Gridline

Gridline

Release type: Shareware
Release date: 1993 (original release)
Levels: 5
Author: Don'Pan Software
Registration bonus: N/A
Registration price: $10
Related games: Zoom the Super Bear, Sample

It's unclear where Gridline came from. I get the feeling that the title screen may have come before the game itself, so maybe it began with some experiments in Deluxe Paint. Maybe I was thinking of some other game, like the early Genesis puzzler Zoom! -- at least stylistically. Structurally, ToeJam & Earl may have had some influence.

Alternatively, the background grid may have left over from Explorer Jacko. Perhaps the tiles were meant for a dungeon level that I never completed.

Whatever the game's origin, it is perhaps the most original I had developed to this point. Whether it is successful is another question. For a while I was rather proud of it, though. Of my early insertion games, it is the only one that I considered "canonical" and included on lists of available software.

The character is again based on the Sample template. I decided that the grid setting was a sort of outer space purgatory, to which our friend has been spirited away for reasons unknown. The grid is full of mostly-original monsters who could turn a person to stone, and indeed littered with statues representing previous explorers. Also scattered around the grid are cans of cola -- which, for whatever reason, bulwark the character against petrification.

Roaming the grid in Gridline

The idea, I think, was that every time the player died, the character would freeze and turn into stone -- and then the next time around, the statue would remain on the field. That element never quite came together.

Something that sort of did work out was the combat. In place of the projectiles in my earlier games, here it's all about close-quarters fighting. Furthermore, the attacks are mapped to four directionals for a sort of Robotron-style experience. Both the attacks and the mapping are a little wonky in the implementation, but compared to what I'd done before this is a pretty big stylistic leap.

Amongst the melee combat, the small environments, and the distinctive monsters -- as well as the dire consequences of being touched -- Gridline winds up feeling sort of conceptual. Whether it works or not, it's small, focused, and distinctly odd. Little wonder it pleased me at the time.

- [Azurelore Korrigan]

Story

Level 3 of Gridline

You appear in a strange world made entirely of grids and filled with weird creatures which turn flesh to stone at a touch.

You must escape. You have nothing with you, so you must use your martial arts skills to survive, though you doubt you will. There is a special drink, however, which protects slightly anyone who consumes it from the monsters' deadly touch, and you must drink as much as possible when you find it.

Instructions

Avoid the monsters; drink the cola. Find the keys. Open the gates.

• UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT: walk those ways.
• G, H: kick to the left, right.
• Y, B: punch up, down.

Credits

Level 2 of Gridline

A-J Games Team:

Games:

[Azurelore Korrigan]

Game Testers:

Jim Faux

Lan Hasty

Game Engine:

Recreational Software Designs (RSD)

Special Thanx to:

Oliver Stone

Strahd

Matt Bell

Availability

This game is distributed in the shareware directory of the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM.

During the early 1990s the game was also available for download from GameLynk's Frontline BBS.

Archive History

Gridline was retained as part of the archive from the game's inception.

Links

Interviews / Articles

• The History of A-J Games, Part Five

Misc. Links

• Play Gridline online

Downloads

• Gridline (347.0 kB)
• Level 1 Map (47 kB)
• Level 2 Map (82 kB)
• Level 3 Map (149 kB)
• Level 4 Map (154 kB)
• Level 5 Map (167 kB)