Software roundup deux
January 22, 2010
The time has come for another homebrew roundup. Many interesting projects have appeared since the last homebrew feature, including some frequently requested titles and some unexpected gems. Note that a number of entries are marked (WT) for Working Title – if you have naming suggestions for any of these games, get your word heard!
Camp horror sidescroller (WT)
Author: authoreyes
Darkness descends on Pandoria in this frightful festival of 2D ghoul smiting. Set to follow in the footsteps of the classic Castlevania series, we’ve seen a brief but solid demo of the engine in action but the final artwork is yet to be unveiled. Authoreyes has an artist locked in his dungeon and speaks of a hand drawn comic/goth style, a range of melee and projectile weaponry, and a handsome, bulging hero the likes of which we have never seen. Ok, that last part was an embellishment.
Slitherlink inspired puzzler (WT)
Author: Mia
If you haven’t heard of Slitherlink, brace yourself for a highly dubious comparative description. Take the age old pen-on-paper game of Dots & Squares, put your Go hat on, mix in some Minesweeper and spare a thought for Picross. In the process of stitching these mental images together you’ll probably offend that group of Slitherlink diehards over to your right (duck!) but you’ll be most of of the way there. Be nice to those diehards, by the way. One of them is coding this Slitherlink adaptation just for us.
Zoom-Enhance-Extrapolate
Author: Gregor Richards
Does your face meet palm whenever a prime time crime investigator identifies someone’s DNA from a satellite photo? If so, you’ve just been outed as a watcher of bad television. For shame! ZEE aims to take the wee out of this embarrassing cliche, with maze-style gameplay that unleashes your inner Caruso as you zoom, enhance and extrapolate your way through each level. Looks like this perp… just lost the game. Yeeaaahhh!
Pandora Pong (WT)
Author: crysnamtodshire
Someone had to do it! It’s the visceral grand slam simulation that launched an entire industry, and it’s coming to Pandora bearing new and exciting gifts. Crysnamtodshire plans to include a range of tradition-smashing enhancements to the action, along with network gameplay and quite sensibly, a less litigious name. Credit to Asmo for the image above. And no, crysnamtodshire’s Pong will not enhance your Pandora in such a fashion.
The Lonely Tower
Author: Tempel
Originally put together for a coding competition, this short and charming jaunt dispenses with the fourth wall entirely to become a game within a conversation about the game. If it all sounds a little existential, it’s because it kind of is. Any further description would spoil the fun and potentially take longer to read than the game takes to play. So play it now you should.
Tudi
Author: Jan-Nik
Another game that started life as a competition entry, Tudi was written for OpenXile.co.uk’s Craptasic Coding competition. There is, however, not one thing crap about this game. Part jump n’ run, part bouncy puzzler, you pilot a rubbery little rectangle through increasingly devious waves of targets. Time your bounces well and you’ll pick up the points on the way through; hit the wrong target and it’s a boxy, boxy death. The visuals may be simple, but it’s about as addictive as it gets.
Guitars on Fire
Author: Daid, JayFoxRox (port)
Things got crazy the day someone combined rhythm games with plastic guitars. Ageing rock luddites discovered 1s and 0s. Casual gamers turned hardcore. No platform was safe from the frenzy (not even the C64). After endless requests in the forums, now it’s Pandora’s turn to rock and/or roll with Guitars On Fire, complete with official GH guitar compatibility and online leaderboards. For those who can’t wait to rock, you can test drive this title right now on your homebrew-rocking Wii. Note: This is not an Activision product. This is just a tribute.
Impossible Mission remake (WT)
Author: iprice
Stay a while… stay forever! No, it’s not the preorder queue. It’s that famous underground lair filled with killer robots, and secrets hidden in lounge cushions. Iprice commenced work on this remake after being (understandably) disappointed by the the various official shovelware releases. Unfortunately his artist found the exit early, and a few missing sprites stand in the way of completion. If you can help, speak up.
Agapito
Author: NamX
Many moons ago, two talented teenage brothers from Spain set about writing the quintessential Amiga platformer. If the footage we have now is any indication, the game they created had all the markings of a jump n’ run classic – but sadly, after several years of work, it never saw the light of day. 14 years on, these two brothers have decided to revive Agapito as a native Pandora title. There is something very, very right about this.
Grid Wars style shmup (WT)
Author: Torpor, Monk
On the surface, this project might look like little more than a sketch on a napkin. But there are some very talented gents doing the sketching, and there are not actually any napkins, they’re using COMPUTERS. In case you’ve been under a wireframe rock, Grid Wars is a freeware abstract/geometric shmup, allegedly inspired by a commercial title, now the inspiration for a Pandora title.
Panjoust
Author: Markoez (Panjoust), PokeParadox (Penjin)
Breaking from its orbit as a PandoraPanic minigame, Panjoust is spreading its wings to become a fully featured standalone title. You should know the routine; you fly around on a bird thing taking down other bird things. Ok, so that’s a bit of a cheep description. Joining pixel maestro Dragons_Slayer in the art department is newcomer Amigo Bandito Crujiente, whose work you can see in the menu image above. Yum.
Eternity 6: The Waterphoenix
Author: darien
The Waterphoenix is, in darien’s words, “the 6th chapter spin-off of a fantasy action series I’ve been working on for nearly 13+ years now.” And those 13 years appear to have brought more than a nice basement tan to the table; it’s set in a world with its own established history and mythology, some integral to the plot, some merley alluded to in fleeting glimpses of backgroud art. Gameplay wise it’s a sidescrolling beat ‘em up taking inspiration from games like Shinobi and Altered Beast, featuring zombies, spells, environmental damage and dashing hairdos.
Lem… uh, never mind. (WT)
Author: Miner49er
Remember that classic game with the little critters? The one where you had to use various tools to clear a path before they marched en masse to their death? Miner49er has been working hard on his own version of that which we shall not name for now, staying true to the Amiga feel of old with the addition of network play. A demo appeared in the forums for about a minute, before it was shuffled back to the workshop for a legal/creative rework that may involve zombies. Intrigued? Do be.
Neverball (+ Neverputt)
Author: Lazrhog
Neverball is an earth-tilting, ball-rolling, analogue-nub-loving game of skill that contains no superfluous monkeys. Guide your ball through the gauntlet as you gather coins, race against the clock and silently wonder to yourself if it would be possible to drive to work this way. Neverball also comes packaged with Neverputt, a mini golf game built on the same lively physics engine.
iPlutoid
Author: Lazrhog
Your name is Lieutenant Starfighter, and you’re the village fisherman. Well, not really. You actually fly a starfighter. A planet or three is being invaded, and you’re the only thing standing between the humble planet folk and certain death. Well, we assume that. The invaders could be visitors with nice gifts for all we know. But it’s your job to shoot them. This polygon proud shooter is a popular title on the iPhone, and the observant ones will notice that it’s being brought to Pandora by the same talent behind Neverball.
MiZoo
Author: Lazrhog
Another popular iPhone title, making it three in a row for Lazrhog. (You’ll have to excuse the sideways screenshot – it’s way too late in the piece to drop portrait.) MiZoo is a puzzler of the tile matching kind, featuring a wall of furry animal faces waiting to be reunited with their kin – at which point they will explode in delicious point-laden combos. Caring for wildlife is rarely this rewarding.
As always, you’ll find a more detailed list of projects in development (games and otherwise) on the Pandora Wiki.
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Nice overview and a lot of promising games !
Kudo’s for all the hard work.
fan dabby dozie
I ported GuitarsOnFire already – the renderer works using OGLES2. Controls can be remapped using my input driver. It should work completly fine unless they are performance issues.
- Why is no-one mentioning that?
Another project under development would be MogsVsDogs which is shaping up right now and could require some more community support if its about gameplay ideas etc: http://pandorawiki.org/MogsVsDogs
I hadn’t checked the GuitarsOnFire thread all week so I didn’t know you’d ported it! I added a credit in the article.
I haven’t even heard about MogsVsDogs before (no mention on the forums that I can find?) but it does sound pretty good.
Good timing, i was just wondering when we’ll get a software update. Looking forward to a few titles in no order – Camp horror sidescroller, Agapito, Impossible Mission remake and last but not least Eternity 6: The Waterphoenix. Love this genre, takes me back to my Amiga days. Oh I nearly forgot about Pongdora, been playing Pong and Arkanoid on the iphone for the last few weeks, and yes it takes me back to my Atari 2600 days. I’m getting old
Not sure who to thank for this tread as i see no name. I’ll thank you anyway gruso, if it aint you thanks whoever 
Ooh, cool list. Good to have!
nice post, but i awaited some info about the cases, sent from china whole week ago.
Sweet. But will they be ready in 2 months time?
indy invasion!!!!!
oh flamingos, I am drooling over most of these games XF
Excellent roundup!
There has been much work done on my Horror sidescroller game. The engine is mostly complete, and I have some baddies wandering around a bit.
The artist has given me a few backgrounds and they look great. Everything is much higher resolution than my crappy little pixel placeholders
The style we are going with is a sort of Night of the Living Dead/Sin City homage…All black and white with color accents for things like gore splatter.
Hopefully I will have a new video soon, but I start a new job this monday so it may be a few weeks till I get back to consistent dev.
Sounds like it’s gonna be a sweet game, I look forward to the next video. I have a feeling this will turn out to be an awesome game, no pressure
Thanks….
We will do our best!
“Stay a while… stay forever! No, it’s not the preorder queue.”
Hahaha!
Well, very glad to see more titles for the Pandora! Let’s hope for the best this time guys!
Woo! Thanks for including me in there. I hope to one day find the time to make something better, more on par with all the other gems here.
Great blog post, hilarious as always and also very informative.
Can’t wait to play these gems.
All the games in these roundups look really interesting! If even half of these pan out (heh), it’s possible that I’ll have more games for the Pandora than I do for my DS.
Thanks Gruso – if it is your work. It smells of your work.
Camp horror sidescroller = Super Machete Sweep.
Slitherlink inspired puzzler = Linkora.
Pandora Pong = Original title ok else Asmo’s Pongdora
Grid Wars style shmup = War for Pandora or Pandora wars.
Lem… uh, never mind. = Pandora Zombie Lemmings
Sorry the creative juices need refilling. Time for tea.
looks like some really good games brewing there
I just watched the agapito vid, man that game looks awesome, better than mario!
Oops. Added my name to the article.
Grid Wars and Neverball/Neverputt are two things I’m really looking forward to.
I may have missed something, or just be thick, but if the waterphoenix is number 6 does anyone know where to get the other 5? It looks like my kind of game.
Thanks for this! More attention for our projects is never wrong
and a good read as usual.
Also, if you are still editing: Nick May is confirmed for the game music for Panjoust, the first track has allready been produced
Cheers!!
MarkoeZ
That’s my boy!
Great run through of games thanks Gruso.
I can’t believe I missed that iPrice was making an impossible mission remake. That’s just one of my fave games of all time wOOt!:D
Wut…? No Monkeys? This is blasphemy…