - up to the point where Windows 98 ate my hard disk and I learned an important lesson about the need to take regular backups.
In many ways this incident was a turning point for me, as this was what finally persuaded me to try going cold-turkey on Windows and run Linux full time. Initially I wanted to run Linux exclusively for a couple of months to see how it fared compared to Windows.
I never went back.
The only casualty of this switch was Arcadia. The source code that I found was out-dated, the pre-rendered graphics of the later levels was gone, and worst of all Blitz (which I was using to write the game in) didn't run on Linux. But there were rumours of a follow on to Blitz which would run on Windows, MacOS and Linux - Blitz Max.
So I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
When the pre-release version of Blitz Max became available to buy I pre-ordered it, downloaded the Linux beta and started playing.
Arcadia was the obvious choice to try my hand with, but unfortunately porting the game over was not as simple as expected. So I wrote an (unreleased) Arcadia style game, and used the knowledge from this to update the test 3 code to Linux.
I've always planned to complete Arcadia at some point, but to be honest, I don't think this will ever happen. I've finally updated my site to put Arcadia "on hold" and then realised that all my other games run on MacOS X apart from Arcadia. So tonight I've snuck onto a Mac and knocked out a quick port of the game. I'll be uploading this later on tonight.
The funny thing is that now that I've put it on hold I've got some ideas about what I can do with Arcadia to try and finish it off. I'll have to investigate some freeware raytracing software and see if I can get to grips with it.
This will have to wait until after the first release of Batty Junior.
This is the story of mine.
Many moons ago (back in 2002 in fact) I started work on my first games remake - which was of Imagine Software's Arcadia, a shoot-em-up from 1982. The game code (and pre-rendered 3d graphics) went quite well - up to the point where Windows 98 ate my hard disk and I learned an important lesson about the need to take regular backups.
In many ways this incident was a turning point for me, as this was what finally persuaded me to try going cold-turkey on Windows and run Linux full time. Initially I wanted to run Linux exclusively for a couple of months to see how it fared compared to Windows.
I never went back.
The only casualty of this switch was Arcadia. The source code that I found was out-dated, the pre-rendered graphics of the later levels was gone, and worst of all Blitz (which I was using to write the game in) didn't run on Linux. But there were rumours of a follow on to Blitz which would run on Windows, MacOS and Linux - Blitz Max.
So I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
When the pre-release version of Blitz Max became available to buy I pre-ordered it, downloaded the Linux beta and started playing.
Arcadia was the obvious choice to try my hand with, but unfortunately porting the game over was not as simple as expected. So I wrote an (unreleased) Arcadia style game, and used the knowledge from this to update the test 3 code to Linux.
I've always planned to complete Arcadia at some point, but to be honest, I don't think this will ever happen. I've finally updated my site to put Arcadia "on hold" and then realised that all my other games run on MacOS X apart from Arcadia. So tonight I've snuck onto a Mac and knocked out a quick port of the game. I'll be uploading this later on tonight.
The funny thing is that now that I've put it on hold I've got some ideas about what I can do with Arcadia to try and finish it off. I'll have to investigate some freeware raytracing software and see if I can get to grips with it.
This will have to wait until after the first release of Batty Junior.
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Wizball Remake released!
Those wonderful people at RetroSpec have just released their remake of the legendary Wizball. 20 months in the making, this is the best remake that I've seen in a long while, and a damn fine game in its own right.
For those of you who haven't played or were too young to have played Wizball when it was released in the late 1980s what's it all about eh?
The plot is some waffle about an evil wizard stealing all the colours from the world, and you as Wizball need to collect the colours and shoot the baddies to bring the colour back. OK, daft plot aside this is a tough horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up. Move around, shoot the baddies and gain power ups, such as the Catelite, which you also use to collect the colours.
The graphics have been scaled up to 640x480 and are smooth with a capital smoo. Mere words cannot describe just how damn good the game looks (the above video comes closer to doing it justice).
Your ears haven't been left out either, the excellent C64 soundtrack has been updated, rerecorded and has become a thing of beauty.
Of course, all this would mean nothing if the game play was wrong. The good news here is that the game plays like a dream. An especially surreal dream maybe, but a dream none the less.
(sorry, left to have another quick go)
Currently only the Windows version has been released, but Mac and Linux ports are due (hopefully) soon, the game does however play using Cedega.
Download from RetroSpec.
For those of you who haven't played or were too young to have played Wizball when it was released in the late 1980s what's it all about eh?
The plot is some waffle about an evil wizard stealing all the colours from the world, and you as Wizball need to collect the colours and shoot the baddies to bring the colour back. OK, daft plot aside this is a tough horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up. Move around, shoot the baddies and gain power ups, such as the Catelite, which you also use to collect the colours.
The graphics have been scaled up to 640x480 and are smooth with a capital smoo. Mere words cannot describe just how damn good the game looks (the above video comes closer to doing it justice).
Your ears haven't been left out either, the excellent C64 soundtrack has been updated, rerecorded and has become a thing of beauty.
Of course, all this would mean nothing if the game play was wrong. The good news here is that the game plays like a dream. An especially surreal dream maybe, but a dream none the less.
(sorry, left to have another quick go)
Currently only the Windows version has been released, but Mac and Linux ports are due (hopefully) soon, the game does however play using Cedega.
Download from RetroSpec.
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Announcing: Batty Junior
Well, I've had a bit of a play and have decided on the next game from Dan's Remakes.
It is sort of a remake of Batty, an Arkanoid clone that appeared on quite a few 8 bit systems such as the Sinclair Spectrum.
Batty - Sinclair Spectrum
I'm going to simplify the game a bit so as to appeal to younger players, which is why I'm calling the game "Batty Junior" rather than just "Batty".
Batty Junior - Coming Soon
I've no firm date set for when the game will be released - I'll have to see how it develops.
It is sort of a remake of Batty, an Arkanoid clone that appeared on quite a few 8 bit systems such as the Sinclair Spectrum.
Batty - Sinclair Spectrum
I'm going to simplify the game a bit so as to appeal to younger players, which is why I'm calling the game "Batty Junior" rather than just "Batty".
Batty Junior - Coming Soon
I've no firm date set for when the game will be released - I'll have to see how it develops.
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Choosing the next project
Now that RetroVaders (apart from the Mac port which will follow fairly soon) It's time to decide what game I'm going to do next. Having a look through my blitz directory there are five or six "nearly started" games. These are the ones that seem like a good idea, but haven't had any real work done on them, or are in the "messing about with" stage (such as my "Hungry Horace" test code).
Having a look through these one of them caught my eye. I honestly couldn't remember how far I had got with it - as it turns out I'd got as far as setting the screen mode before getting side-tracked. Out of curiosity I downloaded some screenshots of the original game, snipped out and upscaled some of the graphics and had a basic game structure running quite quickly.
One thing that surprised me with RetroVaders is how much my kids enjoyed playing it, so with that in mind this game will be another fairly straight forward one, and something that I hope they'll enjoy playing too.
I'm off work tomorrow to do the school run, but while the children are out of the way I may get some more time to play around with this.
What game is it? I'm not telling. Don't drive yourself batty trying to work it out, I'll post more once I've got a "proof of concept" demo version ready.
Having a look through these one of them caught my eye. I honestly couldn't remember how far I had got with it - as it turns out I'd got as far as setting the screen mode before getting side-tracked. Out of curiosity I downloaded some screenshots of the original game, snipped out and upscaled some of the graphics and had a basic game structure running quite quickly.
One thing that surprised me with RetroVaders is how much my kids enjoyed playing it, so with that in mind this game will be another fairly straight forward one, and something that I hope they'll enjoy playing too.
I'm off work tomorrow to do the school run, but while the children are out of the way I may get some more time to play around with this.
What game is it? I'm not telling. Don't drive yourself batty trying to work it out, I'll post more once I've got a "proof of concept" demo version ready.
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