: not a blog

23 jan 07

I can't believe you play 'Bill the Demon' and 'Stardust.' I miss those games since I mothballed my old mac. You've inspired me to run them on a mac emulator right now.

I can't believe you play 'Bill the Demon' and 'Stardust.'

hah. i don't remember mentioning "bill the demon" in this b.l.o.g. i'm going to have to haul out the find-by-content equipment.

yep, apparently i did, in answer #70. 'bill the demon' is a tongue-in-cheek, scrolling, 2-d arcade game. bill runs around, completing mazes in the underworld, while steadily losing energy. in order to get it back, he has to eat lost souls. if the spacebar is pressed when a lost soul is in front of him, bill will crunchily and bloodily eat the soul, and regain energy. if the spacebar is pressed when nothing is in front of bill, he will scream, and shock any visible enemies into temporary paralysis, so that bill can safely pass. i think some enemies will actually disintegrate when they hear the scream. ah yes -- screaming at certain species of wall will cause them to disintegrate as well. i haven't played it in months (maybe years). it also features good original music in the "creepy piano" subgenre.

stardust is a puzzle game, where the player moves a sprite around a board, either creating blocks to walk on or disintegrating nearby blocks of a certain type. the goal is always a portal in some difficult-to-reach place.

I miss those games since I mothballed my old mac.

i don't think i will ever mothball my old mac (it's sitting here just to my left). for one thing, os 9 had written for it some great sound editing software (called "soundedit", actually), which i "own" (actually, a pirate version was given to me by an old professor -- funny). it also has games i don't have here on my pc. the pcs games are hangman, stratego, 8-bit nintendo, and maelstrom.

game	what it be
hangman	actually, it's "hangaroo", and is a web-based flash game. when you lose, you put a bitchy kangaroo to death via the noose. if you don't want to launch a browser and see all kinds of eye-clutter (plus have a tiny screen), then the hangaroo people provide an executable version (no pun intended) for download. or, you can just fish the swf file out from your temp files and play that in your flash player. it's a fun game, except that the newest version features categories of "baseball hall-of-fame-ers" and "miss america winners", both of which i tend to lose at.
stratego	i used to play this when i was a little kid. i was really into it, actually. i'd play my dad, and my aunt, on occassion. it's hard to find a good computer version. the wikipedia entry on stratego links to a few, but i found them all to be broken. the only one that works (that i can find) is this old 1989 accolade version, which has been made (by accolade?) into freeware. the game isn't very smart, but i like to win, so this is ok. it's a windows 98 game, but works under xp's built-in DOS emulation.
nintendo	i hardly ever play this, but it's nice to have for nostalgia reasons. in fact, that's why i have and keep the games that i do -- nostalgia. or, at least there's a component of that in every instance of game-keepeage. here are some ROMs.
maelstrom	remember the arcade game "asteroids"? you have two movement controls: rotate ship, and accelerate ship. this is a fun way to do it, and it alone makes playing asteroids (or maelstrom) enjoyable; it feels something like skiing or sledding. maelstrom has good graphics and good sound; it's a spiffy little shareware game, created by ambrosia software. i recommend it. i've got my cousin hooked on it, and hope to hook others; my goal is to drain the economy via lack of workplace productivity. maelstrom is a weapon of al qaeda. hey, it's snowing a little! first time this year -- gotta love that global warming.

isn't that a pretty table?

i'm continually amazed at the fact that, even though it is 8 years old, my mac is still functional as a modern computer. there are one or two things it can't do only from a lack of os 9 software, but if forced i could most certainly survive on it and it alone.

You've inspired me to run them on a mac emulator right now.

if "the artist formerly known as 'ask the box'" makes a difference in someone's life, then all of those hours staring at a text editor are worth it.

...or just go back to the index