I came to think about an old game (one of the first I played in DOS) called Mean Ugly Dirty Sport (or M.U.D.S. for short).

At the core, it was a made-up fantasy ball game, where you scored by throwing a ball-shaped live animal into a barrel on the other side of a water-filled ditch. You could also attempt a slam-dunk, but it was a bit risky, as your player could then get eaten by the shark which patrolled the water… It was perfectly legal to knock around your opponents in order to win…

Playing the games was fun, but if that had been all there was too it though, it would probably have gotten boring quickly. There were plenty of other elements to it though, which happened outside of the actual games, like setting up your team and formations, and make simple decisions about tactics.

You could also buy and sell players on the slave market. As your players regularly got killed, it was necessary to get replacements quite often, which could be quite expensive, if you went for the more expensive players…

So the game had some options to make money too. You would get paid if you won a game, but you could also go to a bank to get a loan, or to a dodgy loan-shark. The banks were more moderate in how much the would lend you, but the loan-sharks charged much higher interest, and set thugs to hurt your players if you didn’t pay up.

Between games, you could visit the local tavern, where you could get an opportunity to bribe just about everyone… the referee, players from other teams or even the ball (!). Sometimes though, things would end with a big brawl, potentially injuring your players…

I miss these types of games. It used to be that the best sports games where based on made-up sports, and it made them fun and interesting to play. They also often had lots of different elements to them, with most of them kept simple enough for them to work well together. Today, there seems to be only a handful of sports games dominating the market. There seems to be one for each major sport, keeping everything realistic with real player names and everything… I say, where’s the fun in that? As far as I’m concerned, those aren’t video games… they are sport simulations, and we’d be better off without them!

Bring back the FUN sports games!

Do you remember this one?

Yes, it’s the old classic Defender of the Crown, here shown in the Atari ST version. This is a game I enjoyed a lot back in the days, and I think it was mostly due to the combination of tw concepts: simplicity and variety. Defender of the Crown is not a complicated game. At the core, it’s a conquest game, where you capture territories by defeating opponents.

The actual battle is very simple, with only a handful of options, and if that was all there was, the game most likely wouldn’t have been as captivating as it was.

You could also attack the opponents castles, and in the process use catapults to break down his walls. I think this is a good example of something which used to be more common back in the 80s and early 90s; having several different game elemnts with totally different mechanics. I think it has both good and bad points to it. On one hand, it can give a lot of nice variation in gameplay, but on the other hand, it can mean that the different parts of the game don’t blend in a natural way, which can distract from the experience. I think that keeping each element simple is key to success when using mixed elements like this.

As well as attacking your opponents directly, you could choose to raid his castle which presented you with yet another type of game screen, where you had to fight your way into the castle by fencing the guards.

There was also the Tournament – you could hold your own or be invited to others, and this used yet another mechanic (for the jousting) where you in a first person view tried to knock your opponent off the horse…

I kind of miss these types of games, where you had several different types of games in one, but each of them very simple and straightforward. I guess the closest we get to this these days are mini-games or party games such as Mario Party, and though those are also very enjoyable, they don’t give the same coherent single-player experience as the older games…

I found this a while back where you can actually play the game in your web-browser! Great stuff!

I’ve enjoyed board games for as long as I can remember, and one of my all time favourites, one I’ve played since back in the 80s (and still play to this day) is Talisman, from Games Workshop. By now, I’ve collected most of the extension packs for it as well, but for many years, it was just the core basic game that kept bringing me back.

The objective of the game is simple: Kill all your opponents, be the last man standing. The easiest way to do that, is to work your way from the Outer Region (where you start) through the Middle and Inner regions, to reach the center of the board, where you come into posession of a magical crown which allows you to kill off everyone else rather quickly (if you’ve got just a bit of luck on your side).

It’s not just a matter of marching straight into the inner region though – First, you need to build up your character, by improving your Strength and Craft stats, maybe getting a few extra Lives too, and gather Objects and Followers to help you. Quite often, it becomes a matter of judging when you’re strong enough to risk going to the inner circle – if you do it to early, you might easily be killed off, if you leave it too late, one of your opponents might beat you to it.

Talisman is an amazingly fun game, and is easy to learn. It’s a true classic, and it’s still available to buy (You can get it here). If you like boardgames, you wouldn’t want to miss this one!

Last christmas, a forum I hang out on arranged a mini-competiton: to make a winter or xmas themed text adventure game.

This struck a chord with me, and I got to thinking about my early attempts to make games on the C64. I never did get around to make one back then – I guess I just wasn’t experienced (or disciplind) enough back then- so I decided to finally make a C64 text adventure game as my entry for the competition.

Now, I didn’t feel like making a game on an actual C64 (or emulator), but I really wanted to get the same look and feel as if it was a proper old C64 game. First thing I did, was gather some inspiration on the subject. Back when I was new to the C64, there was a swedish computer magazine (called "Datormagazin"), and they published a series of articles about how to write your own text adventure in basic.

I still have those articles, and I re-read the series while making Midwinter Rites, my entry for the competition. I made my game in C++, using my Pixie engine, but I think the articles really inspired me to keep things in the right, oldschool style.

Some time earlier, I had created an image of a goblin in Poser (the art package I use), and I managed to play around with it in photoshop to get it to look quite nice with the C64 colors and resolution, and that made for my title screen.

As I made the game in only a couple of evenings, I didn’t really have time to plan things out in any detail, but I rather just had to dive in and get things done. I found the C64 font somewhere on the internet, and I created a pixie Sprite object for each character slot on screen, initializing each to a space, and changing the sprite images to display text. Pixie is good at handling lots of sprites though, so it’s not as weird a choice as it might sound. Most of the game is implemented in just one file, with a bunch of functions to display room descriptions and execute commands.

As I wanted  an authentic feel to the game, I decided to include multiple ways to die and having to start over. I didn’t add the ability to load and save, as the game is quite short as it is now, but if I continue working on it, I will definitely add that.

I found the most challenging bit to be making up the story. I didn’t really have anything planned out when I started, but just made everything up as I went along, going back and fixing up things as needed. In the end, I got a sort of coherent, but also quite linear and short, adventure game. And it feels like the good old ones

If you want to give it a go, you can download Midwinter Rites here.

The source code is available as well for those interested. It uses the Pixie Game Engine(included in the download) but it is somewhat messy, as I had to rush things for the deadline…

Download the source code:
Midwinter Rites Source Code – 967 KB

One thing I’m enjoying from time to time is painting miniatures. There’s something quite calming and soothing in it, and also quite fun. It’s also nice when you notice that you’re improving (though I’m still far off the skill of the pros )

Here’s some of the ones I’ve done in the past. The skeleton is the most recent one (and I’m particularly pleased with how the cloth came out on that one, as I experimented a bit), and the innkeeper is the oldest (I think I painted it some 20 years ago )

Expect more pictures of my miniature stuff in the future – I’ve got more to show, and more to come soon.

Writing about old games these last couple of days got me thinking about some of the first games I played…

When I got my first computer, a Commodore 64, we bought it second hand, and we got one game with it. I didn’t recall the name of it, but after a few minutes with the MobyGames game browser, I found it – Equinox.

I don’t remember much about the game. I’m sure I enjoyed it at first, but then I didn’t have much to choose from I think it had teleporters and stuff… If anyone remembers this game, I’d love to hear about it

I also recall the first game I bought myself. I’d gone to the only shop in town which had a (tiny) selection of computer stuff, intending to buy another joystick (I’d hoped they would have the one called "The Boss")…

They didn’t have the joystick I wanted, but they did have a game which caught my eye: Gauntlet.  The price was 149 swedish kronor, which is about $20…

I hadn’t heard about it then (arcades were not something we had in Sweden back then), so it was a cover that convinced me to buy the game. It was clearly a fantasy game, with a warrior, an elf, a wizard and a valkyrie…

The game itself was awesome (obviously). You would run around in dungeons killing monsters, and I don’t know how many hours I spent playing this game… But it was a lot!

I played it recently on the Xbox, with some friends, and I must say that it’s still really good fun. Sometimes, it’s the simple games that are the most fun, and this is definitely one of those…

Sometimes, it’s good fun to play fighting games. Not by yourself, but against friends. I’ve enjoyed it since my first computer, the Commodore 64.

My favourite fighting game then was the Way of the Exploding Fist, which was an excellent karate game. For a hit, you got half a point, for a perfect hit, you got a full point, and first person to reach 2 points won. And the sense of timing was excellent, none of that frantic combo button pressing that came later. You had to time your moves just right, as well as judge distance properly, or your opponent would get the upper hand.

Later on, when I had an Atari ST, one of my favourite fighting games was Barbarian. Mostly, it was because I was just crazy about fantasy games in general, but this game also had that same need for timing, though at a higher pace than Exploding Fist.

I still remember the first time I played Mortal Kombat. Played it for hours straight. It felt very new and fresh, as it was the first fighting game I played which had the up-up-left-right-punch-kick type of combos. It was really good fun, though it was a bit annoying when someone who hadn’t played the game before could occasionally get lucky and beat you at it, just by randomly pressing every button on the controller…

And looking back, I have to admit that for me, Mortal Kombat (though I enjoyed it at the time), marked the end of proper fighting games. Pretty much every fighting game I’ve played since then, have had complex combos take the place of careful timing, and it’s a shame, really. The oldschool fighting games was a game of skill and judgement, while most new ones are simply about controller dexterity…

If I ever get around to make a fighting game of my own, it will first of all be a 2D game, but more importantly, it will be about proper timing and judging of distance, and none of that combo-chasing nonsense

Right now, I’m playing through one of my old favorite games – Diddy Kong Racing, on the Nintendo 64. It got me thinking a bit about racing games. Now,  I’m not a big fan of the "normal" racing games, things like Gran Turismo or Need for Speed bore me to death… But whacky, cartoon racing games – I just can’t get enough of them

I’ll probably be writing more about these at a later date, but I thought I’d share with you my three favorite racing games of all time:

This one here is Diddy Kong Racing, on the Nintendo 64. For starters, I think it is just an amazingly pretty game. They didn’t have any fancy shader effects, and they had very few polys to work with, and they still managed to get it look very very nice. This is a particularly great single-player racing game, as it’s got a nice system for unlocking new tracks, and it’s really good at giving you that "just one more try and I’m sure I’ll make it"-feeling.

Next up – Pen Pen TriIcelon, on the Dreamcast. Basically, you’re controlling a weird animal of your choice, for example a penguin, and you race around the tracks using three different methods: sliding on your belly, running or swimming. There’s no powerups in this game, but it’s got well balanced checkpoints, and some obstacles which makes things difficult at times. A great racer, for both single and multiplayer.

And then, of course, Mario Karts, again on the Nintendo 64. I think that when it comes to multiplayer racing, there’s nothing better than good old Mario Karts. It’s always possible to catch up, almost no matter how far behind you get, and it’s got awesome powerups and weapons you can use to even out the odds. There’s plenty of versions of this game, and I’m sure most of them are good, but the Nintendo 64 version is the one I’ve played the most.

When I play these types of games, I really get in the mood for making one of them myself. It’s about the only type of game where I feel that 3D actually has an advantage to offer over 2D. Who know, maybe I’ll add a little 3D to my Pixie engine and make something of it… Time will tell

A while back, I got a Wii, and it’s great fun. And one thing that is really nice with it, is theVirtual Console, where you can buy old games and play them on your Wii. I got myself the old classic Ice Climber a while back, and it’s really really good, just as good as I remembered Sometimes when playing retro games, you end up a bit disappointed, as you remembered it better than it really was. Not so with this one! You use the Wii controller turned sideways, so the buttons are at about the right place, which is nice.

It’s amazing how much fun, and how compelling, a game can be though using only a handful of basic elements. Ice Climber have the platform jumping (obviously) with the added mechanic that you knock off the blocks making up the platform above you when you jump. Sometimes you need to do that, as there’s no other way to  get higher up. There’s some sort of ice trolls that push around new blocks to fix the holes you make, which can be quite annoying, there’s birds and icicles to watch out for, and there’s both indestructible blocks and treadmill blocks which will move you right or left.

The objective is dead simple: get to the top. The game is particularly fun in two player mode, as it gets a bit more competitive, but it’s still good fun as a single player experience…

I can highly recommend it, as it’s good value for the few Wii points it costs.