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Best Shareware Games Of 2003 Explored
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.")
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.
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)
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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?
The illegal cracking community for shareware games is just as prolific for shareware games as it is for commercial games, and I think I kinda of see the reasoning.
People don't really want to pay $20 every time they get another Arkanoid clone. Some authors really do deserve money for years of hard work, but some really don't. They spend about a week shitting out a game in C or some other language and expect the world to pay their bills in $20 increments. The excrement that they put out doesn't invite people to pay for it.
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... :)
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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?
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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).
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...
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?
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"
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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!
Rewritable CDs -- the floppy disks of the present.
You might want to look into them. :)
Can anyone recommend good shareware games that support cooperative play?
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What in the hell was Avault smoking when they put games like Ratinator and Clash into this list of Shareware games of the year?
Or more aptly, how much were they PAID to do so?
Those games are AWFUL!
Ratinator has terrible controls and collision detection. The weapons look like solid color spheres with no texture. The powerups are solid color cylynders! The sound effects are boring, and the music is repetitive.
And Clash is really dull. It has pretty graphics, but they're too busy and confusing. The ball moves WAY too slowly, and the control of the paddle is INCREDIBLY sluggish!
Again I ask... how much were they PAID to put THESE games on the list of games of the year?
Just because the bricks move about in Clash, that doesn't make it a game of the year. Sure it's creative. But Jardinians is a hell of a lot more clever and a lot more fun. I guess Avualt gives 50% of it's score for GRAPHICS alone, because both these games SUCK but have pretty graphics wheras Jardinians has poor graphics but is really fun to play.
The only game on their list which I could say belongs there is UltraBall which is a truly creative breakout game with nice graphics, and gameplay to match. It's very original, as it looks, sounds, and plays a lot like a pinball game instead of a breakout game.
The list seems to be completly lacking in turn based strategy or simulation games of any kind.
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I can't beleive Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory isn't on that list.