On Wings of Parchment

August 9, 2003 3:00 PM

Glider PRO, a Macintosh game created by John Calhoun nearly ten years ago, was an innovative and one-of-a-kind title — a refreshing alternative to typical video games of warfare or board game translation. In the game, the player controls a small paper glider through a perilous household, catching updrafts from floor vents and gliding swiftly though the household collecting items, making sure never to touch the floor or the dangers abound. The long-time software publishers of Glider, Casady & Greene have recently folded, and have since returned the distribution rights to Glider back to Calhoun, who is now graciously offering the game as a download on his Web site, free of charge. The game remains as fun and unique as when it first appeared. (Mac only.)
posted by Down10 (24 comments total)

(Mac only.)

Actually, there's a windows version, but it's much older. It's for download on the same page as the Mac version (scroll to the bottom of the page).
posted by MiG at 3:06 PM on August 9, 2003

Yes, I just now noticed that. Thanks, MiG.
posted by Down10 at 3:07 PM on August 9, 2003

the windows version works just fine on w2k. sweet.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:28 PM on August 9, 2003

Very cool, thanks!
posted by jonson at 3:55 PM on August 9, 2003

now that's a programmer with a heart.

reminds me of a wired article that /. pointed me to a couple of days ago. But with a happier ending.
posted by Busithoth at 3:58 PM on August 9, 2003

Very cool, this takes me back. Thanks Down10!
posted by elwoodwiles at 3:59 PM on August 9, 2003

Whoa! I was just playing when I noticed the all the books were the same: Wizard of Oz, something by TS Eliot, something I can't make out and Arc d'X! The Steve Erickson refrence alone makes me love this game.
posted by elwoodwiles at 4:21 PM on August 9, 2003

WOW.
posted by machaus at 4:27 PM on August 9, 2003

Casady & Greene have recently folded

I suppose you think that's funny, don't you? ;)

Does anyone know if the expansion levels work on the doze version?
posted by twine42 at 4:28 PM on August 9, 2003

Looks like the Windows version comes with a bunch of extra houses, Twine... Gads, this takes me back. I'm on a Windows machine now, so I can only play Glider 4.0 - the same as the one I used to play all the time back when I had a Mac. Great memories. Especially the little "new room" riff. Thanks, Down10!
posted by wanderingmind at 5:28 PM on August 9, 2003

Just lovely... But I'm drunk so how should I know?
posted by hoskala at 6:01 PM on August 9, 2003

I can't change to black and white in OSX. It just isn't the same.
posted by machaus at 6:33 PM on August 9, 2003

I loved this game on my cousin's mac. Now I can play on my dell. sweet!
posted by tiamat at 6:45 PM on August 9, 2003

Wow! I can't tell you how many hours I spent on this game. I downloaded dozens of expansion levels - from AOL, on my 2400 bps modem - and constructed a few hundred-room monstrosities of my own. I've never seen any game like it, before or since.
posted by Mars Saxman at 7:20 PM on August 9, 2003

I can't change to black and white in OSX. It just isn't the same.

You can get pretty close though:
Launch System Preferences -> Click on "Universal Access" -> Click on "Set Display to Grayscale"
posted by Fofer at 7:34 PM on August 9, 2003

Makes me wanna play Cosmic Osmo.
posted by HTuttle at 10:29 PM on August 9, 2003

Ever since I foolishly switched to a PC in the mid 90s in exchange for a lucrative cash grant from Bill Gates (I bet you didn't realize it, but he collects the souls of die hard mac loyalists and is willing to pay a pretty penny for each one), I have desperately missed all my mac only games, more specifically the works of Ambrosia Software, and most specifically of all, Maelstrom. I almost want to buy a mac, but then the spies might find out & I'd have to return the M$ payolla.
posted by jonson at 10:59 PM on August 9, 2003

Really nice to see stuff somewhat enter the public domain. Kudos to the creator.
posted by rudyfink at 1:30 AM on August 10, 2003

the mac game i'm waiting for to be re-released is world builder.

ah, many adolescent hours spent making foolish RPGs.

when i was young, WorldBuilder was the one app that had me drooling over my friend's Mac Classic -- sure, it was black and white, sure, the screen was tiny, but shit! you could make your own graphical rpgs with little effort! HELL YES.

(ok, i lie. there was a mac classic playboy "game" that my friend managed to discover in his father's desk that fascinated me even more, due to my mostly porn-less early adolescence. this app was rather odd, if i recall correctly: it involved a little eight ball man and an eight-bit bunny. i can't elaborate more, sorry).

man, we really needed to have a soap box derby or something. that might've saved us from being nerds.

[two minutes later]

whoa! WorldBuilder is alive and well as freeware!

and someone has nicely updated it to play in a 32-bit environment (apparently -- i skimmed, ok? don't sue me.)

However, you have to play nice: it's a geocities link. Maybe someone can mirror?

I GIVE YOU .... WORLDBUILDER. (geocities! keerful!)

(here's another WorldBuilder link that's probably more sturdy, but less informative.)
posted by fishfucker at 2:48 AM on August 10, 2003

Does anyone know if the expansion levels work on the doze version?

not sure what those would be, but you can select different houses via the menu top left.
posted by andrew cooke at 5:58 AM on August 10, 2003

HTuttle, my girlfriend says if you ever find a copy of Cosmic Osmo that she can play on windows, she will love you forever.
posted by tomsk at 11:33 AM on August 10, 2003

The OS X switch is what killed Casady and Greene. It's primary product was an extension manager for Mac OS 9 - since OS X doesn't have any extensions to be managed, its only use was in the Classic environment, and I guess the program just became more and more irrelevant. I dunno whether Casady and Greene ever released anything for OS X or not, but it's a damn shame - Conflict Catcher had one of the best manuals I'd ever read, and the program really made running OS 9 a whole lot easier. And spell-catcher, too, got killed by OS X because OS X has a spellcheck built into the OS. iData pro didn't work right under OS X anyway, and it's really a shame such a good software company folded.
posted by Veritron at 1:24 PM on August 10, 2003

Don't forget Cassidy & Greene also produced SoundJam, a really good MP3 jukebox for the Mac that Apple bought up to use as the basis for iTunes. It still has some cool features that iTunes does not have... and who could forget Crystal Quest? One of the best early games for the Mac.
posted by gyc at 1:52 PM on August 10, 2003

Agreed, Veritron... although OS X still could use a nice installer/uninstaller-package-library-prefpane manager... we might not have extensions anymore but we still need conflict management. It would be nice if there was a universal way to uninstall programs, because dragging applications to the trash just doesn't do it anymore.

BTW, the Conflict Catcher manual was written by none other than the New York Times' David Pogue. My favorite Mac author, he's really quite good.
posted by Fofer at 4:57 PM on August 10, 2003