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Best Shareware Games Of 2003 Explored

Posted by simoniker on from the independents-day dept.

Thanks to AVault for their feature discussing the best shareware PC titles for 2003, as the writer points out: "As software stores stock fewer new computer games, shareware titles and Internet releases offer an alternative for those who want to play on their PCs. Most of my favorite recreational offerings from the past year never made it into retail outlets." Picks include Chain Reaction ("Remember the old Dynamix game The Incredible Machine? Even though the company is defunct, its creators have developed a new 3D version"), Ultraball ("combines the fun of a Breakout game with all the action and excitement of a pinball game"), and Dr.Blob's Organism ("...a fast-paced shooter in which you blast gelatinous one-celled organisms as they try to escape from a Petri dish.")

48 comments

  1. My favourate shareware (or is it freeware?) by Brutus+(moo) · · Score: 3, Informative

    title is IcyTower, basically you jump up a tower trying to get as high as you can, or the best combo (where each jump in the combo skips atleast one floor), quite addicting and challenging.

  2. Crimsonland by Hettch · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Crimsonland is by far the best game on that last. You really should give that game a whirl. Truly addicting smash TV style from days past. Guns + Buckets o' blood + powers = good times :) (sorry, don't mean to be trolling)

    1. Re:Crimsonland by SamBeckett · · Score: 1

      I downloaded the trial on your advice.. Very nice game, haven't seen this kind of game mechanic in a while!! Very difficult!!!

      DIE ALIEN SCUM

  3. Bah, you get what you pay for.. by e0nblue · · Score: 0, Troll

    These games are usually poorly designed and get boring after 5 minutes. Most Flash-based games fills me with the urge to stab it's creator in the eye.

    1. Re:Bah, you get what you pay for.. by doublem · · Score: 3, Funny

      fills me with the urge to stab it's creator in the eye.

      I think you'll want to seek professional help, if something as simple as a game you can exit and never see again causes you to want to maim someone.

      You clearly have serious anger issues.

      --
      "Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
  4. Gee. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I salute the sentiment, but I was hoping they'd detail more than four games on that website.

    Still, a dollar tends to go farther on most shareware/small house titles than on the commercial ones, and the authors are usually much cooler with the gaming community (no small feat; I've seen the message forums.) Maybe the best title I've picked up that didn't hit store shelves was Galactic Civilizations, and that guy even made a number of free add-ons for it that one could download. Pontifex is pretty cool, too.

    1. Re:Gee. by SuperMo0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was hoping they'd detail more than four games on that website. Gee, "NEXT PAGE" buttons are a really great advancement in technology, doncha think?

  5. Do people still call them that? by MMaestro · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Mod me down if you want; but as far as I'm concerned, shareware died the day games grew too big to fit on less than 10 floppy disks. One of the whole points of shareware was to copy, share, and distribute the games cheaply and easily. I'm not gonna spend the time and effort to burn a CD for an incomplete game that may not be all that fun after the first five minutes. In the eariler days if a shareware game wasn't that great, hell you just erased the contents of the disks and made ANOTHER copy of Doom to share. CDs? You just got your millionth coaster or frizbee.

    1. Re:Do people still call them that? by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even CD-RWs are cheaper than those floppy disks were back when shareware was really big. Beyond that, you don't need to burn a CD until you plan to give it to someone else, and if the game sucks just uninstall it and delete the installer.

      --
      -PainKilleR-[CE]
    2. Re:Do people still call them that? by bugbread · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The easier it is to copy something, the more likely it is to be shared. For most people the amount of time and effort involved in burning 1 CD is way less than the amount of time and effort involved into writing a program to 10 separate floppy disks. In fact, you'd have to have an amazingly old CD burner to find writing and swapping out 10 floppies to be faster and easier than writing a single CD. So, yes, people still call it shareware, and with good reason: they share it.

    3. Re:Do people still call them that? by ClioCJS · · Score: 1
      Agreed. He was full of it.

      I consider CDs floppies. I don't even burn CDs anymore, just DVD-Rs. People still wanting floppies should return to the abacus.

      --
      -Clio
      Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
      Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
    4. Re:Do people still call them that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You deserve a mod down.

      There's nothing you said in that post you couldn't do with a CD-RW or direct network connection to the person you want to share with.

  6. For me.. by hookedup · · Score: 3, Informative


    Almost anything from PopCap Games. Titles like Diamond Mine, Bookworm, Alchemy, and of course, any japanese politicians favorite, Bejeweled, are enough to keep you occupied for months.

    1. Re:For me.. by Bagels · · Score: 1

      Chinese politician, not Japanese - the incident occured in Hong Kong. Here's the recent story on it.

      --
      --- Bwah?
  7. My favorite isn't even shareware or freeware... by SuperMo0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's just a collection of flash games. Orisinal has a GREAT selection of games. They're kind of quirky, acid-induced maybe, but they're still kinda cool and challenging in most cases.

  8. Chain Reaction for Linux? by Tiassa · · Score: 1


    'tis the season of JOY! One of the geekiest games ever, reborn!

    But there's a rub:
    On their home page, Monsterstudios tell us to "Expect Chain Reaction to fully support OS X and Linux operating systems sometime in early Fall 2003".
    Early Fall?
    *quick look into calendar*
    OK, at least in time for Christmas, then?
    Please?

    1. Re:Chain Reaction for Linux? by PeeweeJD · · Score: 1

      OSX Support!

      w00t!!

      the incredible machine series is one of my favorite computer games of all time. that and lemmings

  9. EVN by Illissius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One game you should definitely check out is Escape Velocity: Nova; I haven't actually tried it yet, but if it's anything like the original, then it's better than 99% of games out there, shareware or not. If only there were an MMO version... :)

    --
    Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
    1. Re:EVN by BackwardEngineer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Speaking of which, I had a friend who owned a Mac and had the original. I used to play that all the time until I moved away.

      As soon as I heard that they were making Escape Velocity: Nova for Windows, I knew I had to buy it.

      Great game, love how its open ended. Just wish I knew how to make a ton of money so I could buy those huge ships.

    2. Re:EVN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Grab an Asterioid Miner ship and start prospecting. If you find the right planets that buy opals, you'll get stinking rich in no time.

      Do some missions for Sigma Shipyards on Earth, and they'll eventually give you the hypergate access codes. Then you can do long distance cargo missions that pull in the big bucks.

      Once you have enough of a private fleet established (either by hiring escorts or by disabling and commandeering ships), you can start demanding tribute from planets. More money.

    3. Re:EVN by BackwardEngineer · · Score: 1

      Well, how does one get the missions for Sigma Shipyards to pop up? Also, ive been trying to do the Aurorian missions and i havent been able to trigger them. any secrets im missing?

  10. Biplanes by Mr_Silver · · Score: 1
    Anyone remember Biplanes for the Amiga? Two aeroplanes, two bullets, a balloon, cloud and hut. It was brilliant.

    I've started writing a version for Windows but am interested to see if anyone knows of a port/homage to the original already out there?

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
    1. Re:Biplanes by bear+pimp · · Score: 2, Informative

      Biplanes rocked! I can't think how many hours my brother and I wasted playing that game! I guy called Mathew Bushell has already ported it to a pc, and you can set multiple skins (press z in game) The amiga version is best for gameplay though. more info here Check the downloads, and yes there's even a linux port so maybe some of the people on slashdot will even try it out ;)

    2. Re:Biplanes by Mr_Silver · · Score: 1
      The amiga version is best for gameplay though. more info here Check the downloads

      Excellent, thanks very much! I had a quick play and didn't think that much of it - I think I'll have a go and see what I can do.

      If I get anything that works, i'll let you know!

      --
      Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
  11. Where was Starscape by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That list is missing some corkers, what happened to Starscape for goodness sake. Still, GameTunnel gave it "best adventure of the year", so there is some justice in the world .

    Don't forget Alien Shooter either, that was a classic, I'd say it has a lot more depth than Crimsonland too (don't flame me though, I know both are good).

    1. Re:Where was Starscape by bear+pimp · · Score: 1

      A lot of people (myself included) have mentioned starscape on these boards before and there's no way that shouldn't have made the list. I'd like to have seen altitudes on there, if only for being a shareware puzzle game that is in 3D and isn't fundamentally a tetris clone. Alien Shooter (http://www.sigma-team.net - link was missing above) totally rocks but it's fairly new I think so maybe they haven't had time to review it yet.

    2. Re:Where was Starscape by August_zero · · Score: 1

      I second Starscape. Very fun little game with just the right level of depth to make it more than just a simple shooter, but not so deep that it turns into frustrating exercise in resource management. I had no problem shelling out the cash to register the game, and I look forward to moonpod's future releases.

      I must check out these other games you mention, they look pretty decent.

      --
      On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
    3. Re:Where was Starscape by Dachannien · · Score: 1

      I think Starscape was on one of their previous lists.

  12. is it Really the BEST shareware of 2003? by bear+pimp · · Score: 2, Informative

    This caught my eye over at diy games. It seems some of the developers (my guess!) who were missed of the list might have been a bit annoyed! I'm inclined to agree though: If I see that Bob Mandel has written a review a generally avoid reading it. Still, the man wrote over 20 of his own games (They were so great he didn't list them on his CV), so I'm sure he's more of an expert than I...

  13. Does shareware make $$? by Astro+Del+Gato · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have been reading a lot about how difficult it is for an independant developer to break even in the mainsteam game industry. Does anyone know how shareware games fare? How many copies can you sell? Are there any shareware game developers that can be considered financial successes?

    1. Re:Does shareware make $$? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      ID Software?

    2. Re:Does shareware make $$? by Haeleth · · Score: 1

      Nope. ID made it into the major league through shareware, sure, but they haven't released anything as shareware since the original Quake, and that was, what, six or seven years ago? Today's market is very different.

    3. Re:Does shareware make $$? by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 2, Informative
      I have been reading a lot about how difficult it is for an independant developer to break even in the mainsteam game industry. Does anyone know how shareware games fare? How many copies can you sell? Are there any shareware game developers that can be considered financial successes?

      Well, it all depends on how you define 'success'.

      My own little game has brought in over $1000 in donations and profit from tchotchke sales over the past year. I wrote the game in my free time (I was unemployed for a while, which helped) and I treat it like a full-time hobby. I've made more than it cost me to create the game, so I'm happy about that, and I consider most of the time I took making it time well spent. (I could have done without the weeks of tracking down forehead-slapper bugs, but it comes with the territory.)

      I'm lucky in that I have free hosting through a friend, so I don't need to worry about bandwidth costs, which is a big plus. Even if I had to buy my own server space, though, I'm making enough that I could come close to breaking even, or maybe even earn a little bit.

      Thing is, I never planned to earn money off this game. I wrote it for two reasons: it sounded like a fun thing to do, and I wanted to get some name recognition. Today, most of my hits are coming directly to the game's home page; even six months ago, I was relying primarily on other peoples' links. This tells me that people have heard of the game and are coming straight to the site to get it--the name is out there, and it's generating it's own buzz.

      Now that I've gone through it, I've learned that the real trick isn't to make money--at least, not right off the bat. The real trick is to get noticed. Once you get noticed, the Internet practically builds a game's reputation for you. If your game is fun and engaging, it gets forwarded around and shared. You don't need to pay a dime for this.

      Look at Ambrosia. They started out with Malestrom, which was and still is one of the best versions of Asteroids out there. The game got noticed, people passed it around, linked to it, and Ambrosia got a name. Today, they run a solvent shareware business; they've developed a solid registration system, they have tons of titles, and (most importantly) tons of people know who they are.

      Shareware can make $$, but if that's the first thing you gun for, you'll have trouble. Make your game fun, free as in beer, have non-obtrusive requests for donations, and seed it onto the net. Make a name for yourself. Then start looking into ways to make a business out of it.

      Tom

      (P.S. A tip: release early in the year, so you don't get passed over on the 'Best of 200X' award lists...)

      --

      Obliteracy: Words with explosions

    4. Re:Does shareware make $$? by ReyTFox · · Score: 2, Interesting

      To a large extent it depends on the dedication of the developer. It's rare for a shareware company to turn a living-wage profit, the first year or two. However, if you recall the early 90s, Apogee(pre-Duke3D) and Epic(pre-Unreal) were both highly successful shareware developers. Nowadays we have a lot of "new kids:" Dexterity, GarageGames, Spiderweb and PopCap are some names that come to mind. All of them now turn profits, and they all got there in unique ways:

      Dexterity builds games(mostly puzzle games) that are "perfectly sellable" with just enough limitations to encourage a purchase.

      PopCap also does puzzle games, but offers two varieties: the browser-based demo, and the "deluxe" downloadable version, which gives them an edge on penetrating the market - with no demo to install, they can get more potential customers.

      Spiderweb has a niche in classic RPG gaming, which has apparently proven very profitable.

      GarageGames is made up of former Dynamix(Tribes developers, and did many titles since the mid-80s) employees, and is perhaps the most idealistic of the bunch. They play two roles - a developer/publisher of games, and a community-building institution for independent developers, by offering their Torque engine(originally the Tribes2 engine, but with continual improvements for the last few years) up for sale for the fantastic price of $100 and then providing a set of forums tailored for developers. They lost money on this venture initially, but are now able to boast of getting minimum wages :) Since they give developers a minimum of 65% royalties on their work when they publish with GG, I would say they're actually pretty successful for that.

      Nowadays the market is pretty heavily saturated with puzzle games of the match-em-up or move-em-around categories, and simple clones of other games(classic arcade games and Solitare). That's not all that different from what you see in the AAA-end of the market, but what makes indie development attractive is that you can take more risks.

      The real secret to success is to continually build the reputation of your company, offering several strong products and building word-of-mouth and community relations over a long period of time.

      A retail title can get by with less advertising in proportion to development costs, because it's already getting the advertising of shelfspace at a retailer.

      A shareware title, however, MUST gain "buzz factor" to really break out some good sales numbers. The usual sell-through rate of demo downloads to purchases is only 1 or 2%, and there isn't any one place for a developer to connect with the market, so good word-of-mouth is essential to success.

    5. Re:Does shareware make $$? by Luigi30 · · Score: 1

      Uh... PopCap maybe?

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  14. Re:Ya know what? by baywulf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't understand the reasoning. Shareware implies that you can try before you buy. And if the game is not really good then people wouldn't want to pirate it. If it is good, then your argument breaks down and they shouldn't pirate the game.

  15. Re:Ya know what? by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 1

    Err, so someone writes a crappy game and charges $20 for it. So, err, don't buy the game?

    Where does stealing his game and paying him nothing, and then slagging him off fit in? Is that the reasoning you're advocating?

    And if the game was so crappy why did you bother spending 15 minutes wading through pr0n and warez to get a copy of it?

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  16. Dr.Blob's Orgasm..?? by Knacklappen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dr.Blob's Organism ("...a fast-paced shooter in which you blast gelatinous one-celled organisms as they try to escape from a Petri dish.")

    I must be ill-conditioned somehow, because I read "Dr. Blob's Orgasm", which made perfectly sense with "in which you blast gelatinous one-celled organisms"

    --


    Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
    1. Re:Dr.Blob's Orgasm..?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same boat for me too.

      The less said the better.

  17. best breakoutclone eva! -some suggestions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The kind of bonus you get seems to be totally random. That could be done in a more transparent way (the bonus could be depending on the little people's color, or more subtle on the stuff they throw).

    How about an Item that let you rotate your paddle matrix-like around the whole field in slowmo?

    How about another game mode where the goal of each level is to destroy a certain amount of little dudes and after 5 levels, you get a brick-destroy-level containig all the other levels' remaining bricks?

    How about a second button for storing a bonus for use in another level?

    And finally:
    If you hit the lttle dudes with your ball, it could be much more satisfying.
    For example, they could burn to ashes if your ball has both the thru-bricks-bonus and the bigger-area-of-destruction-bonus.
    Or if you have the laser bonus and the laser bonus again and a third time, there should be some splatter effects.
    In general, if you hit'em with the standart ball they should lose some clothes. Sex sells!

  18. RW CDs by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 1

    Rewritable CDs -- the floppy disks of the present.

    You might want to look into them. :)

  19. Any good cooperative shareware games? by brienv · · Score: 1

    Can anyone recommend good shareware games that support cooperative play?

    Brien Voorhees
    brienv@pacbell.net

    Give Your Spam The Bird!
    Enterprise spam filtering for less than $2/user/month.

  20. Any good strategy games out there? by Daetrin · · Score: 1

    The list seems to be completly lacking in turn based strategy or simulation games of any kind.

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  21. Re:What in the hell were they smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Flamebait? How could you mod that as flamebait? The only people who would be upset by the TRUTH are the developers of the game or Avault. Mod that up!

  22. ET by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't beleive Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory isn't on that list.