Messages

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Games / Re: Mac Indie Games

« on: December 12, 2007, 01:40:05 pm »

Dude, you can't think of any mac specific game worth more than 15 minutes? Sorry man, but you just slapped Ambrosia in the face!

Sorry I didn't clarify, but I did specifically refer to OS X games.  I can think of loads of games I've played for months that run just dandy on MacOS 7 or earlier but not on anything else, OS X included.  Taskmaker, Quagmire, and Avara are the ones that leap immediately to mind.  Speaking of Avara, yeah I like a lot of what Ambrosia did back in the day, but I'm also one of those die-hards that's still bitter about some of the bad blood surrounding Avara, and furthermore I don't think their latest creations have as much verve as the classics (Maelstrom, Escape Velocity, Apeiron, et cetera).  ::shrug:: But hey, whatever, right?  Ambrosia's kinda shifted over to being more of a publisher, but they're still good for games and good for gaming, so play ball.

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Games / Re: Mac Indie Games

« on: December 11, 2007, 03:08:48 pm »

RE: Dwarf Fortress, Tarn "Toady One" Adams basically made it known on his forums that he'd work on porting DF when KQ was ported, reason being that they share much fundamental code.

One of the things I love about Mac gaming is the way the lack of selection forces me to seek out tiny, poorly publicized games I've never heard of.

Millenipede is one of those.  Likely the most beautiful recreation of 'Pede ever spawned.  And then there's Titan Attacks, a really polished, jazzy Space Invaders descendant.

Xiq is another.  It's like Qix, but you shoot lines instead of making them by moving and there's not one big, slow enemy, but a neverending onslaught.  Plus customizable music.  Definitely innovative.

I have to agree with all previous posts in that I can't think of any OS X-exclusive titles that're worth more than fifteen minutes of play, but I think exclusivity is a poor benchmark anyhow.  So without further ado, on to the usual suspects.

The same guy who ported most of Cho's games also ported a slew by Junpei Isshiki.

Numerous roguelikes in several variations each have been ported to the Mac.  Scads of Angband variants, mostly, but also Nethack, ADoM, ToME, Moria, and Crawl.

Speaking of Crawl, Henzell's Overgod and Garden of Colored Lights were ported.  Can't remember where I found them, but a little google-fu and you should have them.

Jon Mak's Gate88 is compatible, as is Marco Incitti's Gridwars.

Several of Retrospec's releases are OS X-compatible, including Head Over Heels and Wizball.

And, well, lotsa stuff is cross compatible.  Lots.  Kiki the Nanobot, Facade, BZFlag, Escape Velocity, Jet Set Willy, Mutant Storm, N, Super DX-Ball, Super Mario War, numerous ports of Ultimas, and then there are all of LittleWing's fabulous pinball games.  People talk about Macs not being any fun, but I've never lacked.

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Games / Re: Our Favorite Downloadable Games

« on: December 10, 2007, 05:16:25 am »

Lurked for quite a while here, but I just had to register so I could rep my favorite roguelikes.

(Linley(Henzell)'s)Dungeon Crawl "has superb, deep tactical gameplay, innovative magic and religion systems, and a grand variety of monsters to fight."  The above links to the Stone Soup variant which arose to address the desires of the players when vanilla Crawl development slowed to a halt.  Even more fabulous, a player by the name of Enne Walker coded up a version with graphics!



Utilitarian graphics even!  Somebody finally had the bright idea that 32x32 sprite in 256 colors can convey more info than a single character!  Your sprite changes based on items equipped, and a long sword is easily distinguishable from a falchion using *just your eyes*! Imagine!


Or, if you seek a more old-school sensation, you can't go wrong with vanilla Angband.  A new dev took the helm a year or two ago, and it's looking good so far.