The Game-Maker Archive—Part 16: Trees in the Forest
We have previously discussed Sherwood Forest Software. They’re an outfit of two Pennsylvanians, Rob Sherwood and Dan Whalen, who latched onto Game-Maker early, pumped out game after game without ever really learning the tools or apparently play testing the results of their efforts, and then quickly vanished.
What is curious about Sherwood’s games is that often the concepts are, if not brilliant, unusual and full of potential. As they went on, some of their sprite and background design was even rather charismatic. Yet their actual design is bewilderingly slapdash, to the point where there’s a certain fascination, perhaps even an education, to poring over their catalog.
There is evidence of at least 11 games by the duo, most of which were released within about six months in 1992. The latest games seemed to trickle out somewhere in 1994. Previously we breezed over four of them: Big Bob’s Drive-In, Shootout at Dodge, Rocket Fighter, and Robo Wars. Thanks to some of the methods outlined in a subsequent chapter, we now have three more games to discuss, this time in a little more detail.