The Game-Maker Archive – Part 19: Presents and Protocol

December 24, 2010

by Eric-Jon Rössel Tairne

There were three main ways that Game-Maker users communicated. Either they knew each other in person, which was nothing unusual but could lead to larger and more nuanced projects than an individual could tackle, they communicated through the post, which was slow but both mysterious and intimate, or there were the BBSes.

Before the Web caught on (or even existed), the big deal was local dial-up boards. Most of them were text-based, and most were fairly slow. You would connect, check your personal messages, see if anyone had posted any new discussion topics or responses, perhaps fiddle with a multiplayer door game or two — and then you would head to the file area.

Most boards had a ratio: you can download so many bytes for so many bytes you upload. A bad ratio was close to 1:1. Somewhere between a 2:1 and 4:1 ratio, the file area would come to life. Users would be just motivated enough to keep sharing material, yet wouldn’t feel pressed to dump just any junk on the community. This is the environment where shareware thrived; when the Web took over, the whole shareware model went into whack.

If you found the right board, BBSes were also the perfect environment to share and discuss Game-Maker games. Mark Janelle ran the Frontline BBS with RSD’s semi-official blessing. Other users ran their own boards or carved out corners of existing communities.

A problem with BBSes was their dial-up nature. Unless the board was very local, you were in immediate danger of old-school long distance phone charges. If the board was in the same state but not in the same county, you were particularly screwed. So despite Janelle’s and RSD’s efforts there was never a unified Game-Maker community. Rather, the community consisted of countless islands of independent development, that would occasionally cross paths and trade ideas.

Although it was located in the middle of nowhere — specifically Kennebunkport, Maine — which must have made a daunting long-distance charge for most users, the Frontline BBS was the most prominent place for these paths to cross. That makes sense; it was the only board referenced in the Game-Maker box. The board therefore carried some valuable artifacts of shared Game-Maker culture. Whether or not those artifacts are in themselves excellent is sort of beyond the point. What’s important is that they are formative and sort of iconic to the Game-Maker experience.

These four games, by two authors, are amongst the first Game-Maker games that many users will have played, aside from RSD’s demo games and those users’ own creations. Unfortunately not all of them still exist in precisely their original form, but one takes what one can get.

Viki: Escape from Videoland

Our first artist is a fellow from Singapore named Ronnie Toon. He’s still designing web games under the Ron Marie Services banner. It’s unclear just how many games he designed with Game-Maker, as most of his older work has succumbed to the elements — in his case heat and mold. The first of his two surviving games hints at a subsequent explosion of design.

Viki is a grab bag of design. Each level explores a completely different concept, and the documentation announces a follow-up game expanded from each individual level concept. The concepts range from an inscrutable rocket pack stage to a Penguin Pete style melt maze to odd action puzzle design that takes advantage of Game-Maker’s distinctive collision and clipping bugs.

Strange and odd are operative words here, as the design in Viki is often sort of bewildering. Viki was Ronnie’s first game, and for that it is a bold collection of experiments coherently wrapped together. Yet it also is interesting to see his raw instinct, without the distraction of careful analysis or experience. Why does the rocket pack level consist entirely of waiting around for a gate to open? Why does the only obvious solution to the third level require glitching out the game engine? What exactly is the main character, Viki, and how does this game represent a cross section of Videoland? Perhaps the channel-surfing level design explains the latter. Either way, there is much in this game that will likely remain a mystery.

The shareware version includes only four levels, and promises another two upon registration. If they ever existed, it’s unlikely that they do now. Going from the documentation, level five would have involved a place called Space City, and level six was set on Crazy Island. Ominous.

Kirk Voodia

From exotic Singapore we leap to exotic Pennsylvania, and a very young man named Kevin Vance. Now a coder of random and varied applications, Vance cut his teeth on Game-Maker in grade school. His first project, Kirk Voodia, is a similarly raw look at game design as creative expression. Yet whereas Viki is an example of flat-out weird design decisions cloaked in (for the time) a lush, professional presentation, Voodia hides a pretty solid sensibility behind one of the roughest presentations you’ll see.

Rough, yet also original and honest. Despite a character that continually changes proportions, and at best is a glorified stick figure, there’s something coherent about the game. The art looks like a grade schooler’s scratchings, and that’s what it is. The story is a grade schooler’s (apparently self-insertion) story about an ordinary kid with a lightning gun, swept up into a dangerous situation in a curiously decorated warehouse. The whole thing comes off like a fourth grade writing assignment, brought to life.

And curiously enough, it’s actually kind of playable. There’s a half decent, and essentially fair, level structure, complete with secret exits and bonus stages. The character’s movements are so dramatic — the jumps are so high, the squats are so low — that they feel rather fresh. There are several distinct weapons. Although they continually seek the character’s position, monsters move slowly enough to respond to. Honestly, for what it is, the game ain’t half bad. And it’s also totally genuine. If my kid had designed this, I would be proud of it.

Hi-Tech Demo

Although he busied himself with countless games, Vance’s only other known surviving Game-Maker project is a collection of background tiles, intended as a gift to the Frontline BBS community, bound together with a rough demonstration game. In their original form, most of the blocks consisted of simple shapes and flat colors. After downloading, I somehow felt compelled to spruce up both the game and the tiles, while retaining as much of their original personality as possible. I added shading and character animation, and I threw in a handful of monsters to spice up Vance’s levels. My reasoning was that the game was free, and meant to be stripped apart for use anyway, so it couldn’t hurt to improve on the game itself.

In retrospect perhaps this wasn’t the wisest plan; I failed to foresee that my altered version, enhanced strictly for my own amusement, might be the only surviving version of Vance’s game. Perhaps the editing is itself a notable artifact of the time; it’s not for me to say. Regardless, the game is still essentially Vance’s. Aside from the monsters, all of the changes are cosmetic and all are enhancements rather than straight-out replacements. The geometry and actual color choice always remains intact. And as with Kirk Voodia, the design is pretty okay. It’s challenging yet fair, and the levels are fairly enjoyable to hop around. Nothing sophisticated, but that’s the charm.

Santa is Back!

Ronnie’s only other known survivor is a Christmas gift from 1993 — a freeware single-screen platformer that lays bare the perilous and confusing journey that Saint Nick undertakes to collect his presents for Christmas morning.

As with Viki, Santa is Back! is an unusual game in several respects. The most obvious and important of those is the game’s format. Aside from John’s Archaeological Adventures, you don’t really see many single-screen platformers on RSD’s engine. There are probably many good reasons why not, as Santa is Back! shares many of the same problems as Ludlam’s game — bouncy and unreliable moving platforms, edge-of-screen weirdness, difficulty in effectively exploiting the screen real estate. The novelty does make up for many of the quirks, as at least the game is trying something different.

Typically when we think of single-screen platformers we think of arena or hop-’n-bop games like Bubble Bobble or Tumblepop. Instead, Santa is Back! calls to mind ancient and half-remembered DOS and Apple II games. The focus is less on jumping than on ladders and dodging. That, and simply on making sense of what’s going on from moment to moment. The difficulty in discerning enemies from decorations, the twitchiness of the controls and colission, the erratic level structure, and the downright weird way that levels are linked together, can make play feel almost arbitrary. Yet as with those ancient games, it feels like it should and must make sense, as cosmetically the game feels so well-assembled. The disparity creates a certain cognitive dissonance that makes the game creepier than probably intended, and all the more memorable for it.

As this is likely your first and only opportunity to play these games, you can download them here. Consider it a very eccentric and dusty Christmas gift from DIY Gamer to you. Boot up DOSBox and if you’ve got any fresh young eyes bobbing around your knees, try giving them a crack at the games. Get ‘em before they’re cynical, and just maybe they’ll strip away some of your own years.