History of AwesomeSauce Games (Part 3, Klik n' Play)

     Klik n' Play was a simple game-creation tool for hobbyist.  Nowadays it's been remade into the programs Games Factory 2 and Multimedia Fusion 2.  If you want to make some simple games for fun, it's a good place to start.

     The games I made with Klik n' Play were an odd bunch.  Usually I'd just experiment and make things up as I went along.  With traditional programming, this could have been a huge waste of time ending in unusable projects.  Since Klik n' Play was so easy to use, I wasn't afraid to just have fun making games and start over from scratch constantly.

     I can only remember some of the games I made...

     "Stupid Monkey" - A donkey kong clone that eventually incorporated ninja. Gave it to a couple friends on a floppy disk.

     "Hi-Yah" - Inspired by the C=64 "Bruce Lee" and "Mortal Kombat", a gory martial arts platformer. Never finished, but the work-in-progress version was given to a couple friends on the same disk.

     "Space Worms" - Got this idea from a C=64 magazine, it was a space shooter like Galaga with dragons in space.  It was distributed on the same disk.

     "Universal" - Initially intended to be a point-and-click remake of my C=64 game "Xenophobia", but it turned into a more generic space adventure. Very short, very simple, only a couple hundred people downloaded it from AOL.

     "HellBoy" - as nerdy as I was, I didn't know that there was already a comic of this title.  Upon finding out, I changed the name to "HellQuest".  It had an art style like "South Park" and a story that was like a comedic version of "Spawn". I only uploaded the first 'episode' to AOL, not sure how many people downloaded it.

     That's all the games I can remember making (aside from experiments that never went very far).

Robot Dogs vs Skeletons

     Gavin MacLean over at Lord Gavin Games has completed his new game, Robot Dogs vs Skeletons. It’s a free download, just follow the link.

History of AwesomeSauce Games (Part 2, DooM)

     Towards the end of my freshmen year of high school, and during the summer after, my two best friends and I made a total conversion of "The Ultimate DooM" titled "DooM and DooMer".  We changed everything that could be changed in that game using conventional modding tools.  Every enemy was turned  into a zombie version of a popular video game character like Mario and Sonic, and I remember the joy of watching people laugh as they discovered a new video game icon appearing and attacking them.

     Unforunately, this game was created before affordable cd-burners and was too big for floppy disks.  I was new to the internet so I only shared the game in AOL's download libraries, assuming that was enough.  AOL deleted all DooM-related files with no notice and I lost the game forever.  Over 2000 people downloaded it, so hopefully someday I'll find someone who actually held onto it.

     There's an easter egg in the game, if you get to the secret level and find a secret room within, you'll find that the lights shining on the floor spell out the last names of myself and my two friends who helped me with the mod.  This came in years later when others tried to plagiarize my work.

     

History of AwesomeSauce Games (Part 1, Commodore 64)

     The Commodore 64 was both my first computer and first gaming machine.  It came with books on how to program, and there were several "how to make your own games" books available at my local libraries as well.
     Using a book borrowed from a neighbor that detailed how to make your own "choose your own adventure" style game, I began work on my first video game in 1988 (when I was 9 years old).  Wavering interest and lack of programming skill (I was pretty young) meant I only did a little work at a time. The game was finished and playable a couple years later, under the title "Alien Fear".
     When I was 14, I'd learned quite a bit more about programming, so I overhauled the game and renamed it to "Xenophobia".  This version was distributed through a friend's father who was a member of a nationwide club that traded C=64 software.
     There's no telling how many people have gotten ahold of my game, but I was pleasantly surprised when I met someone in 2000 who claimed they were a member of the club and had received and played my game years earlier.