nightingale
Well-known member
Over the past two years, I've been tinkering away on a new game for my Macintosh Plus. I'd like to share a working demo of the game and welcome any feedback anyone has about the game. I'd also love to hear reports of how it works on real hardware. I've done my testing on my Mac Plus, my Mac SE/30, and my LC580. I'd love to know if it will run on a Mac 512k (it should - it only requires 400k of RAM for black and white). I have tested it on System 4, but not extensively. Most of my testing has been on System 6 and System 7. I'd also like to see it tested in the classic environment with OS X, which I don't have the means to test.
The game is a tile-based puzzle game, inspired by Chips Challenge. You play as Matilda the robot, and have to battle your way through increasingly difficult puzzles, mazes, and traps, while the angry robots try to thwart you. The game was designed to run on a Mac Plus, but should run on any newer mac as well. The game will run in a glorious 16 colour mode for those macs that support it.
The graphics are still a work in progress, and I intend to hire a pixel artist to re-draw the robots and items (except Matilda, who was already draw by my pixel artist). However, the gameplay is more or less what you can expect in the final release. The levels included in the demo are also really just designed to showcase the gameplay at this point, and you can expect some much more challenging puzzles in the final release!
The game is played with the arrow keys, or WASD, since even early macs that had arrow keys were horrendous. There is also mouse control by clicking on the tile you want to move to, but it doesn't navigate around barriers. I've included a Read Me which gives you a few more tips about the game, but you should also be able to jump right in and try it out.
You can download a working demo of the game here. The download contains a bootable .dsk image, which you can mount in your favourite emulator, and a StuffIt archive for use on real hardware.
If you're interested in the development of the game, and my learning journey as I started down this road two years ago, a lot of that is catalouged here. While many folks on this forum helped me out as I was learning the ropes, I want to give a huge thanks to @cheesestraws and @Crutch in particular, who were always quick to jump in with advice and tips when I was stuck. You guys really helped me get over the hump of learning a new language and programming for a new (old) architecture, and I wouldn't have gotten to this point without your help! What I love about this community is the willingness to share knowledge and help out our fellow vintage mac enthusiasts. The help from the members on here gave me the confidence to keep going, and after a while I had the tools and knowledge to solve a lot of my problems on my own. The old Inside Macintosh volumes were a huge help, as well as the huge catalogue of scanned programming books at vintageapple.org.
I am quite proud of what I've accomplished so far, and I've already started thinking about my next games, but I want to finish this one before starting anything new. I'm so proud of what I've accomplished here that I want to do a physical release of the game on 800k floppy with a full printed manual and box. To that end, I'm looking to do a Kickstarter to fund production. I'm really not looking to make any money off of this game, but would love to raise enough to be able to cover the cost of a physical release. Even if that is not something that interests you, I'd love it if you'd follow the project on Kickstarter to get some visibility, and maybe consider sharing it when it goes live. I'll spread the word a bit more on some other platforms once I launch, but since this community really helped me get this project started, I wanted to share it here first and hear what you folks may have to say about it.
Thanks for reading, I hope you download the game and find it amusing!
The game is a tile-based puzzle game, inspired by Chips Challenge. You play as Matilda the robot, and have to battle your way through increasingly difficult puzzles, mazes, and traps, while the angry robots try to thwart you. The game was designed to run on a Mac Plus, but should run on any newer mac as well. The game will run in a glorious 16 colour mode for those macs that support it.
The graphics are still a work in progress, and I intend to hire a pixel artist to re-draw the robots and items (except Matilda, who was already draw by my pixel artist). However, the gameplay is more or less what you can expect in the final release. The levels included in the demo are also really just designed to showcase the gameplay at this point, and you can expect some much more challenging puzzles in the final release!
You can download a working demo of the game here. The download contains a bootable .dsk image, which you can mount in your favourite emulator, and a StuffIt archive for use on real hardware.
If you're interested in the development of the game, and my learning journey as I started down this road two years ago, a lot of that is catalouged here. While many folks on this forum helped me out as I was learning the ropes, I want to give a huge thanks to @cheesestraws and @Crutch in particular, who were always quick to jump in with advice and tips when I was stuck. You guys really helped me get over the hump of learning a new language and programming for a new (old) architecture, and I wouldn't have gotten to this point without your help! What I love about this community is the willingness to share knowledge and help out our fellow vintage mac enthusiasts. The help from the members on here gave me the confidence to keep going, and after a while I had the tools and knowledge to solve a lot of my problems on my own. The old Inside Macintosh volumes were a huge help, as well as the huge catalogue of scanned programming books at vintageapple.org.
I am quite proud of what I've accomplished so far, and I've already started thinking about my next games, but I want to finish this one before starting anything new. I'm so proud of what I've accomplished here that I want to do a physical release of the game on 800k floppy with a full printed manual and box. To that end, I'm looking to do a Kickstarter to fund production. I'm really not looking to make any money off of this game, but would love to raise enough to be able to cover the cost of a physical release. Even if that is not something that interests you, I'd love it if you'd follow the project on Kickstarter to get some visibility, and maybe consider sharing it when it goes live. I'll spread the word a bit more on some other platforms once I launch, but since this community really helped me get this project started, I wanted to share it here first and hear what you folks may have to say about it.
Thanks for reading, I hope you download the game and find it amusing!
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