Arc games...?

Moist_Mog · Post by **Moist_Mog** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:38 pm

How about a sub-section dedicated to Arc games... or to the Arc in general? Obviously the site's mainly focussed on the BBC, but I'm sure lots of us graduated to the Archimedes afterwards... although there were never a huge number of Arc games

Having said that, I've got plenty of them... and visited my parents at the weekend, where I tested my BBC B and my A3010... both seem to still be working fine... w00t!

Post by **Arcadian** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:42 pm

That's a coincidence ... I spent practically all day yesterday working on an Arc games page (but not for STH) ... watch this space!

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:33 pm

Copyright could be trickier on these though. For example all Arc World cover disk copyright is still held by and upheld by John Cartmell, editor of Qercus magazine.

Other commercial software may be OK though if the original software house as dissapeared into computer history.

Of course for older stuff he may allow publication at his discretion. I think he has every disk ever published on CD's. So a good archive of stuff if he allows it's use.

Dave Footitt · Post by **Dave Footitt** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 1:00 pm

Where there that many good games on the Arc though? I remember only a handful.

I spent a lot of time on "Twin World" and "Mad Professor Mariati", hehe

Post by **Rich Talbot-Watkins** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:13 pm

I remember "Bug Hunter in Space" being a fairly original and compulsive little game - nothing technically brilliant about it, in fact you could probably do it pretty well on a Beeb!

"Apocalypse" had me hooked for ages, it being the first time I'd ever seen solid 3d graphics move so fast!

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:19 pm

I thought these few off the top of my head were ok;

Chocks away
Saloon cars
Gods
Lemmings

A golf game... not sure if it was Holed Out or Superior Gold (I've got them both)

Plus, I feel there were some others that I liked playing.

Obviously some titles in there that were conversions, did you just mean original arc games or any ?

I believe Simon the sorcerer was good on the Arc (I've never played it). I was at the same Uni as the main programmer of that, Rob Wyatt. Sure that was his name, we were on different courses (occasionally in the same lecture/class) but used to talk now and then. If I remember rightly that game was late which is not surprizing really as he did most of it in his final year and he must have been swamped with work from all directions.

Anyone know what happened to him ? Did he do any more games.

Dave Footitt · Post by **Dave Footitt** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:20 pm

Ah yes of course.. Chocks Away, that was a blinder.

And of course the superb version of Elite we had

regregex · Post by **regregex** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:37 pm

I used to run the school Computer Club after being a member for six years so was briefly in charge of all the games discs. Apart from the ever popular cover discs, pupils 'customising' the graphics with !Paint etc. there were some perennial favorites: Twinworld (toxic music!), Speedball II, Elite, Moonquake, Lemmings +Tribes, Stunt Racer 2000, Chocks Away, Bug Hunter II (In Space, as mentioned), our !MadProf, Populous (clink-clank clink-clank clink-clank), Grievous Bodily 'Arm (only because the characters were spitting images of several of the school staff), Spheres Of Chaos, and the sequel to Holed Out (with a course disc of Wentworth which we hacked to copy itself to RAM disc to prevent fights breaking out.)

Great days, not exactly the software desert everyone makes out it was. I remember getting funny looks when I walked down the corridor with 14 of my own floppies in hand... how could anyone come to have so much data?

Moist_Mog · Post by **Moist_Mog** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:52 pm

There weren't anything like as many games for the Arc as there were for the BBC, but I'd pick out...

Lemmings & Oh No More Lemmings... finally finished them recently (on the Win95 version though)...
Tower of Babel... addictive puzzle game...
Drop Ship... incredibly addictive Thrust clone (to me anyway)...
Fervour & Phaethon... updates of Balls!
and of course... Elite.

I'd love to get hold of some of the early Arc games... '87/'88 kind of time... I just remember seeing the ads and being madly jealous (only got my Arc in '92)...!!

Must admit, I've never been a Simon the Sorcerer fan... just found a lot of the humour plain unpleasant and wanted to kill the little s*d... if you're into point-and-clickers, then you HAVE to try Toonstruck! Came out on PC in '96 and is still my favourite PC adventure

aferenbach · Post by **aferenbach** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:27 am

Hey, there is one game people seem to have neglected

Cataclysm

In the game you are a spaceman who moves around placing blocks and flicking switches to open doors to divert the path of water, or acid or two coloured liquids which must be mixed to the funnel at the bottom of the play arena. It had tons and tons of screens and was a really decent puzzle game. I played it on an Arc emulator the other month and it was precisely as good as I remember.

Never did complete the last few screens, but came close.

Also Mad Professor Mariarty - totally brilliant blend of cutesy game (been a while since someone used that expression!) and arcade adventure.

Also Nevryon was a jolly decent R-type clone, complete with "melted cheese" explosions but shame that the difficulty was pitched so totally wrong - level 1 was a breeze, 2 was tough, 3 was damn near impossible and 4 was genuinely impossible.

Can anyone help me with the name of a pseudo 3d adventure game where you are a wizard and you have to go around collecting stuff and one of the weapons you can get is a "death spray"? for the life of me I can't remember its name and I never got terribly far in it. There was a bit with vanishing stepping stones which trapped me in some flaming castle.

garfield · Post by **garfield** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:44 am

Twin World! Great platform game, wonderful music.

Chocks Away! Oh how often I accidentally crashed into the enemies in mid-air. All goes silent... as my biplane tailspins downwards until... CRRRASSSH!

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:43 pm

I bought chocks away with the extra missions disk as well. Didn't load it until I'd played through everything on the main disk. Only to be dissapointed because my poor A3000 just could not cut it with the extra stuff on these disks. i.e. the barrage balloons (possibly airships as well, I forget) would just reduce the frame rate immensly and half the time they just dissapeared from screen for ages.

Would love to revist the extra missins disk on a more powerful Arc than the one I have.

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:46 pm

Actually they were probably airships, don't think WW1 had barrage balloons due to no real bomber threat.

Elk Towers · Post by **Elk Towers** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 8:05 pm

They did use balloons as they had a basket underneath for spotters to spy on enemy troop movements, they were tethered though, it was straight up spy for a while then winched back down for the night. Must have been bloody cold up there

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:26 pm

Sorry I was referring specifically to barrage balloons, of course they used normal balloons capable of carrying personnel and airships as well. I've since done a little research and apparently barrage balloons were used in WWI in the last parts of that conflict to try and stop Gotha bombers attacking London.

Amazing what you learn on an 8bit Beeb forum !

Your right, must've been flippin' freezing up there.

Seem to remember an episode of Black Adder Goes Forth where Captain Darling tries to join the "Women’s Auxiliary Balloon core". Although a joke I'm guessing that it actually did exist.

Moist_Mog · Post by **Moist_Mog** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 6:04 pm

How's the Arc site going STH?

I'd be more than happy to contribute my ramblings if you're looking for contributors

Post by **Arcadian** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 4:02 am

I'm afraid I haven't lifted a finger on it since the last time I posted about it, to be honest!

jonwiththewind · Post by **jonwiththewind** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:58 pm

In many ways an unsophisticated game, but I loved playing "Zelanites" for a bit - maybe it was the loud rock music that went with it? Strangely addictive given that it was just souped-up space invaders. Wouldn't mind tracking it down again. Anyone got a copy?

Also "Chuck Rock" - unga bunga. Hell-of-a-job to get past the woolly mammoth at the end of stage 4 (if memory serves?!?)

"Enter the Realm" (4th dimension ??) was Ok for a few hours... Not difficult to complete though.

"Saloon Car Racing" felt advanced at the time. Probably would look majorly backward now!

Just visited http://www.acorn-gaming.org.uk for a reminder.
Couple more:

Arcturus
Interdictor - Faster than "chocks away"
Mig 29 Fulcrum, as well - both lost their appeal after a couple of hours though...
Wolfenstein 3D !! Looks dated now, but was great - Motorised Hitlers. Bargain.

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:28 pm

I may have a copy, can't remember for sure. But I had trouble copying speech a while back and posted a help but none was forth coming. So until I know of some software to get around protected disks I'm stuck.

Having said that I got Chocks Away transferred to my PC for use in an emulator, so maybe they would copy. I'll have a root through my disks over the next few weeks and see if I can locate a copy for you.

I thought Chocks away was brilliant, played that for so many hours. Even played the two player version with my nephew and completed all the missions.

Got to agree about Chuck Rock, liked the attract screen on that one where a stone age band played songs.

Interdictor was OK, and did play some hours on it but never really got into it which I think was down to how the plot/missions were set. Zool looked very colourful and I played a free demo and it seemed OK but I never bought the full price game.

I thought Gods was a good conversion. Played some time on that.

CMcDougall · Post by **CMcDougall** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 9:11 am

jonwiththewind wrote:Wolfenstein 3D !!.

, thats a blast from the past to, i had that on my first 286PC with 20mb HD

great game, then came Doom.

Post by **Arcadian** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:15 am

Hey Col, do you remember Catacomb Abyss?!

I think it was developed by ID in between Wolfenstein and Doom, but only had cack EGA (i.e. 16 colour!) graphics.

Still, I used to play it to death!

CMcDougall · Post by **CMcDougall** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:20 am

yo Dave

nae, canny mind Catacomb Abyss

Still got them all on 31/2" DD discs, and now on CDr.

Good old DOS, they still work

Commander Keen was played alot & Another World, will have to dig the
CDr out, & give them a spin again

PS sure a older PC i used was CGA, 4 colours

Cybershark · Post by **Cybershark** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:20 pm

Catacomb Abyss eh? ooh... looks like an early sort of Heretic... i do have a friend who raves about Catacomb3D from time to time, maybe i really should dig these up...

and Wolf3D? heh, that was painful to play with all the damn secret passages which meant you basically had to go around pressing every wall in a map to find. still a real classic though. that was available for the Arc? or did i misunderstand?

and somebody mentioned Doom too?

my big love is mapping for an online Doom port (which also includes Heretic support). one of the projects i've been working on from time to time is WolfensteinDM (Deathmatch) which is a tribute to the forerunner but much more exciting to look at.

got some images i had uploaded anyways, might as well share 'em

WolfenDM title picture
exterior shot showing the funky new status bar i made
an underground silo type map
part of a capture the flag-ish map (for a different community project)
more from the same map

SarahWalker · Post by **SarahWalker** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:52 pm

Yes Wolf3d came out on the Arc. It's not as good as the PC version though - it doesn't 'feel' right, the graphics are slightly worse, and the music is truely horrible. Still fairly decent though. And at least there's only one version, as opposed to the various Doom ports to the Arc (I count at least four).

fwibbler · Post by **fwibbler** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:06 pm

Sorry to resurect such an old post, but what the hell

There were in fact a surprising number of games made for the Archimedes range of machines, many of them have been forgotten in the mists of time.

Enter the Realm
X-Fire
Quark
Ballarena
Dropship
Inferno
Spheres of Chaos (now released for free!)

not forgetting the best ports of Lemmings, Lotus Turbo Challenge II and Populous,

and I see there has been no mention of Starfighter 3000 of which the Acorn had the original and best version and which has been heavily updated with improved graphics and made 32bit compatible for use on last machines.

There are of course, many more...

Kecske Bak · Post by **Kecske Bak** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 9:06 am

I would love to see the Archimedes Gribbly's Day Out again - I never bought it, sadly.

I used to mainly play Repton 2, 3 and Repton 4: EGO.

Tim Tyler wrote a Thrust-type Archimedes game for the Exeter based software house Minerva IIRC.

fwibbler · Post by **fwibbler** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 4:24 pm

Yes, I believe the Thrust type game from Minerva was called Caverns.

AJW · Post by **AJW** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:31 pm

stairwaytohell wrote:That's a coincidence ... I spent practically all day yesterday working on an Arc games page (but not for STH) ... watch this space!

Sounds interesting. There's no eal equivalent to STH for Arc/RISC OS. Theres a repository at Acorn Preservation and one or twoe more but none are exhaustive.

stardot.org.uk

Arc games...?

Arc games...?

Arc Games