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.

For the 3.0 release of Game-Maker, Houses was updated 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. There is also a fully nude version of the Muybridge model (as per the original photographs), although it is known to exist only as a raw sprite set, and is not incorporated into any game.

Ghostly faces in Houses

Altogether, Houses seems to have undergone heavy revision along the way; 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.

Some of the background elements in Houses (indeed also in Sample and Terrain) are borrowed from Andy Stone's Labyrinth, the Ur game that led to the development of Game-Maker. Those tiles include some of the grass and mud elements.

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.

Story

The prime real estate of Houses

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.

Instructions

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.

Credits

Designed by Recreational Software Designs.

Female character by Sheldon Chase.

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)
• Demu entry
• Play Houses online

Downloads

• Houses (220.5 kB)
• Houses map (281 kB)