Houses

Houses

Release type: Demo game
Release date: 1991
Levels: 3
Author: Recreational Software Designs with Sheldon Chase
Related games: Terrain, Sample, Tutor, WW: Outer Limits, WW: Attack from Below

Along with Terrain and Tutor, Houses is one of the more overt demo games to come with Game-Maker, and along with Terrain you could kind of consider it a spin-off or crossover from Sample. The object is to teach designers how to incorporate multiple characters within a single level. You wander a map riddled with houses of various designs. If you follow the path, each of the first few houses is a hotspot. Depending on which door you enter, you branch off into a parallel version of the map starring a different character.

The game contains (indeed begins with) a slightly less refined version of Chase’s Muybridge lady, wearing just a blue swimsuit — more or less a selective palette swap, adding both a bit of color and a bit of modesty to the black-and-white photos. Houses is a later addition to RSD’s demo portfolio, and perhaps was added for the 3.0 CD release. For posterity, that release also comes with a bare version of the Muybridge model — although I believe it exists only as a raw sprite set, and is not incorporated into any game.

Ghostly faces in Houses

Houses seems to have undergone heavy revision at some point; although early instruction manuals mention the game, in the final version Sheldon Chase’s character sprite, which was only introduced in late versions of Game-Maker, holds center stage.

Notes:

• Why does the punk unicyclist live in the ritziest house of all?
• Wow, what's the deal with the shadowy forms in the row house windows?
• There is in fact a goal to find. It's a house with the word "EXIT" above the door.
• You can only actually finish the game with the biker character.

Instructions

Houses illustrates how to make buildings out of the blocks in the HOUSES block set. It also illustrates how you can have the character change to another character.

Use the arrow keys to move. Other keys do various things for each of the characters.

Follow the green path to change into another character. To leave the game, press the ESC key or enter the door with the EXIT sign.

Resources

• Background blocks, character blocks, and character reused from Sample.
• The biker character is also used in Tutor.
• Sheldon Chase's female character is based on photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, and is further adapted in his Woman Warrior games.

Links

• Sheldon Chase and the Warrior Woman (DIYGamer)

Downloads

• Houses (220.5 kB)