The Game-Maker Archive — Part 16: Trees in the Forest

September 23, 2010

by Eric-Jon Rössel Tairne

We have previously discussed Sherwood Forest Software. They’re an outfit of two Pennsylvanians, Rob Sherwood and Dan Whalen, who latched onto Game-Maker early, pumped out game after game without ever really learning the tools or apparently play testing the results of their efforts, and then quickly vanished.

What is curious about Sherwood’s games is that often the concepts are, if not brilliant, unusual and full of potential. As they went on, some of their sprite and background design was even rather charismatic. Yet their actual design is bewilderingly slapdash, to the point where there’s a certain fascination, perhaps even an education, to poring over their catalog.

There is evidence of at least 11 games by the duo, most of which were released within about six months in 1992. The latest games seemed to trickle out somewhere in 1994. Previously we breezed over four of them: Big Bob’s Drive-In, Shootout at Dodge, Rocket Fighter, and Robo Wars. Thanks to some of the methods outlined in a subsequent chapter, we now have three more games to discuss, this time in a little more detail.

Safari Sam: Jungle Explorer

Safari Sam is a grab bag of half-fulfilled ideas, in an inadvertently offensive setting. As with many Sherwood games, the basic idea is fairly clever; it’s sort of a variety game, like Skate or Die. You wander around on a main map, and enter various levels, each of which is a different event with different objectives, different controls, and a different character sprite. The levels are as varied as a Toobin’-style flume ride, a Donkey Kong-style arcade platformer, and a sort of a Frogger level. All your favorite early ’80s arcade games in one.

As usual the problem is in the execution. None of the character sprites has much animation, and some have none at all. Any motion is jerky, imprecise, and strange. The controls are arbitrarily laid out on the keyboard, such that you press the first letter of any verb relevant to the scene. If in one level Sam can jump, you press the “J” key. If he can throw powder, you press the “T” key. Playing a game like this, one learns to appreciate concise control mapping.

I touched on it a couple of paragraphs ago, but I feel I need to bring more attention to just how questionable the setting and realization are from a modern perspective. You know that old Tintin book, Tintin in the Congo, that caused such a fuss when it was finally released in English a couple of years ago? This game might as well be an adaptation of that.

With its earnest ambition and especially poor command of Game-Maker, I would believe it if I learned that Safari Sam was Sherwood’s first game. It seems to have come out early in 1992, whereas most of Sherwood’s other games started to trickle out the following fall.

Adventures in Melgrata

I think that Sherwood was shooting for a sort of a Gauntlet thing here. Maybe Zelda by way of Richard Garriott? You’re a quaint medieval forest adventurer, complete with tunic and green newspaper cap with a feather. Ostensibly the idea is to wander through a convoluted yet somehow empty countryside, collecting treasure and stumbling upon the right path to the next level. Since this is a Sherwood game (and probably the most appropriate to that title), nothing quite turns out as planned.

Rather, upon starting the game you will spend about two minutes trying your best to avoid being assailed by an unending torrent of protagonist-seeking foes. Then they will touch you once, freezing you in place. Several more thieves will mob you, and you’re done for. This will happen over and over before you learn a few tricks and glitches to help you avoid the enemies.

Even when you find the arrow, and figure out how to pick it up and shoot it, there’s no guarantee that it will hit an enemy rather than passing right through. You have to measure the right distance between you and your target. Not an easy demand. What with their constant approach, at about the same rate that your character walks, there’s really no time to sit around and aim.

The instructions describe all sorts of challenges and wonders as the game goes on. Perhaps it’s appropriate that they remain a myth.

Air-Strike 42

Of all the attempts at a scrolling shooter within the Game-Maker engine, this is the least successful — even less so than Sherwood’s Rocket Fighter, which previously seemed like a low mark. I don’t mean to be down on this game, or any game, but good grief.

So you shoot, and you drop a limited number of bombs. Neither does much good, really; the only activities that seem productive are plowing into bunkers and bridges, to blow them up. As usual for a Sherwood game, movement and especially attacking are cumbersome, and enemies tend to come out of nowhere quickly.

Air-Strike 42 is not an easy game to play, and because of the odd mechanics it’s not an easy game to figure out. Although that confusion may be one of it stronger suits; in some ways it’s reminiscent of a random third-rate NES game that you might have bought sight unseen in the late 1980s. You’re convinced that it makes sense, but you just can’t figure out what it wants from you. In trying to figure it out, your mind opens to many strange and wonderful possibilities.

Here’s another positive, or at least a nominally engaging curio. The maps are full maps. Unlike most shooters, movement isn’t contained to a narrow corridor. Rather, every tile is used. You’ve got a whole auto-repeating environment to explore.

That sense of mystery cloaked in confusion — that’s the most redeeming and curious quality about Sherwood’s games. It’s the quality that, against my better judgment, makes games like Dr. Chaos and 8 Eye’s amongst my favorite NES titles. They’re so inscrutable that they almost become a nightmare, rather like biggt‘s or Cactus‘ games. All the more reason not to get so caught up in these notions of objective quality that we’re all prone to, and to appreciate videogames for their emotional impact — deliberate, as in the case of those indie designers, or not, as in the case of Sherwood Forest.

If you’re that kind of a person, you can download, and thereby peruse, the above games here

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