The Game-Maker Archive: Eclypse Games

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by [redacted]

Eclypse Games was basically a guy named James Faux, aka OmegAkira. He lived and attended high school in New Jersey, and he ran a Game-Maker dial-up BBS called SiNiSTRY, which I think was also the name of his personal rock band. The board was only available irregularly, as he ran it off his primary phone line. I can’t quite remember where I first found his work; perhaps on the official RSD BBS in Rockport. Eventually I found myself calling his BBS at all weird hours, to cut down on long-distance charges.

Significantly, Jim was a musician and he was one of the few individuals outside of Epic Megagames to figure out what to do with the .CMF music format that Game-Maker relied on. So if nothing else, his games tended to be all original: new ideas, new techniques, new graphical elements, new sound effects, new music. A few of his earlier games do use the familiar stock tracks, though that tendency soon diminished.

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Steam Play Indie Pack

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Spring must be the season for indie game packages. Following the Humble Indie Bundle and Sleep is Death pay-what-you-want specials, and indeed Valve’s own free offer of Portal, Steam has a new package of five indie games for $20.00. Not quite as cheap, but still tidy compared with the $50.00 cover price for all five.

The Steam Play Indie Pack includes Broken Rules’ And Yet It Moves, Hassey Enterprises’ Galcon Fusion, Amanita Design’s Machinarium, Hemisphere Games’ Osmos, and (in case you haven’t already claimed it elsewhere) 2D Boy’s World of Goo.

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