Difference between revisions of "CGA Hell"
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''CGA Hell'' imitates the style that developed in response to a now-obsolete, and rather strange, hardware standard, and so puts itself apart from all of the other games on RSD's platform. For that, it expands the expressive potential of what Game-Maker can be and do and so helps to elevate the engine. Here's one more way you can use Game-Maker, that maybe you hadn't thought of before. Your vocabulary is duly broadened. | ''CGA Hell'' imitates the style that developed in response to a now-obsolete, and rather strange, hardware standard, and so puts itself apart from all of the other games on RSD's platform. For that, it expands the expressive potential of what Game-Maker can be and do and so helps to elevate the engine. Here's one more way you can use Game-Maker, that maybe you hadn't thought of before. Your vocabulary is duly broadened. | ||
| − | {{SeriesNav|Mister Spiff IV|CGA Hell|Mister Spiff series{{!}}(Overview)]]|[[Mister Spiff series]]}} | + | {{SeriesNav|Mister Spiff IV|CGA Hell|[[Mister Spiff series{{!}}(Overview)]]|[[Mister Spiff series]]}} |
== Story == | == Story == | ||
Revision as of 17:13, 13 August 2016
Release type: Freeware
Release date: August 24, 1995
Levels: 5
Author: Adam Tyner
Website: DummyDuck.com
Related games: Mister Spiff I, Mister Spiff II, Mister Spiff III: Freeze! Mother! Freeze!, Mister Spiff IV
It is somehow fitting that Mister Spiff ends its journey in an alternative realm. CGA Hell is a spin off of, and the final game in, Adam Tyner's headline series. We pick up midway through the final mainline game, Mister Spiff IV, in which our hero is seemingly revealed as an alter-ego for fellow designer Alan Caudel. Those bonus levels, painted in four-color CGA hues, were strong enough for Tyner to lift them out and expand them into a full game.
In this vision, our man Spiff is done for. He has died, and landed in CGA Hell, where all naughty sprites go when their game is over. Though the first couple of levels are (or seem to be) identical to those in the original game, this spin-off is far more of a complete picture. Spiff is redrawn in CGA glory; the game is longer, and laced with the standard Mister Spiff warp zones. This time Tyner committed to the concept of a CGA-styled game, and in his consistency he more or less nailed it.
Control mapping aside, CGA Hell is one of those rare Game-Maker games that doesn't feel like a Game-Maker game. Rather, it genuinely feels like a game developed in the 1980s for a first-gen color display. It's not just the visuals, though they certainly look the part both stylistically and technically. There's something about the design here that matches the CPU-clocked frenzy of early PC games. Like many Game-Maker games, CGA Hell is more difficult than it needs to be; enemies are everywhere, and they're erratic, and they can't be disabled for long. Thing is, whereas in other games this is merely sloppy, in the case of CGA Hell it's a stylistic flair. That's the way a game like this would have been designed.
The decision feels all the more deliberate for the way the enemies are handled. As in Mr. Berkel Derkel!, generally you don't destroy enemies here; you just knock them out of commission for a while. Likewise, the short, almost exclusively horizontal levels harken back to the simpler designs and ambitions of the pre-Keen era.
Speaking of which, given the obvious debt owed Commander Keen, it further suits Mister Spiff to complete its journey in the past -- to return to an era, claim a space, before even its semi-namesake.
Those Game-Maker games that transcend the engine and manage to stand on their own, so that you don't really see the frame anymore, tend to be the games that propose a rigid aesthetic or theme and then stick to it. Parsec Man 3D sticks to simple shapes, and just enough colors to allow for anaglyphic stereo vision. The Badman games employ a rigorous Commodore-style level structure and clean, continental character designs, to echo that hacky console-influenced PC design.
CGA Hell imitates the style that developed in response to a now-obsolete, and rather strange, hardware standard, and so puts itself apart from all of the other games on RSD's platform. For that, it expands the expressive potential of what Game-Maker can be and do and so helps to elevate the engine. Here's one more way you can use Game-Maker, that maybe you hadn't thought of before. Your vocabulary is duly broadened.
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| Mister Spiff IV | CGA Hell | [[(Overview)]] |
| Mister Spiff series | ||
Contents
Story
CGA HELL!
Ever wonder what happens to video game characters when they run out of lives and continues? Well, the good ones go to SVGA Heaven. Unfortunately, Mister Spiff didn't pay a traffic ticket and was sent to -- (gasp) -- CGA HELL!
Now you must escape CGA Hell armed only with your CGA Ray. Fight off CGA monitors, ghosts, and chompas, zombies, and CGAFlizzums!!! If you die too many times, you must stay in CGA Hell FOREVER!
This game is near 'bout impossible, so go ahead and quit. Without knowing where the level select is, you'll never beat level two!!!!!!
Instructions
CGA HELL!
The control, like CGA graphics, is very simple. Use the numeric keypad to move and ENTER to fire. If your joystick is enabled (press F8 during game play to enable it), the use the stick to move and any button to fire.
2 Cool!
-NOTE-
There is a level select; you'll need it!!!!!!
Credits
CGA HELL!
by Adam Tyner
This game is dedicated to Jessica Setzler, because she got really mad at me the other day!!!!!
Background
| The Making Of "CGA Hell" A 13-minute video of the great On Target Game Only on PCs! | |
|---|---|
| Hi! I'm Adam Tyner, editor of "On Target Power," the crappy magazine that gives you insight into our hellish little world. Right now, we're going to talk to one of the programmers of the game we hope'll be our new hit, "CGA Hell."
Let's meet Don Keith Kahng. He did some of the stunning graphics in "CGA Hell," as well as most of the gameplay. Don Keith Kahng is one of the best programmers in the COUNTRY! ME: Hey Don! Tell us about the design of "CGA Hell." DON: Twenty-five other programmers and I toiled for hours on Silicon-Graphics workstations creating the characters, backgrounds, and monsters. ME: Aren't those the MILLION-dollar computers used for the dinosaur effects in "Jurassic Park"? DON: I think so. We here at On Target Programming are opposed to any non-G rated movie. It's too violent. ME: I agree. How did the graphics turn out, Don? DON: Well, the 256-color high-res SVGA graphics were fabulous. But there was a power failure 20 minutes before the final version was due. So we slapped this 4-color game together and pretended like it was supposed to be this way. ME: That's very interesting. Tell us about the story behind "CGA Hell." DON: Sure! I'm all for shameless self-promotion. You play Mister Spiff... ME: Isn't that the hero in the great Mister Spiff games? DON: It sure is. Anyway, you are doomed to CGA Hell because you didn't pay a traffic ticket. ME: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry, I left it in my glove box and-- DON: HA! No silly, I mean the character you play in the game! ME: Umm...yeah. I know. Jus' kidding. Heh-heh........... DON: I...uh...CGA Hell is sort of like the hell depicted in most religions, but CGA Hell is only for EVIL video game characters. |
ME: Is this the right forum for a religious discussion?
DON: If it'll hamper sales, then "no." ME: Anyway, what is CGA Hell like? DON: It's sort of like real life, only more dangerous. Oh, and there are only four colors. ME: This must have taken a long time to make, with 4 mind-boggling colors. You don't have to buy a special adapter to play it either, like our competitor (rhymes with "mega," as in "mega cool", "mega power"). DON: You can even play it on a 286, if you don't mind tons of slowdown. ME: How many action-packed levels are there? DON: One for each color. The original version had 256 levels, but we only had time for four when everything got erased. ME: What are some of the enemies in "CGA Hell"? DON: You must fight chompers (take it from the chomper, the chomper yeah that's me. Exercise your chompers gotta chew, chew, chew! Exercise your chompers with some good hard food!), zombies trapped between color TV and black and white TV, ghosts, and CGAflizzums. The deadliest enemy is the dreaded CGA MONITOR! ME: Excuse me? DON: See, the first color monitors only had 4 colors and were called CGA. The 4 colors these monitors had are the same 4 in the game. ME: Incredible! DON: Want a CGA monitor? ME: No, that's okay-- DON: Banana, then? ME: No, I'm fine, really-- DON: Go on, have a banana. ME: Don, you're scaring me. Do you have any advice for gamers? DON: Yes; play it loud! |
Availability
This game is not known to have been distributed in any form, prior to its addition to the Archive.
Archive History
After an earlier wave of rediscoveries, on July 13 2011 Alan Caudel provided another archive of previously missing Game-Maker material, including the following:
Links
Downloads
- CGA Hell (91 kB)
