Posted by Jordan Magnuson
Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:46:00 GMT
One of my all time favorite “Click” games. You play the White Wizard, residing in a medieval fantasy fortress where you create and unleash hordes of minions onto a 2D battlefield with one goal in mind: defeat the warlord across the way. If you ever played Three-Sixty Pacific’s Armor Alley, you’ll find that the premise is similar, but this game might just be better than its classic counterpart.
The mechanics are fairly simple: use the keyboard to move blocks of resources around to form combinations which produce troops, then unleash those troops to the battlefield where they fight automatically as best they can. The game blends strategy, tactics, and dexterity in a really interesting way.
On the strategic level you will have to decide which Warlord to play (each has their strengths and weaknesses), and what your general plan of unit production is going to be: a cheap mix of foot soldiers and archers, with an occasional battering ram thrown in? Or perhaps you will rely on more advanced technology and an air based assault? Or how about trying to infect your opponent’s troops with the Black Plague?
On the tactics level you’ve got to respond to the situation at hand, both in terms of the resources you have in front of you, and the current state of the battlefield.
Finally, on the dexterity level… well, the game is played in freakin’ realtime, and you better get good at moving those blocks of resources around!
Siege has a couple of flaws, like its tiny 320×200 resolution and some imbalances that I’ll let you discover, but these small detriments are small next to the fun of madly mixing resources and watching your miniature troops fight it out to the death in front of you, with your arch-nemesis pounding away on the keyboard beside you.
The game supports human vs. computer and human vs. human play. I don’t have to tell you which is better.
Download Siege for free from WinSite (1.35 MB).
P.S. You may need to run the game in Windows 95 compatibility mode; and remember to copy cncs32.dll to your system32 directory if the game doesn’t work.
Posted in Multiplayer, Highly Recommended, Windows, Strategy, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags FallenAngelIndustries | 24 comments
Posted by Terry
Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:13:00 GMT
Tonight is Games Night. Come join us in #tigIRC around 8pm GMT! Game of the night: iScribble! We’ll also be playing Jet Set Willy Online, TrackMania, Zap, and anything else anybody might want to play. Check out BlademasterBobo’s thread on the forums for more info.
Be there or be a four equally sided shape with 90 degree angles.
Posted in Multiplayer, Community | Tags GAMENIGHT | 8 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:57:00 GMT
Kriegspiel, or “War Game,” is a digital remake of a board game developed by French avant-garde writer, film maker, and activist Guy Debord.
Inspired by the military theory of Carl von Clausewitz and the European campaigns of Napoleon, Debord’s game is a chess-variant played by two opposing players on a game board of 500 squares arranged in rows of 20 by 25 squares.
One of the fundamental strategies behind the game is to maintain various “lines of communication” across the map, while cutting off your opponent’s lines. These lines radiate from arsenals and relay points and allow your troops to move and attack. If a troop is not on a friendly line, it’s immobilized, but if it’s on an enemy line, it blocks the line at that point. The game is won when a player’s arsenals or troops are completely destroyed.
RSG, the developers of the remake, have chosen not to add a single-player component to the game, in order to preserve the “fidelity” of the original idea. Unfortunately, it makes the game, already in a niche, that much more challenging to get into. But for war/strategy buffs, I think it’s worth checking out what looks like an extremely elegant, Chess-like game (and a well-done remake).
(Source: Tim Stone, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
Posted in Macintosh, Multiplayer, Windows, Strategy, Freeware | Tags GuyDebord, RSG | 10 comments
Posted by Lorne Whiting
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:22:00 GMT
Event: TIGS Game Night
Day: Saturday
Time: 12pm noon PST, which is also known as 3pm EST, 8pm GMT, etc.
Place: TIGSource (more specifically
TIGIRC)
Games: Jet Set Willy Online, iSketch, Warsow, iScribble, Soldat
(Courtesy of
Princess Bobo.)
Posted in Multiplayer, Community | 12 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:33:00 GMT
After a handful of posts about his philosophies regarding manliness and the Universe, Michal Marcinkowski has finally put up some new info about Berserker, his hand-to-hand physics-based deathmatch game that takes place in an abandoned prison. This step-by-step guide will show you how to paint a cell block in a delightful crimson red… just in time for Spring! Martha Stewart approves.
In the comments, Michal reveals in the comments that:
The game is pretty much playable, although bots have no waypoints, no network code, and a lot of bugs. Really good ideas are always welcome but we’ve probably thought about them all already.
Let’s hope for a soon release!
Posted in Multiplayer, Fighters, Previews | Tags MichalMarcinkowski, TranshumanDesign | 19 comments
Posted by Lorne Whiting
Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:51:00 GMT
Blademaster Bobo (pictured) has been kind enough to organize another Game Night! Woo hoo!
All the info is in the above link, but I’ll state it here for convenience’s sake:
It’s happening Saturday at 1200 PST or 2000 GMT in the #tigIRC and the games they plan to play are Warsow, iSketch, and ever-popular Jet Set Willy Online.
Unfortunately, neither I nor Bobo can make it, so PhoenixJ is hosting it.
Posted in Multiplayer, Community | Tags GAMENIGHT | 6 comments
Posted by Jordan Magnuson
Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:23:00 GMT
Okay, this week I’ve got something that I’m guessing you haven’t played: Tremor 3 by Mark Pay. This little gem came out eight years ago (yikes, I’ve been playing this for eight years?!?), and went largely unnoticed by those outside of the “Click” community. A shame, because the game is wonderful.
Tremor is essentially a bloody multiplayer deathmatch game in the vein of Quake and Unreal Tournament, but re-imagined in a 2D top-down world. And instead of blowing each other to bloody bits over a LAN, with a safe eight feet of distance between you and your opponents, you’re all sitting at the same keyboard.
Deathmatch, King of the Hill, and Gladiator modes are all available for 2 or 3 players (3 is much better in my opinion), and you can play the game to the soundtrack of your favorite CD. The controls may seem strange at first, but once you get used to them you will find they work pretty well. The game’s interface is fantastic (very sweet how your damage shows as graphical sections around you), and the graphics in general are pure joy.
Download Tremor 3 from Mark’s MMF Bunker (Free, 6.21 MB).
Also worth noting is Mark’s earlier release Tremor (2) Gold. The interface and graphics are inferior to the sequel, but it features 4 player support and a fantastic survival mode that were both sadly chopped for Tremor 3. I used to have this one on my computer, but it’s been lost over the years, and I could not find an active link anywhere on the internet. Was ist neu? Perhaps someone else will be more successful. EDIT: qnp comes to the rescue! Download Tremor Gold here: http://www.mediafire.com/?exsbbixwlxj.
EDIT: Keyboard jamming? Try hooking up a usb keyboard and ps2 keyboard in tandem.
Posted in Multiplayer, Highly Recommended, Shoot-em-ups, Windows, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags MarkPay | 18 comments
Posted by Jordan Magnuson
Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:33:00 GMT
Short intro: I am Flaming Pear, and I’m back. Obviously this site is Derek’s now, and I’m grateful that he’s let me return to share my two cents. I love indie gaming, and I love what Derek (and all of you) have done with this site.
Now, on to the gaming. I thought I’d start out by posting on a category of games that is under appreciated, under covered (no pun intended), and these days under produced. You know the games I’m talking about: those beautiful creations that let you sit down with your brother/mother/friend/enemy/albino pig and battle it out on one keyboard. Elbows in gut. Teeth on skin. Nails in scalp. Blood on floor. Fists pounding away.
I love these games, and I’m going to share a few of my favorites. These games aren’t new, but some of them are classics that are perhaps unknown to recent converts to indie gaming, and others of them are little gems that went largely unnoticed at their time of release.
First: Triplane Turmoil
This one is definitely a classic. Based on the (even) older classic Sopwith, Triplane Turmoil is a sidescrolling WWI dogfight simulator developed by Dodekaedron Software in 1996. The single player game lets you fly missions as England, Germany, Japan and, um, Finland, but the brilliant multiplayer mode allows up to four (that’s right, four) people to battle it out on a multi-leveled playing field that is entirely visible on one screen. The goal is simple: destroy the other players’ bases while protecting your own.
The controls take a while to master, but once you get into the swing of things (could take a good couple of hours) you will find that, like the gameplay in general, they are brilliant. There are few multiplayer gaming experiences of any kind that surpass some of the battles I’ve had with experienced TT players. The agony of outfitting your plane at the beginning of each run (do I go for speed, maneuverability, more ammo, bombs?), the challenge of keeping your plane in the air even when nobody’s shooting at you (true to WWI-era aircraft), and the sheer joy of successfully pulling off a double somersault, triple twist, back-peddling maneuver to drop a bomb on one of your opponents planes and watch it explode in midair (potentially destroying you in the process), are moments I will no doubt be yelling about in the nursing home when I get there.
Download Triplane Turmoil from the DOS Games Archive (Free, 1.94 MB).
You’ll probably want to run the game using DOSBox (a wonderful emulator, if you don’t already have it).
Posted in Multiplayer, Highly Recommended, Windows, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags Dodekaedron | 28 comments
Posted by BMcC
Sat, 26 Jan 2008 11:28:00 GMT
I just love posting these little, horribly violent animation loops from Cortex Command.
Anyway, the 20th build has been released. Dunno why it hadn’t been posted here yet. (Maybe it had?)
Expect the usual bunch of improvements and tweaks. Download here.
Posted in Platformers, Multiplayer, Windows, Physics, Action / Arcade | Tags DataRealms | 26 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:40:00 GMT
Do I need to say much about Grassman7z7’s two player mod for Death Worm to convince you that it’s awesome? Worm one is controlled with the arrow keys, and worm two with WASD. There’s also an added “sonar mode” option which allows you to detect movement above ground. The game ends when BOTH worms are killed, and the cumulative score is ranked.
One thing I wish they’d show was how much meat each worm had separately consumed, and perhaps rank those separately. It’d add some fun competition to the whole thing. But otherwise, this is great fun, even with one player controlling both worms! “NOM NOM NOM!”
EDIT: By the way, the mod is a stand-alone executable that does not require the original to play. And you still have the option to play with just a single worm (LOL).
(Source: KingAl, via The Bit Blot Forums!)
Posted in Unique / Bizarre, Multiplayer, Videos, Windows, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags JTR | 13 comments
