Pipemare
The Game-Maker box is scattered with genuinely intriguing snapshots of potential games; between ordering the software and receiving it and figuring out how to use it, I used to gaze at the box and wonder how those games were supposed to work. I was reminded of floppy disks full of old shareware, or wandering into an arcade and marvelling at all the novel games, with their unusual mechanics and art styles, that I might never see again.
One of the key pictures was of the tile editor, and the tiles on display were from Pipemare. This game is the definitive Game-Maker game; it’s the sort of game that the software was made to facilitate. Furthermore, it’s the origin of most of RSD’s iconography, from the main character sprite to the pointy-headed monsters.
Pipemare is a top-down exploration maze action game thing; you play as a happy ball with four feet that rotate around the circumference like a walking machine. If you pick up a hamburger, you get fat. If you pick up a hat, you wear it. You can shoot lasers and drop bombs. You avoid or destroy monsters, pick up treasures, fix leaky pipes, and search for the exit. Everywhere you explore, you disturb the water — making it easy to see where you’ve already been. It comes off a bit like a disjointed early Commodore or Amiga response to Pac-Man.
The game is colorful, distinctive, well-drawn. It’s short; only a couple of levels. And yet it exudes atmosphere and charisma in a way that few end-user games ever managed. Frankly, I’d love to see a remake for the Nintendo DS — perhaps with a level editor.
