Stickman!!! Die
Release type: Freeware
Release date: 1995
Levels: 1
Author: Yurik Nestoly
Website: On Target Programming
Related games: Yurik 2, Stickman Die!!
Not to be mistaken for Alan Caudel's Stickman Die!!.
For a new designer, there are a few common starting places. Some have long been hurting to design a game, and are full of ideas and characters that they have been exploring in other media such as comics. Others approach the tools as a blank slate, and are eager to just put down something in order to see what the tools can do. Where the former camp tends toward mascot-based platformers, the latter tends to fill the void with a mix of consciously simple imagery and violent transgression (e.g. South Park). It's the two sides of adolescence: earnestness versus cynicism. Either you're really excited by stuff, or -- no matter how interested you really are -- you're eager to show how little you're bothered. To an extent it's concept versus craft.
Stickman!!! Die comes from the latter school. As a test game it's straightforward yet it demonstrates a good basic command of the tools. The appeal here is meant to be the ironic juxtaposition of rough stick figures and over-the-top violence, gore, and scatological humor. For what it's worth, the violence is pretty well-handled -- the backgrounds are full of fun little scenes of pain and horror, with stick figures being tortured like insects.
If you get past the thematic content, Nestoly proves quite able with RSD's tools. For a first effort, the controls are quite refined and full of experimental flourishes (such as the various weapon types). The sprites and the background, though deliberately crude, are well-differentiated. Nestoly may not lay out a road map for future game design, but right out of the gate he is quite comfortable with the basic tasks that can take other authors some time to internalize.
So, that was a fun test. There's not much here, but what's here is executed pretty well. With the introduction over, Nestoly chose to commit a bit further; whereas Stickman!!! Die also goes by the rather telling title Yurik -- "This is my attempt at a game" -- for his next game he overtly went with Yurik 2. In place of a stick figure, we have Nestoly himself. And lo, another user is hooked. Another voice takes the leap to express itself.
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Story
N/A
Instructions
- Space: Fire green laser
- F: Fire electricity beam
- V, B: Fire wide laser left, right
- M: Fire missiles
- P, D: Pick up, Drop items
On numerical keypad:
- 7/8/9: Jump left/up/right
- 4, 6: Walk left, right
Credits
Game designed by Yurik Nestoly.
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
- Stickman!!! Die (122 kB)
- Game map (7.9 kB)
