Hi Sean,
I’ve been reading your blog for several months now and generally agreeing with everything you’ve said about gaming. (I am(was) a PC Gamer going all the way back to the 286 and Commodore 64). I stopped buying games for the most part after getting hosed on X-Wing vs TIE Fighter (that was the decisive ripoff for me – I think PC gaming peaked for me in the mid-90s and died some time after 1999 or 2000.)
I used to get a lot of shareware as I was just an 8 or 10 year old kid and couldn’t afford $60 (even then) for a full-production game.
One game that I must have installed either from a 5.25″ floppy or a BBS was called “Chopper Command” by Mark Currie.
He was a 15 year old who programmed the game himself in C or Turbo Pascal or Borland or some language of the time.
What struck me about the game is that (and this was around 1991) is that you could fly the helicopter, with a diverse assortment of fun weapons, and then eject out of the helicopter (or land it) and run around throwing grenades.
There was occasional clever dialog in the briefing scenes and a variety of missions that often ended in disaster.
There was even a secret area – two if you tried really hard – showing an extra personal touch for the curious.
I mention it because it provided hours of gameplay for me and let me do a lot more then the usual games did. It was like a “sandbox” or whatever they are calling it in games these days.
I figure, if one 15-year old could make that using early 1990s computer language, there really is no excuse for a lack of creativity and fun among designers today.
Here’s a video I found:
Watch the mission at 1:30 to see what it was like.
Checking the comments, you can see how real players remember it.
And if you’re really looking for creativity on a budget, look up “Pyromaniac” or “Pyro22.exe.” The game must be about 50 kilobytes but you follow – and you really feel it – a crazed fat guy in a pink dress laying a long string in office buildings that serves as a wick, seeing how much damage you can do. The ideas that used to come out before gameplay became standardized! (I can dig it up for you if you need it.)
Thanks,
XXXXXXXXXXXX
(P.S. I am writing this to you on Friday night – I must be a hardcore gamer!)
No, the hardcore would secretly play games on Friday night and then enter the message forum a day or two later to make sure no one thinks they weren’t out on Friday night. People who live their lives based on what other people think are pretty well imprisoned. I’ve known guys that begin to realize this once they hit forty or fifty (not joking!).
The Chopper Commando video you posted is funny. If the reader views past the first minute or two, the reader will likely be laughing at the guy. The old games were all generally zany like that.
Back in the old days, it was not that uncommon for a 15 year old to make a game. Video games are a hard market even back then so success has always been limited.
I remember it being debated whether a 15 year old programming his own computer was a ‘waste of time’. Well, learning programming in the 80s and 90s would serve the kid well later in life. But what is not debatable is that the 2000s version of the 15 year old is that he is no longer programming his own computer game but playing ‘analyst’ on the gaming message forum and trying to debate about the “game industry”. This IS a waste of time.
I’ve been wondering if there is a way to somehow get forums or a forum to be more computer programming centric again. I suppose the equivalent would be today’s mod makers.
Whatever happened to the gamer when he didn’t like the game that was out would just say, “I can make a better game than that” and proceed to do exactly that?
I pretty much agree with PC Gaming peaking in the 1990s. That was when Internet gaming and 3d cards became popularized, and gaming was a very exciting place.
Maybe you are like me and the horror you witnessed with the destruction of PC games (all in the name of advancing the “industry”) you see occurring with console gaming.
With the decline of PC gaming, at least there are consoles to go to. But should the consoles decline (as they appear to), then where will gaming go?