MetaFilter posts tagged with classic and games

Waka-waka-waka

JHarris — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:15:34 -0800

The Pac-Man Dossier is an extremely detailed description of the game logic of arcade Pac-Man. It explains why, once in a while, monsters will harmlessly pass through Pac-Man. It explains why they won't go up through the tunnels above the monster box. It explains why occasionally, after losing a life, monsters will refuse to leave the box. It explains when and why Blinky becomes Cruise Elroy, and why sometimes Pinky gets confused and loses track of Pac-Man. It even explains, as far as the player can continue to play, what to do on the kill screen. It is awesome. Previously....

We've got games your 10 year old wouldn't be good at.

WolfDaddy — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:38:46 -0800

Wanna play the first two Fallout games for totally cheap? Good Old Games is now open to the public. Via Blue's News, some interesting discussion there about "DRM Free" claims and whether or not Freespace 2 is really "free."

You are not yet enlightened, Inky-san.

JHarris — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:57:41 -0800

Retro Sabotage is a collection of recreations of classic video games. Or is it? Hint: It's not, but to explain them would be to spoil it. If a button needs to be pressed, it's the space bar unless it's explained otherwise. My advice is to try the Pac-Man and Space Invaders ones first, but Pong 2.0 is a highlight.

Open source classics

hoverboards don't work on water — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:27:03 -0800

You've heard of ScummVM and MAME, but harvest time is approaching in the field of reverse-engineered open source re-implementations of other classic games too:
OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon), LinCity (Sim City), Advanced Strategic Command (Battle Isle), Freeciv (Civilization), Enigma (Oxyd), Widelands (Settlers), OpenArena (Quake 3), Spring (Total Annihilation), JJFFE (Frontier First Encounters), Vega Strike and Oolite (Elite), FreeOrion (Master of Orion), Pingus (Lemmings), Stratagus (Warcraft II et al.), CloneKeen (Commander Keen), Exult (Ultima VII), FreeCNC (Command & Conquer), REminiscence (Flashback), LGeneral (Panzer General), Pioneers (Settlers of Catan), and Freedoom (Doom).

moz — Fri, 02 Aug 2002 13:32:40 -0800

Robotron: 2084. Presented is an interview with the creator of the fantastic game from the mid 80s; regarding the design of enemies in the game, he has this to say: "Some of the most interesting and deadly aspects of the enemies were bugs caused by improperly terminated boundary conditions in the algorithms. Often these bugs produced behavior far more interesting and psychotic then anything I conceived of." There are many more interviews of classic game authors in the book which is the source for this interview, James Hague's Halcyon Days. (Link thanks to Glish.)

moz — Fri, 06 Jul 2001 14:11:02 -0800

The giant list of classic computer programmers takes you back to a time when one person could realistically author a computer game and have it published. Of course most of the people on this list will have worked on small teams to produce games, but the diversity of the games on these people's resumes is awesome. In particular, I notice Michael Cranford (responsible for The Bard's Tale I and II, the Centauri Alliance, and ports of Donkey Kong and Super Zaxxon) and Robert Woodhead (Wizardry 1-5). As an interesting sidenote, Robert Woodhead went on to Animeigo, a japanese animation publishing company in the US. What memories of these old sk00l games do you have?