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Networked MAME - Kaillera
t0qer writes: "Everyone knows about mame the multiple arcade machine emulator. Recently there has been a new addition to the mame lineup called Kaillera which is a net enabled version that allows you to play any mame game with anyone around the world. It's client/server based which makes for some very good performance. Linux server is available."
Well, I remember back in '93 or so there was a game by Atari (it was called Space Lords IIRC) that consisted of sevearl consoles networked together. My local arcade had four machines networked and the whole thing set up as a 4 (or 8 since you could have a "gunner" on each console) deathmatch. It was loads of fun, but I never saw it again after moving out of the area in '93. Now early nintys is still a bit recent for nostalga, but at least there was one networked arcade game.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
> The trouble with games today is that most of the simple, fun ideas were used up years ago
Isn't that the "there's nothing left to invent" argument.
Sounds like bullshit to me. The early games had a more abstract quality - they were not restrained by trying to mimic reality, so this made them more inventive. Best example of this is tetris, but asteroids, space invaders, pacman, defender, qix, tempest are all radically different, excellent in their own way, and almost entirely divorced from reality.
Simplicity isn't the issue - it's effort and imagination. How much inventive power did it take to pack a game like defender into 22345 bytes ? Now games companies spend money on artists, musicians, production managers, etc. At some stage modern games will start to use the power at their disposal to explore different realities again, and maybe interest will return.
Once 3d mounted headsets are common place, we can start playing with 4D universes. In same way that you can project 3d onto 2d screen you can do a reasonable job of projecting 4d onto 3d, but it makes your brain ache initially.
Or someone will produce a game where physics obeys the rules of the quantum level instead of Newtonian, a D&D game in this mold could be fun (with spin 1/2 objects etc). Possibilities are endless, but basic premise is total immersion in an alternate universe. QuakeIII is not an alternate universe, just an alternate situation.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Just because it's old doesn't necessarily mean it's any good! Nostalgia is all well and good for a few minutes here and there, but let's face it - the majority of games were (and still are) utter dross!
Throughout the history of gaming, genuinely excellent titles are few and far between. For every "Pac-Man", there's at least a dozen "Time Traveller"s.
The trouble with games today is that most of the simple, fun ideas were used up years ago, and so complexity has rather taken its place. Complexity can be fun too, but the number of "pick up and play" games has dwindled to a pathetic number these days... or at least, it seems to have. Maybe the ratio is now a "Doom" to every dozen2 "Daikatana"s...
Going back a bit, consider the game "Lemmings". Utterly brilliant game. Amusing. Fun. Then came the sequels. The trouble was, the original game had to be "extended". It was more complex. Your abilities changed. And the "fun" evaporated. This scenario is repeated again and again and again ad infinitum, the "fun" slowly boiled out of the original concept.
Take a concept like "Tetris". How do you improve that!? Which version of Tetris are you thinking about? Almost certainly, the original Gameboy implementation. Out of all of the hundreds/thousands of different versions, written over the past 15 years, we like the original Gameboy version best. Gameboy Tetris wasn't the first (by a long chalk!) of the game but had the best 'balance' by far. And the only feature of note they added to the GBC version (10 years later) was that your high scores were saved... They *didn't* mess with the basic game, although for some reason they made the music worse.
So, in my roundabout kind of a way, I agree with you 100%. Just felt like adding to the conversation 8). In AOLSpeak, "me too!".
PS. The game I've had most fun with of late is "Serious Sam" by Croteam. It's like Doom, but with a modern 3D engine attached. Believe you me, Doom 3's aquired the benchmark against which it will be judged in this game...)
Read my online journal: http://chris.carline.org
time to go scour ebay for used tempest, pac-man, and galaga machines so i can play the games online legally.
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This Networked MAME thing sounds fun.
Top 10 Games For Networked MAME Off The Top Of My Head
10. ASTROIDS DELUXE
9. ARKANOID (that was 2 players, right?)
8. QIX
7. SMASH TV
6. KARATE CHAMP
5. MARIO BROS.
4. RAMPAGE
3. COMBAT
2. GAUNTLET 2
and...
1. PONG
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It depends on your definition of 'online' of course, but the first computer games ran on mainframes, which one accessed through terminals which by definition are remote. Many of the earliest games were multiplayer. If you take the narrow view that online = Internet as so many do today, then I guess thats not true.
Of course, arcade games were never online because they were played (duh) in arcades, which are inherently destination oriented (you *go* to the arcade to play). Still, to say online gaming didnt exist is not exactly true.
I love the retro picture with the long hair and TV screen with space invaders on it. This thing is like a retro movement for something that never existed. Live online gaming just wasn't possible -- turn based online gaming came first, and even that wasn't exactly flourishing until the advent of the BBS. Even still, you're going to be hard pressed to find people to play some of those games with, so may as well search the entire globe :)
someone writes a GoldenEye or, better yet, Pong bot? Or perhaps they just use a pre-encrypted format to help discourage such blantant abuse of the protocol ;^)
Too bad the source doesn't appear to be available, i'd be curious to see exactly how they did it (my guess is just passing button press events back and forth). I suppose that could be gleaned from the SDK, but still.
(yes, i realize how difficult it would be to write a bot for these games, considering the fact that you don't really have a Good Way to extract the other user's position, etc)