Slashdot Mirror
Mac OS X Classic Games Roundup
Alcimedes writes "Maybe I'm jaded as to the quality of games coming out these days, but I haven't found that much lately that really catches my eye. So it was with great joy that I returned to the SC2 project page to find out that my favorite game of all time, Star Control 2, has been ported to Mac OS X."
Jay Brewer writes "Small Fry Studios will be releasing a Mac OS X version of our new shareware game, Hillbilly Whack! Save Winnie May! this fall. We've launched a small preview site with teaser trailers and screenshots of the classic-style-on-steroid game."
Ambrosia has ported Escape Velocity and EV:Override (using the EV Nova engine) to Mac OS X, free to existing EV Nova customers.
And Cliff Johnson's amazing The Fool's Errand has a sequel coming on Halloween Day, The Fool and his Money. You can go over now and catch the preview material, and download free copies of The Fool's Errand and 3 in Three (which work mostly fine in Classic mode on Mac OS X).
After all, Escape Velocity was a classic, and the reason I've kept an old Macintosh around for many, many years. But what about even older Macintosh games? For instance, Dark Castle? There's a new version of that, too: http://www.deltatao.com
www.mythdev.org is the home of the volunteer project to update all three Myth games. While III was on OS X, Myth TFL was the thing that kept me dual booting for months after switching to OS X. I'm addicted all over again...
The multiplayer works for all three games, but Myth II is by far the most popular of the three. Geez it's good to play TFL again!
a cocoa frontend for the classic text adventure, "adventure" was released the other day. more info here
Yes, it was built by me, but it's still damn cool. So check it out.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
Do Mac games get any more classic than Klondike?
Version 7.7.1 runs on the 68k MacPlus with System 6 all the way up to the new G5s running Mac OS 10.2.
By my count, that spans 8 generations of processors.
Okay, that might not impress you command line folk, but thats quite a life for a GUI app.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
That game was lots of fun..
http://www.lgm.com/bolo/intro/
I have been playing that game off and on since 1989 and I can't get enough. I still play it on my PowerBook using vMac under OS X. I'm thrilled to know that he's got a sequel coming and I've already pre-ordered it.
BTW, Deja Vu and Leisure Suit Larry I both work under vMac, too!
Jory
Anyone even remember this game? Man I lost so many hours playing it and trying to find everything, talk to all the dead Nazi's and kill the creatures which were pretty damn cool if I do say so, and it was on the mac, which made me so glad I had one. Wish they'd re-issue it, I thought the story line alone made it an instant classic. It kept me glued to the monitor. Come to think about it I don't remember if I ever beat it... time to dust off the LCIII.
Ambrosia has taken a terrific step by porting override and EV classic to the Nova engine.
After downloading them, i realized that the ported version has a few fatal flaws which detract much from the original:
a) no forklift through conventional cheat -- the forklift was a terriffic weapon, accessed by option clicking the logo on the title screen, witing for a certail line of text to appear, and holding control-option-command-shift. This doesnt work under the nova engine.
b) no EV-Edit/.rsrc types for the Nova pilots! After playing the game a few times, it became repetitive; I got most of my play time out of the game by modifying it... making my own ships, planets, weapons, and outfits. the customizability of EV was endless and made the game fun for a long time... The ported versions save Nova-type pilot files which have to editing tools yet.
Although I'm enthused about the new releases, there's still a large part of the original EVs missing for me
I'd like to see battle-girl ported to OS X. It wouldn't need much, I think, just HID support and LCD flicker elimination.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
any efforts to bring her back?
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Forget the rest. Ambrosia is porting Apeiron to OS X. I get a shiver up my spine thinking about the relief I used to feel when the sparse whooshing sound of my standard bullets transitioned into the steady dull beat of the triple-shot power-up. I can hear it now... Bring it on baby!
One classic game I loved playing in OS 6 or 7 was Balance of Power. I just got it working on vMac!!
Check out also ScummVM. Plays lots of good oldies, LucasArts' adventure games, Simon the Sorcerers, Beneath a Steel Sky etc. And enhanced with anti-aliasing too!
Sarien plays some Sierra oldies.
And perhaps FreeSCI (other Sierra oldies) might work some day on OS X too (native or via X11).
Now THERE was a game. Any word if there will be an OS X version?
Use the Jack Daniels bottle!
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
I used to run the original Apple ][ "Castle Wolfenstein" under OS 9, using "Stop the Madness." Haven't done anything with it since X came out. Has anybody tried KEGS?
Photoshop.
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
Anybody ever play C&G's Mission Thunderbolt? It's an old graphical rogue-like with a strong science-fiction theme. The graphics, sound, and descriptions really gave it a chilling atmosphere. Highly addictive if you're into games like nethack.
I was really hoping C&G (or MegaCorp?) would freely release the game since they called it quits (kind of like how Glider was freely released). I'm particularly interested in getting my hands on the rare sequel, Mission Firestorm. I've never seen a copy of it even on those legacy Macintosh gaming sites. Anybody got a copy they're willing to share?
I'm me-tooing on The Fool's Errand. Some of the puzzles were really devilish, even more so for non-anglophones. Maybe I wasn't looking at the right places, but I couldn't find any puzzle games getting close to it. Or some Apple ][ ones.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
It's an interesting but true observation that modern gaming has almost totally neglected two genres that were previously kings: puzzle games and smutty games. Sure, there's a puzzle every now and then (ICO) and there's plenty of smut IN games (GTA, DOA, every female character design, etc), though few are actually about sex in the manner of virtual valerie or Leisure Suit Larry were. Too bad (especially with regard to the puzzles).
I'm reminded about how Tetris was invented by a Russian programmer, who was strictly limited by the capabilities of his substandard hardware. Despite that it's arguably the best computer game of all time. I guess simplicity is out of style, and dirty thoughts (or at least acting on them in anything more serious than Maxim magazine) is out of favor.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
This is slightly off-topic here, but still worth pointing out: Not only has the EV/EVO content been ported to the OS X Nova engine, but it has also been ported to the Windows engine. Good news for everyone who still wants to play it but threw out their last Mac a while ago...
Is there an open source turtle project thats decent, and ported to os x? I have a soft spot in my heart for it, and my original se 30 :) If not, guess its time to write one...
Between EV, Marathon, and the best Tetris clone which I can't remember the name of right now, made me proud to play with a Mac in the last 90's. At least Ambrosia stayed away from the dark side!
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
Delta Tao's Spaceward Ho! is still going strong and has been ported to OS X.
So has their long running MMORPG, Clanlord.
I had a mac when I was 7, and the only thing that kept me from getting mad at my parents for buying a game that had such a lousy library of games was power pete. For the unenlightened, Power Pete is a body builder who goes back in time to to save these bunnies, all while collecting various power-ups and such. I lost the install floppy, and MacPlay doesn't support or publish it anymore, and the demo (http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/7334/ ) doesn't run great on my IBook. But it is great from time to time for an old dose of bunnie saving heroics!
came on the software restore CD for my old preforma 6115CD. Spin Doctor Challenger, a strange game in which you controlled a spininng wand and had to move it to different dots, avoiding acid, bombs, and other wands that could kill you. such a cool game, but the people who created it seem to no longer exists, and i currently have to boot into calssic to play the demo. i've been thinking about using the Cocoa Sprite Kit from www.sugarcubesoftware.com/csk to do a port, but im 1) lazy and 2) have lots of crap to do at work, so im going to need to continue to boot classic off of a CD to play it.
the other cool game was Spectre Challenger. A neato 3d vector game in which you drove a tank around, shot other tanks, and collected flags to advance. that would also make a really, really bad ass multi-player game, but my OpenGL skills are not nearly leet enough to consider writing that.
Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
Ain't got time to make no apologies
The OSX version just came out:
www.xavagus.com
Spin Doctor was one of those classic puzzle/arcade games that really should have taken off like Tetris but, sadly, didn't. It was pure fun and incredibly hard at the upper levels (at least that same "free" version). I think I could probably still beat the game after not having played it in two years, though.
r /minotaur.h tm
Between Spectre and Bolo, the true multiplayer games for Mac rocked. I played Spectre back in high school on a Mac Classic that I borrowed from my high school. Even the single player mode was incredibly fun... and a joy to play at later levels when you got grenades. *evil laughter*
Bolo is a game that I still play on occasion. My version runs well in Classic emulation. Make four copies of the game, run them at the same time, give three of them some AI, force some alliances, and you got a great time for yourself. Or, attempt to find some actual other players.
Now, how about a quick shout out for the fun little multiplayer game called Minotaur?
http://www.bungie.com/products/minotau
The game was just lots of fun back in those days. I still have some of the keys stuck in my head when I play others. "Why do I keep stepping off this item that I'm trying to pick up?!? Oops... forgot... that key moves me diagonally in these games..."
-Jellisky
Does anybody know whatever became of this game? Many, many lost hours ...
I'm able to play Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis again on my G4! It's amazing that a game from 1992 works just fine in 2003. Now I have to see if I can find some other Scumm LucasArts games hanging around. I hope they're not on floppy...
Lately I've been wishing I could find my copy of Cosmic Osmo before I don't have access to floppy-drived Macs anymore. What a great game that was. Is there even a version of HyperCard Reader for OS X?
Barrack had me addicted. I hope they'll port this soon too!
-- thinkyhead software and media
...that things that are TRUE are much funnier than things which are just attempts at being funny?
-- thinkyhead software and media
If you like Infocom adventures you should Download Frotz! 2.4.1. This interpreter installs into /usr/local/bin and runs in the Terminal. It would be nice to have a Cocoa front-end for this. Perhaps some cool Mac Geek will find the time....
Frotz! 2.4.3 is also available in source code form if you're into building from source. You just have to make sure you have the ncurses library installed (Fink helps). I had to rename the "init_process" function (in src/common/process.c and src/main.c) to "my_init_process" before it would build. Some kind of symbol conflict with libSystem....
You can play Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the web but I don't think it allows you to save the game.
Fortunately you can download the HHGG data file (option-click) right off the web and play it in Frotz!
As for other Infocom and Z-engine games, here are some links to resources straight out of the Mac Frotz readme file:
-- thinkyhead software and media
Get it on Freshmeat
-- thinkyhead software and media
My wife (then girlfriend) and I had fun one night playing that.
[sigh] college was awesome.
I loved Robosport. A group of us used to build a localtalk LAN, before LAN parties were well known, and play Robosport until all hours. Maxis decided not to update it and stopped selling the game. I loved the death screams of the robots.
http://www.macfreegames.com/Lespages/JeuxdActionsp ectre.html
A company named Icom Simulations created adventure games with a genuine Mac GUI: Deja Vu, Uninvited and my all time favorite: Shadowgate. Would love to play those again.
Anyway - does anybody know if there is any plans to port the graphically fantastic Firefall Arcade, which I believe was published by Pangea. They updated it and released it in 2000, but it wasn't for OS X.
You've posted this so many times, swapping processors and operating systems as needed (sometimes it's Linux on an AMD or Intel machine), all the while making completely unfounded claims about lousy performance compared to Windows.
It's getting old. So, please: Get a life. Or at the very least: Get yourself a new troll template text.
Thanks.
Unplayable in classic, only 60% complete in SCUMMVM, and the sequel just got canned. Makes ya wanna get on your Corley Motors street hog and beat some programmer to oblivion. Ho hum.
Does anybody remember Avara? If I remember correctly, the README for Avara initially (and brazenly) touted itself as "The game that would soon supplant Bolo as the defacto standard for gaming on campus and corporate networks. " Then after a little while, the newer README began touting itself as the game that DID replace Bolo as the standard for gaming on corporate and campus networks.
That was certainly the case as far as my very good newly departed friend and I were concerned. After slaving away at Microwarehouse Tech all day, we'd race home to our beach apartments and battle it out via our little LAN. After playing Avara over 14.4 dial-up you reeeeaaaalllly appreaciated the convenience of having ethernet dangling out your window to your neighbor's apartment! (not long before., we were using phone-net!)
My upstairs neighbor (at that same beach apartment) created a pretty brilliant plug-in for Escape Velocity, turning all of the ships into Star Wars ships (painstakingly rendered in Infini-D!!!). EV was a great game too, I've personally killed many hours (and brain cells!!!) playing my friend Mark's SW plug-in!
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
According to nethack.org, Nethack has been ported to MacOS 10 as well as 7.x - 9.x.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I got into messing with REALbasic yesterday (yeah, yeah, don't worry... i know how to use it.) and whipped together a nifty front-end for "dfrotz" (the dumb version of Frotz?). It can run an unlimited number of adventure files, and has some other wacky features tailored for the standard Infocom games. Anyhow you can download the beta application from this page:
MacFrotz! (includes the dfrotz binary and source code).
Not sure if this version requires ncurses.
The information fields are parsed out of the raw text, so it sometimes prints odd values in non-Infocom games. Hey, it's a beta. Nothing a bit of poking into the dfrotz source can't fix.
I haven't looked too closely at the frotz build docs, but maybe there's a "machine readable" out put version of frotz in there someplace. If not, maybe an XML output mode would be handy.... Hmm, more caffeine....
Gotta love REALbasic. Had an idea 24 hours ago. Today it's alive and kicking and pretty darned complete.
Enjoy!
-- thinkyhead software and media
And for a more /. oriented suggestion, how about Netrek? Has anyone made an OS X port of that game yet?
Thanks for the info on the Zork engine, BTW, I think I'm going to go back and re-live my mis-spent adolescence this weekend!
The CB App. What's your 20?
Im purposly bringing home a 5500 from work this week that we are scraping cause I cant play them in classic and want to play them badly.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I'd love to see an update of this classic adventure.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
That is a classic Mac game. It has given me many hours of fun. Ambrosia -- please port it to MacOS X!
Looking for an OS X z-machine interpreter? Maybe Zoom is what you want? I'm not sure since I don't have a Mac, but it seems like it's mroe mac-friendly and capable than Frotz compiled for OS X...
Perhaps XBolo is what you're looking for?
It actually seems to work quite well. unfortunatly no one seems to be aware of it and playing it on the net.. unfortunatly the download link seems to be down right now.. versiontracker listing
ShadowWraith was a pretty fun Mac game. We played it on the Quadra in science class.
Wow, I like Zoom a lot. It's a nice compact and basic curses window that runs Z-Code, and the full-screen mode is really nice. Oh well, I started "MacFrotz" so I guess I ought to bring it up to standard. Styled text and all that...
I've been turning the idea over in my mind to add a flag to dfrotz itself that would output everything tagged (as XML for example). This would make its output suitable for use in any client whatsoever. That's one idea.
On the other hand frotz has a backslash command facility used for debugger-style output (type \help in MacFrotz for a list of commands). Extending this would be very easy. Thus any client could query frotz for the current location, inventory, etc., and then display that information any way it chooses.
One could make enhanced versions of adventures with all the items graphically displayed in an inventory window. Not that one would.
I already added a floating history panel with some movement buttons, but it relies on some faulty text-parsing code. I've heard about MUD clients that generate maps on the fly. Again, one could add all these facilities to a Z-Machine interpreter. It would make getting around in the glass maze a lot easier to see it in 3D, for example.
Naturally such facilites could be extended to the authoring of Z-Code. Hmm.... More coffee....
-- thinkyhead software and media
Now *THIS* is a game that should be ported to OS X!
XBolo
Just about all the "classic" games I play on my iBook are old SNES titles.
SNES9x works fine under OS X.
I could play Commander Keen on OS X no work would be done around here....