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A freeform pen-and-paper role playing system that is easy to learn, developed over a couple years with numerous playtesters, and featured in the now-defunct DragonScroll webzine.
Simplicity - the number of rules and amount of dice rolling is kept to a minimum. This accounts for good flexibility, making it easy to grasp the rules and create a character.
Realism - the world should be realistic after accounting for magic. The rules should be balanced, and that logical things happen. This also means that combat is very lethal.
Development - your character starts out weak but gets the option of improving every session by gaining experience. Players can also add own inventions of skills, traits, spells or equipment to the game.
A card game developed for the anniversary of the city of Enschede, requested by the municipality and designed by me and a group of friends. Its simple gameplay involves scoring points in several areas, such as safety and nature. The game features pictures taken from the city, and was distributed among over 50,000 citizens.
As a long-standing member of the local boardgaming club, I've written several gaming-related articles and puzzles for their newsletter. I've also had a hand in a number of unreleased board and card games, with themes varying from elections to the Loch Ness monster, and from a card game with hidden rules to a board game of Leylines. And no game designer would be without a set of custom Magic: the Gathering cards.
As a powerful wizard, you start by ruling a small nation as you plot to take over the world! Rule over seven diverse races, from shapeshifting Theria, to spider-riding Dwarves, to the decadent Regency. Explore a vast fantasy world, expand by building more cities, battle the armies of rival wizards, and cast earth-shattering enchantments to ensure your victory.
Leylines is a 4X game, a turn-based strategy game of exploration and conquest. The game features seven unique races with each their own tech tree; over 180 units in total, including summons and customizable hero units; and 90 diverse spells. Fast gameplay that avoids micromanagement; tactical terrain effects; and local multiplayer with hotseat and/or splitscreen.
"Leylines has many advanced options that allow you to have fun creating power according to their own preferences." - 8AppStore
"I really like the intense variety between the races ... you’ve got some amazing variety." - Jay
A parody of amateur adventure design, this metagame consists of a simple treasure hunting game, and a complex editor needed to complete it. The editor and its assistant Cuppit are all part of the game; anyone involved in game or level design should appreciate the humor.
The editor is an exercise of twisted logic and lateral thinking. You have to see it to believe it; with its offbeat controls, inventory items that kill you, and intentional misspellings, it's the weirdest thing since sliced bread!
META is based on Adventure Game Studio, the platform for most of our games, and is runner-up for two AGS Awards.
"A great game, with some of the best puzzles I have ever seen in an AGS game. Kudos!" - David Cooper
"Possibly the most original concept I've ever seen in an AGS game! ... The puzzles are deviously ingenious. This is what I like - thinking outside the box!" - Trovatore
It is time for final exams at the Magic University, and notorious slacker Larry Lotter is about to flunk all of them because he spent less time studying and more time drinking beer. His last hope is to cheat like there's no tomorrow! Using a spell to reverse time, he gets the chance to do his day over again until he passes. His Destiny has spoken!
Join Rob Greasley, Calliope DeRanger and Professor Mumblemore in this short Harry Potter parody, loosely based on the greatly admired books by J.K. Rowling. Watch the other characters interact in real time, and spin time back and forth to interfere. The game is fully voiced.
MAGS contest winner.
"Combines sarcasm with innovative gameplay and great graphics ... the overall story is very entertaining." - FrostClick
"Great little game! I love how the characters wander round doing their own thing and talk to each other." - Pelican
The ancient kingdom of Theylinn is beset by enemies. Within the castle walls, nobles vie for the old king's favor, and not everybody is happy with the sole heir to the throne, princess Rhiannon.
Meanwhile, danger approaches, in the form of an invading army, a hostile giant, and a mercenary troop who are ancient enemies of the Theylann king...
A Tale of Two Kingdoms is a graphical adventure in the world of Celtic mythology and fairy tales, with many sidequests and alternate endings. It was named Game of the Month by PC Zone UK, Game of the Year by Screen7, and won four AGS Awards including Best Animation and Best Puzzles.
"If ATOTK came out during the genre's heyday, we'd probably be waxing nostalgic about it today in the same breath as King's Quest." - Games for Windows
"Most of the hand-drawn backgrounds are little works of art ... It offers a replay value that’s unseen in most adventures." - HardcoreGaming101
"A Tale of Two Kingdoms simply blew me away ... This game is a great achievement ... Final Grade: A" - Just Adventure
Deep within his dungeon, Yrolg the Necromancer is summoning a mighty demon to conquer the World. Three brave adventurers, a warrior, a rogue and a sorceress, come to his lair to disrupt this dark ritual. Your job is to stop them!
Should the heroes succeed, your Master will be slain, his reign of terror ended, and the world shall be covered with flowers and puppy dogs. That must never happen - this time, evil shall prevail!
A short adventure game where you play a minion of darkness, using your wit and guile to lead the heroes into traps and to a nasty demise. Runner-up for S7's Game Of The Year award; includes voice acting.
"An excellent point-and-click fantasy adventure." - Gnome's Lair
"The graphics are fantastic and the voice acting is top notch." - Quinny
A frantic and addictive shooting game in vector graphics: kill the evil polygons before they kill you! Who needs a plot? Just sit back, dodge, and keep blasting until you reach the boss monster!
Featuring twenty different enemies that chase you, snipe from the corners, or blast you with a frickin' laser beam; selectable upgrades to boost your speed or firepower; and several play modes and difficulty levels to keep it fresh. And of course it has a two-player mode to share the madness!
"First I thought this is too retro but hell, it's entertaining." - Matti
"Bless me, this is a brilliant little game! Anyone else so obsessed with this little gem?" - Musica Ferrum
On the starship Quasar, the lack of shore time causes tension to run high. The latest argument has proved too much, with each of the crew stalking off to different parts of the ship. To the medical officer, bringing these warring characters back together will be no easy task.
In this short adventure game, you control four different characters as they explore the ship, each with their own skills and reactions to the environment. Instead of on puzzle solving, the game focuses on the personalities of the characters and their interactions. The game is fully voiced.
"A science fiction tale whose restricted setting proves no obstacle to telling a compelling story." - Adventuregamers.com
"A competent and surprisingly pretty little adventure game that satisfyingly achieves what it set out to do." - PC Gamer
Explore the rich world of Nordic mythology! Egther, last of the Frost Giants, has sworn to turn all the world to ice. A young heroine is called to fight him, but first she must survive the harsh environment, battle hostile trolls, and deal with many creatures and characters from the classic myths.
Heroine's Quest is an adventure / RPG inspired by the classic Quest For Glory series, and was voted 69th All-Time Best Computer RPG by RpgCodex. Best of all, it's completely free!
Play as fierce warrior, cryptic sorceress, or elusive rogue. Their skills can be customized and each has her own solutions and sidequests, offering great replay value. Are you up to the quest, or will you die trying?
Best Adventure Game of the Year in the AGS Awards. Has a leaderboard on Speedrun.com.
"As perfect a tribute to Sierra's classic Quest for Glory series as you could hope for." - Kotaku
"Arguably surpassing the series that Lori Ann and Corey Cole created with an intricate Nordic setting and deeper roleplaying mechanics." - HardcoreGaming101
"It's great to see a female-centric heroic quest." - Corey Cole
"The attention to detail is staggering ... Heroine’s Quest is a glorious adventure-RPG hybrid." - RockPaperShotgun
In this fast-paced platform game, you take the role of the Mouse With The Hat and go in search of the vaunted Lost Cheese. Traverse forests, deserts, and the Halls of Illusion; jump over hedgehogs, hitch a ride on a turtle, and evade vicious snakes - all for the reward of more cheese than you could ever eat, and what more could a mouse want?
The game was made for a charity fundraiser that raised over $4000. It won two OROW awards and was runner-up for four AGS awards. As befits a platformer, it has hidden objects to collect, unlockable game modes, and the vicious Moby Duck as boss monster!
"Gameplay-wise Indiana Rodent is pure gold ... a platformer that earns its place in almost any platformer lover's heart easily." - PC Game Reviews
"Very good response and smooth scrolling, it was very satisfying to beat." - Ghost
Sara wants to go out and play in the sunshine, but she has a few errands to complete before she does that. Nothing special, just sweeping her room, feeding the dog, that sort of thing.
What could possibly go wrong?
Is it the hidden treasure map? The village of terrified elves, right in your kitchen? Surely a little girl can clean her room without being assaulted by a firebreathing dragon... right?
A short adventure game with two endings, voice acting, and epic soundtrack!
MAGS contest winner.
"Beautiful art and music. Delightful and imaginative game." - Shadow
"I'm now kind of terrified about what state my daughter might leave the house in when she's a bit older though!!" - Captain D
Newly hatched from an egg, our young dragon searches for the important things in life. And to a dragon, that means treasure! Search underground mazes and solve elaborate puzzles in your quest for gems, and see if you can hoard enough to impress the other dragons!
A classic puzzle challenge, featuring over a hundred levels and many different objects including treasure chests, replicators, floating balloons, fire beams, thieving elves, conveyor belts, gravity switches, and many more! Between all these traps, the levels require a good mixture of reflex action and thoughtful planning; and the varied mechanics keep things interesting to solve.
The puzzles are fair: no luck-based puzzles, no searching for walls you can walk through, and all time limits are optional.
Finally, a powerful level editor lets you make your own levels and share them on the Steam workshop.
"One of, if not the best puzzle game ever ... It's definetely worth a try for any puzzle fan. 4.9 / 5." - Reloaded.org
"Solid gameplay mechanics that makes for hours of enjoyment." - MobyGames
"Exciting and relaxing at the same time, SubTerra is guaranteed to provide you with many hours of pure enjoyment." - Home Of The Underdogs
Featured on television by Locomotion.
Beer! is a collection of frantic minigames where you have ten seconds to grab the beer! Easy to pick up and difficult to master, this game rewards quick and out-of-the-box thinking. It comes with a cheerful cafe-style soundtrack, and assorted cast of bears and deer.
Designed for a community fundraiser, Beer! includes 33 levels, a secret bonus round, and several cameos. Suitable for all ages; alcohol not included.
"The concept was brilliant: seemingly mindless speed-click game that actually really makes you think about how to solve each puzzle." - Baron
"It's a fun time waster and casual enough to pick it up for a short round (pun intentional)." - Ghost
A Shakespearean adventure! Watch Oceanspirit Dennis and his companions Ray and Mr. Cheeses as they stumble through the plot of Hamlet, order too much room service, and make a general mess out of Denmark.
There are lots of combat scenes with an innovative rune engine, and as befits a Shakespearean tragedy, most of the cast dies like mayflies. With dialogue written by The Bard himself, how can you resist a game like this? As Guildencheese says, "Squeak!"
MAGS contest winner.
"A great combat system, and a full on taste of a Shakespeare like story ... a recommended free adventure!" - Indie Retro News
"It's really funny! And well done." - AprilSkies
Would you believe the MOON is a banana? Well, the monkeys do! And they're not going to take that lying down! Using spare wood, electric eels, and gratuitous reed they plan to build a rocket to fly to the world's biggest banana! In space!
Control up to 25 monkeys in an RTS'like puzzle game
Scour the jungle for resources, build crafting workshops, breed more monkeys, and build The Rocket!
Don't forget to defend yourself from hungry snakes.
MAGS contest winner.
Runner-up for two AGS Awards.
Search the maze for keys and treasure! John 'DRJ' Vanderaart is one of the first published game designers from the Netherlands, best known for "Eindeloos". Herby was his first game on the C64, which I played as a child. This is also my first game, as I did a remake in BASIC back then. Decades later I found out I still had the source code, so I decided to update it to more modern systems.
Featuring one maze by DRJ, one by myself, and a random maze generator; and the famous Popcorn as background music. Unlike the originals, this one has save points and an automap.
A stealth roguelite where you sneak through the forest of Sherwood to rescue Robin Hood from the Sheriff of Nottingham; originally created for the 7-Day RogueLike contest, and later expanded.
In the legends of King Arthur, meet Sir Launcelot the Brave! Sir Sagramore the Just! And Sir... Bob... who I'm sure has a great personality!
Take the role of the eager but clumsy squire Bob; as nobles, soldiers, and the Lady of the Lake all say you're too wimpy to become a Knight. Can you prove them wrong?
This lighthearted adventure game features well-known and lesser-known characters from the King Arthur legends, taking inspiration from the famous classics and offering fun for all ages. Any similarity to any person actually named Bob, or for that matter Launcelot, is purely coincidental.
Coming soon-ish!
Here you can find games and demos that are very small, or only a proof of concept, or an abandoned project. There is no official support for any of these, but feel free to play around if you're curious. Also, we link to a few third-party games that we've helped with but not played a major part in.
Like many hobbyist programmers of my age I started out in GW Basic, moving on to QuickBasic before I discovered more versatile languages like Turbo Pascal and C++. This is a collection of small games I made, or changed heavily, in Basic. Interpreter included.
In the past I amused myself by opening game data files in a hex editor and trying to change the level layout, eventually writing several Editors to assist me. While my remix of Maniac Mansion and several dozen extra levels for Lode Runner were lost in a hard drive crash, I still have a number of editors available, listed on the right. My collection of Boulder Dash levels unfortunately never made it off the C64, but eventually led to the creation of SubTerra.
A friend and I experimented in high-quality PC-speaker music, creating the semblance of chords by rapidly alternating tones - a technique only rarely found in professional games. It contains over a dozen melodies, both from classic and modern composers, and a few own creations. While it cannot match any decent sound card, for the PC speaker this is very good.
My first serious attempt at a game was a graphical adventure, no less. The kingdom of Ladunia is imperiled for no particular reason, and you have to solve a host of arbitrary puzzles with extra dead ends to rescue the king. Hey, don't blame me, I was twelve when I wrote that. For the graphics we had no program nor even a mouse, so we did it by hand, pixel by pixel. Writing a complete engine proved rather difficult.
Although we had a few rooms playable, the code is so obtuse that the Basic compiler chokes on it. But it was fun to work on! Released fifteen years later, A Tale of Two Kingdoms bears no resemblance to Ladunia whatsoever.
This is a tricky puzzle game that I wrote ages ago. It started out on paper but was transferred to a computer when it got too hard to remember what every key was for; in some sense it's a sequel to Herby. Try to collect treasure in a maze that changes around you, and arm yourself against enemy ghosts. Expect a lot of trial-and-error as you try to reach the top score. It includes a level editor, too.
This is my first real game, and is a fiendishly difficult puzzle. Essentially, I saw the classic Soko-Ban in glorious CGA graphics, and thought that I could do better than that. Therefore, the game contains four differently-colored block types, one-way arrows, wrapping screens, some other new puzzle elements, and many tricky levels.
Its initial release on the BBS scene went mostly unnoticed, but a decade later it received a warm reception among niche fans on the internet. It features old-school VGA graphics, dozens of mindbending puzzles, and an undo button.
After the problems we had drawing graphics for Ladunia, I tried my hand at a Tile Engine to create games in, also known as S.I.G.H. (a silly acronym for Sound, Input, Graphics Handler). This went through several incarnations and screen resolutions, and switched theme from adventure to RPG to an action game in the style of ZZT; the toolkit evolved from a simple GraphCad to my first truly powerful game editor. The later versions had fully scripted customizable mobiles; the pretty ten-room demo of this was unfortunately lost in a hard drive crash.
The ElfQuest game was the final version of the tile engine, and didn't get off the ground either. However, a fluid animated version led to Marble Wizard, which eventually ended up as SubTerra. The RPG variant eventually inspired Elemental Wars.
This is one of my oldest designs, an old DOS arcade game that never got past the proof-of-concept stage. You fly around in a space pod with missiles, dodging a variety of devious traps. About half a dozen rooms are playable; the intent was about a hundred. I never got around to that, but Sarinee (of The Underdogs fame) said she would have loved to see the complete game.
There was an initial design marked #001 that predates even Herby (marked #002), but the "serious" version is a later build with VGA graphics, moving enemies, and shooting. I worked briefly on a windows version, as well. Unlike the DOS version, which had everything hardcoded, it used a scripting system.
You don't become a game designer without playing and examining hundreds of other games. I started at an early age, and over the years have written numerous walkthroughs, cheats, and maps, for the games listed below. Most of these have been published on GameFaqs and NeoSeeker.
Alter Ego, Aquaria, Arkanoid 2, Art of Theft, Barbarian, Bard's Tale, Battle Isle, Battle Isle '93, Black Cauldron, Brix, Bubble Bobble, Bumpy's Arcade Fantasy, Captain Comic, Captain Comic 2, Castle Adventure, Commander Keen 3, Commander Keen 4, Commander Keen 5, Commander Keen 58, Conquests of the Longbow, Crusader Of Centy, Dark Castle, Descent, Descent 2, Dynablaster, Eggerland, Elf, Enchanter, EOA World Tour Golf, Eye of the Beholder, Fantastic Dizzy, Fantasy World Dizzy, Fate Of Atlantis, Future Wars, God of Thunder, Gold Rush, Golden Axe, Golden Axe Warrior, Heartlight PC, Herby, History Line, King's Quest, King's Quest 2, King's Quest 5, La Mulana, Leisure Suit Larry, Locomotion, Logical, Lost Vikings, Magic Land Dizzy, Martian Dreams, Master of Magic, Might and Magic 3, Monkey Island, Mr. Blobby, Neutopia, Neutopia 2, Nine Princes in Amber, Populous, Prince of Persia (sega), Prince of Persia 4D, Prince of the Yolk Folk, Quadrax, Quest for Glory 2, Quest for Glory 3, Quest for Glory 4, Rockford, Rogue, Solomon's Key, Sorcerer, Space Quest, Space Quest 5, Spellcasting 201, Stone Age, Stormlord, Thexder, Titus the Fox, Tyrian, Ultima 5, and Valdis Story.
Believe it or not, I was once involved in an ElfQuest computer game, even having gotten feedback from Richard Pini that he was interested in the concept. The intent was an RPG in the style of Ultima VI.
As this was in the early days of the internet, multinational cooperation was tricky. We got one short demo game off the ground. The script engine, evolved from the Tile Engine, was working, and we had some fullscreen art and music. However, there was no sprite art to speak of, and writing a story proved harder than we first thought, especially with everyone having different ideas. Leylines had a draft for various races from the ElfQuest stories, but this didn't make it to the final product.
Some of the earliest programming I did was making text adventures, eventually starting on to graphic ones with Ladunia.
Here we have one of those stress-inducing "click as fast as you can" games. Drag four crystals into the jewelry boxes before they hit the ground, then right-click to make them vanish and score points. But whatever you do, don't click on the skulls. The game runs in DOS and is fully playable, if rather short.
In this attempt at a scrolling shoot'em up for DOS, the intent was to have several classes of pilot or technician, and a customizable ship, where some of your systems would start malfunctioning if you were hit. If your engine malfunctions, you move slower; if your cannon malfunctions, your aim wavers. I got the engine to work but never got around to designing levels for it. A prototype for Windows also exists.
Several years later I wrote a complete, albeit non-scrolling, shoot 'em up, called Vector Vendetta.
This is the predecessor to SubTerra, although it looks more like a Zelda clone at this point. This grew out of the Tile Engine experiments, now using animation rather than stepping from tile to tile, and finally migrating to C++. An early version of Marble Wizard used a split-screen two player mode, which resurfaced in both SubTerra and Leylines.
While the game doesn't have a goal yet (although you could try reaching four of the six keys) most of the elements are fully functional. This includes a bunch of monsters, boxes, pushers, conveyors, magic spells, and of course the evil Skull of Doom. The Skull was adopted by SubTerra; several other mechanics reappear in ZENG. The game editor is included.
Over the years as a freelance game designer, I've developed several libraries and toolkits, as well as a DOS multiboot progam and Windows control panel.
I have been playing tabletop roleplaying games for over fifteen years now, a hobby that eventually grew into the creation of Simplex. Here is some homebrew content for a variety of RPGs.
Enzado Bricks is a turn-based puzzle game bij Maarten, who would later become one of the main level designers for SubTerra 2. Made in DOS, the game is about collecting gems in a variety of mazes, while hindered by suck traps as force arrows and block generators. Also includes Multiplex, a game about causing small creatures to explode.
This predecessor to Leylines suffered from a number of design flaws, most notably overcomplexity, as well as being written in memory-limited DOS first, Visual Basic second. I had contacted a large number of freelance artists with the aim of getting a full-screen picture for every unit and building in the game, but this proved wildly unfeasible, even aside from the differences in style. The project was abandoned; Leylines started several years later. However, its sound and graphics code was used for SubTerra, and the world generator in Leylines was taken almost unmodified from Hollow Earth.
Homeland: the Stone of Night is a fantasy RPG with 3-D graphics, a large world, and real-time combat. It was published by DragonLore and used to be available on CD. This game represents my first real work in the indie gaming scene, and inspired me to design a complete game myself, which turned out to be SubTerra.
While I didn't code Homeland, I am responsible for designing the magic system, as well as several of the quests and NPC dialog. A sequel, Song of the Void, was planned for, but was never finished, and the official site no longer exists.
This is a really old SubTerra Alpha version, that was released for testing to a small audience. Interestingly, this contains code to (try to) read level files from about two dozen Boulderdash clones; an early design goal was to be compatible with the lot of them, which predictably became wildly unfeasible. Because of some strange coding tricks that were corrected for the full release, this alpha may fail to run on contemporary systems.
It took almost a year of development to end up with the full game of SubTerra, which was originally published by Spiderweb Software before it became freeware on this site.
An exciting puzzle game requiring a good mixture of reflex action and thoughtful planning, SubTerra puts you in a maze with falling boulders, floating balloons, enemies, replicators, laser beams, and massive explosions. Between all these traps, you need to plan carefully and run for your life to make it to the exit with enough gems.
After completing each level, you can try mastering it on the hard difficulty level. The game has over a hundred different game objects, demo recording, and a level editor. It has won a Top Dog award from classic game site Home Of The Underdogs, and was featured on television by Locomotion. Reloaded calls it "One of, if not the best puzzle game ever ... It's definately worth a try for any puzzle fan."
The race for gems is back, with dozens of new objects and many new mazes! The goal remains the same: grab the gems and head for the exit. New obstacles include conjurers, glue blocks, fragile gems, and reverse gravity. Meet new enemies like the golem, have your pet dog assist you, and confuse yourself with the ingenious wiring systems!
The sequel to SubTerra features many new objects, over a hundred new levels, and the same powerful level editor and demo recording. Home of the Underdogs calls it "Exciting and relaxing at the same time, SubTerra is guaranteed to provide you with many hours of pure enjoyment." Numerous objects and levels have been included in Sub Terra Draconis.
Welcome to the Restaurant of the Future, where nothing can possibly go worng!
The Stressrestaurant is fully automated, designed to deliver the proper food to each customer in the shortest time possible. Only, the computer system does not work very well, forcing you to spend the hectic evening rerouting the food tracks to make sure all the condiments get on the proper plates. Take too long, and customers will storm off in anger. Do it quickly, and you'll get a big tip.
The game essentially works, but I never got around to acquiring the necessary animations, levels, and music. It uses the same tile engine as Indiana Rodent, and its concept was later revisited in Blackbird Pie.
Inspired by arcade classic Bubble Bobble, Polymorph is a frantic platform game where the inept wizard Xnurdle has to change his enemies into chickens with his magic wand, before capturing them. If he does not, his evil nemesis will conquer the world, and worse, not invite him to his victory party.
The intent was many small levels, dozens of powerups and annoying enemies, and fittingly enough, music by Scott Joplin. Although both a VCC and an AGS version exist, it never got past the proof-of-concept stage because of more interesting projects. I did eventually end up making a platform game, called Indiana Rodent.
I'm a big fan of the 2-D Zelda games, from the original to Link To The Past to the Oracle series. Since such games tend only to be released for consoles, ZENG, short for Zelda Engine, is an attempt to recreate them on a PC, after trying a similar concept in Marble Wizard.
Its intent is to be a full world editor that allows for the many kinds of interactions and objects that Zelda has, including customization and the ability to import your own tile sets. This project turned out to have an impractically large scope. A brief proof-of-concept was later made in AGS, but didn't really get anywhere for the same reason; it was later revived for Sherwood.
After discovering AGS, my first attempt at making something was Glorious Quest, the working title for an RPG adventure in the style of Quest for Glory, albeit with different classes. It was mostly playing around with AGS; after I got most of the controls and interfaces to work, I moved on to A Tale of Two Kingdoms. I was briefly involved with Hero6 as well, a canceled fan project with a similar premise and larger scope. Some of these interfaces would later be reused and/or rewritten for Heroine's Quest.
These resources may be useful for people using Adventure Game Studio.
An early project within AGS, King's Quest 2½ started off as a fangame set in the eighteen-or-so years between King's Quest 2 and 3, starring King Graham. However, there were issues at the time with the companies who owned the relevant intellectual property, who were none too keen about this being used for spin-offs.
Eventually we decided it would be better to create a game with completely new plot, location and characters; this new project was A Tale of Two Kingdoms.
Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth is a fan project that I used to be involved with. It is intended as a sequel to the Fate of Atlantis. I left the team over concerns that the project would run into trouble with the copyright owners of the titular character, essentially the same reason why King's Quest 2½ was abandoned. And indeed, in 2021 it had to be abandoned for copyright reasons.
Founded back in 1999, this is the oldest of a long list of Quest For Glory fangames, and of major Sierra-style games in AGS in general. In a whole generation of AGS games, every major team and project, from King's Quest III+ to Infamous Kingdoms and from Legend of Fair Spring to Heroine's Quest started as a spin-off of this one.
Unfortunately, this game itself never really got beyond a plot outline and a couple of short demos; it has had no updates since 2008, and was officially canceled in 2011.
In the time that A Tale of Two Kingdoms. was still getting its team together, I did some work converting an old Sierra game to AGS. While doing so, I made several additions to its plot and puzzles, trying to cast it more as storytelling than as a sandbox game. The project was known as King's Quest III+, and its public beta received quite a bit of interest.
There were more plans for expansion, an extra chapter in Daventry, and multiple endings; I have received queries for years asking me to continue working on it. When I heard that other people were doing a remake in VGA, I dropped this low-resolution game and worked on their project for a few months, before deciding to focus the effort on A Tale of Two Kingdoms instead.
The beginning of a tactical puzzle game, it was initially in "war of the fruits" mode but eventually switched to NetHack tiles (until I would get artist support). On a square grid, you and the computer horde take turns moving their team; the pieces would then automatically attack whatever was in their range. There are a small number of items that can be carried, and have a different effect depending on the kind of hero that activates them. The plot is about a group of retired heroes in a tavern, talking about their glory days.
An adventure game written by Corby, lead artist for Heroine's Quest, written in Sierra's AGI system.
In a medieval fantasy setting, the eponymous Caitlyn travels through perilous realms to confront an evil sorcerer, meeting strange creatures and discovering her own magical powers in the process.
The game was never completed, but the first chapters are fully playable. Murder Mystery is another AGI game by Corby, that is shorter but complete.
This is the first short demo of A Tale of Two Kingdoms, released early in the production process. The screenshots above comes from A Tale of Two Islands, an inside joke referring to a game that does not in fact exist, and from the ATOTK christmas card.
Early in the development of A Tale of Two Kingdoms, there was some discussion between us and other indie teams about pooling resources and exchanging easter eggs. The other projects involved were Hero6, Quest for Infamy, Project Katrina, and Mirror of Dreams. All of these have, to my best knowledge, been abandoned since, except for QFI.
For an April Fools joke, we made a press release that these five had merged to create one big game, and released Hero of Infamous Kingdoms as proof, with graphics and music from all five. So try and find the Last Tomato so it can be magically duplicated for a poor ketchup-deprived country. Includes a voice pack.
"Maze Of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike" was an experiment to see if it was possible to do first-person perspective 3-D games in AGS. It is a fully playable randomly generated maze with automapping and, for some reason, a piano. It formed the basis for Eye of the Tempest.
This was the first incarnation of Heroine's Quest, before its creators became affiliated with Crystal Shard. For the current incarnation, a new plot was written, and the graphics recreated from scratch.
Our heroine has grown up in the countryside in a small cottage with her family. One day a strange old wizard arrives, seeking a champion to serve as a hero to the town of Fair Spring. An old friend to the heroine's father, the wizard convinces him to allow his daughter to travel to the town, claiming it to be her destiny. Reluctantly, he agrees.
Get rrready to rrrumble! The heroes of classical Sierra and LucasArts games fight a bloody battle for supremacy! Pit Devon's fireballs vs. Bobbin's swan morph! Use Guybrush's pirate voodoo against Sonny's assault gun! And have Larry smash them all with a taxi cab.
Quest Fighter II is a parody of classical Sierra and LucasArts games created in AGS by Mortal Wombat, who asked me to host it here. The first Quest Fighter had only the Sierra characters (with Devon as final boss); this second game features nine different fighters, a mysterious endgame boss, lots of blood, and fatalities! Download now... if you dare!
A genre mash-up involving elves, zombies, chess, Mittens, a zoo, a flying city, and a time machine! In the midst of all this chaos, can you stop the evil villain's plans before new year?
This adventure game was written for a contest that let me pick from a dozen different settings, so I decided to pick all of them, wrapped up in an innovative interface. The game got second place, too. If you enjoy puzzle solving with not much emphasis on plot and with general zaniness, this is the game for you!
Includes German, Spanish, and Portuguese translation.
Eye of the Tempest is a 3-d RPG written in AGS, in the "blobber" style of the famous classic Eye of the Beholder, featuring a skill-based system, many unique spells and combinations, wicked curses and a surprisingly versatile AI.
Playtesting and graphic design indicated that the actual information from the game comes from the overhead map, and the block-based 3-d view doesn't really add to the gameplay. This lead to the project being abandoned, although the core routines were included in the roguelike TempestHack. Elemental Wars uses similar albeit newly-written mechanics.
I've attempted to recreate The Incredible Machine within AGS, starring an intelligent rat named after Leonardo da Vinci; Lenny, to his friends. Featuring all the usual balls, slides, buckets, flowing water, explosives, and laser beams; or alternately, in adventure game-style rooms in an abandoned house - or it would, if I were to get the physics engine to work. Turns out that doing elastic collisions between several dozen objects isn't all that trivial.
Remember back in the old days, when you were playing your favorite adventure game classic, and you couldn't get past room twenty-four because you couldn't find a freakin' one-pixel object? Remember the embitterment, the frustration, the ANGER? Remember how you felt that the author of that particular non-puzzle ruined your life, and ought to be taken out and shot at?
Well, now you can relive these thrilling moments, unleash your aggression, and generally kick ass in Pixel Hunt. Guaranteed to be the most therapeutical AGS game youve ever played, or your money back.
Today is Mika's birthday, and of course this is an excellent reason to throw a party. In a town like this, inviting all your friends is easy. There is just one thing missing...
Money, the Root of all Evil. Parties can be expensive, and Mika is remarkably short on money. Still, it should be possible for an enterprising photographer to make some quick cash...
Set in the cooperatively built Reality-On-The-Norm universe, the game features pirates, private eyes, a fully functional camera, and of course a crazy homeless weirdo.
Interestingly, this started as a draft for Space Quest 4.5 interquel, comparable to the Sierra Remix games.
From the twisted mind that brought you META comes another exercise in surreality: KATA.
This time, the culprit is a vaguely familiar operating system called Skylights, that makes it difficult for you to install Amzaing Quest.
This is a graphical user interface for data transformations, based on the Integrator language. It is quite elaborate, with numerous sub-menus, redundant control methods for accessibility, and debug modes. Made as a project for the company I was working for at the time, it took about a year for my team to create, and was released on three different contintents. Since it's proprietary, it's not available for download.
I whipped up this pac-man prototype in AGS in about an hour. Its not really playable, just a proof of concept of grid-based level generation and maze cursor controls.
Created in just one week, One Room One Cheese is an early version of platform game Indiana Rodent. Although both graphics and controls would be improved later on, this game proved popular in the One Room One Week contest for creating short games within AGS, winning two out of five categories: best programming and best audio.
Most parts of the level in this game can be found throughout Indiana Rodent, such as the very first screen.
This is the top-down single-character successor of Eye of the Tempest. The first draft from 2007 uses text characters similar to the classic NetHack; the version from 2012 uses the tile engine from Indiana Rodent but only the editor works so far.
A later side project named Depleted (and later, Rascal) attempts to write a roguelike game from scratch with minimal mechanics; this concept eventually got an action-oriented approach in Sherwood.
The concept here is to create a card game on the computer, where you construct your deck and play from it against a number of challenges. Two ideas exist, one where you play as an adventurer using cards to represent equipment, skills, and spells that you play against an deck of cards for obstacles and enemies you encounter on your journey. The second uses characters from Heroine's Quest that can be played either as resource gatherers or as active combatants as you defend your city against an enemy with a similar deck.
I eventually dropped the concept because its gameplay was not engaging enough.
A nice thought exercise is to take rooms and characters from an existing game, put them in a new arrangement to make the plot work differently, and then come up with puzzles that fit. My best example of this is King's Quest III+; but I also have design notes for a variant KQ1 (working title "Not A Sierra Game"), KQ5, and Space Quest 2; as well as for our very own Heroine's Quest.
Of course, these rarely make it past a design document because the point is the thought exercise; but Heroine's Quest did get a couple alternative puzzle solutions based on this.
One of my favorite gaming genres is the Metroidvania. I've written an old design for a game called Mesozoic (intentionally written in the same font as Metroid) which is mostly a set of character classes and powerups.
The concept of Rainbow Phoenix is the inverse, i.e. instead of improving your character, the powerups you collect improve the map by adding or removing passages. This runs in the Indiana Rodent engine. There's a total of seven powerups, hence the name Rainbow; and each comes with a boss enemy, and you can go through all of this in various orders.
The map has been designed, which was the most challenging part; unfortunately there's no playable demo yet.
Years after writing SubTerra, I decided to test the capabilities of the AGS engine by using it to build a simple rock-and-diamond game, in this case starring a cute little dragon looking for his stolen hoard. This is the result, including such elements as falling bombs, opening chests, and save points.
The concept was later reused for SubTerra Draconis, which after an attempted port to AGS was instead built on an updated version of SubTerra's engine for performance reasons.
This is to my best knowledge the first Rhythm Game written in AGS. Oceanspirit Dennis has to defeat the evil blob using the Power of Music! Notes flow down your screen on the rhythm of the song, and you have to match the pattern using the cursor keys. Do well, and fans will appear to cheer for you.
Set in the cooperative universe of Oceanspirit Dennis (Mighty Pirate and Scourge of the Underworld), this game features three stages, three piratey songs to whistle along to, and twelve different fan characters from various Oceanspirit media! Stepmania mats not currently supported, so use the keyboard and your sense of rhythm. This was originally intended as a minigame for Heroine's Quest but we found it didn't fit there very well.
One of my favorite classics is Cadaver, an isometric platform puzzle game. This is a brief proof of concept to see if its visuals can be made to work in the AGS engine. One of the interesting quirks of this perspective is that you can create Escher puzzles, although the original doesn't do that. This perspective was reused for Elemental Wars.
Approximately once per year, the AGS community holds a contest to see what sort of game people can put together in just one hour. It's Cold Outside is the winner of the 2017 contest, consisting of a maze to explore and about a dozen characters that each need an item delivered. It's procedurally generated. Later, an additional hour was spent polishing its interface to make it more playable. Writing this game encouraged me to revisit my first game ever, Herby.
A simple tactical game about a football match between various teams of monsters, and after each goal the ball is swapped with a variety of weird ones. Whack your rival team with the spike ball, get more teammates from a pokeball, or watch the ball move by itself because it's actually a pangolin!
No actual art for the game exists yet, and I may end up reusing the engine from Elemental Wars.
A draft for a point-and-click adventure set in the Arabian Nights. A young woman named Scheherazade (Shay, to her friends) is married off to the Sultan. Just as she's starting to enjoy the opulent court life, she discovers that the Sultan had several wives before, and had each of them executed!
Now she needs to find a way out of her predicament, and at the same time collect wondrous tales; because every night, she must keep the Sultan engaged with another story, or face the axe...
A project more useful for work than for game design, this C# tool generates SQL data warehouse logic based on an Excel sheet of column names, types, and where they're coming from. It's pretty nifty and lightweight, and the result is easier to maintain than a whole repo full of ETL sprocs. Of course, commercial packages exist that do the same thing in a far more complicated (and robust) manner.
You control a flock of blackbirds that deliver pie. But first you have to deliver milk and flour to the bakery (to make a crust) and get the crust and topping to the confectionery (to make your choice of various kinds of pie). It's pretty straightforward mouse controls to click on a bird and set its route. It's based on the concept of Stresstaurant.
This was written for the MAGS contest, and I've managed to downscope it enough to be playable within the month.
