21 replies to this topic

[denzquix]

free games that set out to shock have always held a weird fascination for me... the rise of Flash in the early '00s has obviously brought a whole new life to the genre, but for this thread, I wanna dig back into the archives and explore some old school sick-em-ups.....

btw occasionally these games can be truly vile and indefensible!! don't really want to censor anything but i'm also not a person who enjoys upsetting folk, so, just want to say that now, off the top...

i'll be focusing on games for the Commodore Amiga only because that's the computer i personally grew up with.... but, if you're interested, this thread welcomes contributions!!

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Phuk the World (1994) by Mike Carter
"Dizzy" clone starring disembodied penis with eyes solving puzzles and wandering about on testicle feet

Roll or Die (1992) by The Animators
paralympics parody minigame collection

Bucktooth Bob's Jungle Adventure (1994) by William Nolan
senseless animal-murder platformer

Berra (1994)
nasty sadistic fantasies, cheerful cartoon gfx (Swedish)

[denzquix]

The Last of the Quakers (1998) by Chris Samel
 

[denzquix]

Bouncing Babies/Tumble Tots
save babies from a burning building by bouncing them across the screen on a portable trampoline

[Vellfire]

These are some of the most beautiful screenshots I've ever seen

[denzquix]

time for an in-depth case-study on...


The Unlikely Adventures of Edd Schiester #1: Escape from a Large Cave (1992) by D. Harvey & T. S. Kong.
 

 

Edd Schiester is a shareware point & click adventure game, featuring a couple o' dozen rooms and a custom-written engine. it came on one floppy disk

the disk can be downloaded from this page (DMS format, requires an Amiga emulator to run): 17Bit PD Library - Disk #2207
 
 

 

the story so far: Edd Schiester has fallen into a network of mysterious subterranean catacombs and must find his way back to surface freedom

the first thing you may notice is a couple of unusual verb buttons on the interface. unlike most any other point & click, you can Drop any inventory item where you stand, and pick it up again later. this is never useful

there is also a button for Violence!. this allows you to murder non-player characters (the murder weapon is not listed as an inventory item)

  

 

when murdered, the victim's sprite does not change. there is no animation at all. instead the words "Scree,scree,scree" appear at the top of the screen (not sure whether this is meant to be victim screaming or Psycho violin screeches) and the NPC's mouse-over name changes to mention that they are now dead

also whenever he walks into a room, there is a rare chance Edd will utter one of a few random phrases. some advertise "drink pepsi" and "eat at pizza hut", there are old classics "worship satan" and "kill your parents"... then there are some genuinely nasty & troubling ones, like "go out and brain a faggot"

 

so anyway... what do you actually need to do in this game...?

well, along your travels you will meet a man who lost his dog. if you can reunite them:

 

...he will reward you with a golden key, which you can use to unlock this door:

...but, what is waiting for you on the other side??

yes... "LOOK" indeed... gaze upon the depth of your failure...

when you are returned to the game, you are still outside the exit. all your inventory items have been removed. the game is unwinnable. there is no save/load or restart. you have no option but to turn off your computer in disgrace

if you are tempted to hunt around files on the disk looking for hints there is only further indignity for you

 

i will maybe do another update about Edd Schiester in the future...

in the meantime here is a map I made of the game's locations: Edd Schiester #1 map

[superflat]

Wonderful thread, thanks for sharing.

 

I have a feeling I may have played one or two of these.  I used to get quite a lot of odd Amiga PD / Licenseware, cos i made an AMOS point'n'click once, so i must have wanted to investigate what others were doing with it...

[denzquix]

ohh, you made Keith's Quest?? I remember it well... dude trapped in a wibbly orb... secret room with the game developers in it... the jeff minter tribute minigame.... meeting Guybrush Threepwood... kudos!! it was a really fun game

and welcome to salt world! (though i still feel like i only just got here myself...)

[dada]

goddang that's old school

[superflat]

Ah you found the room with me and Caspar in it... Amazing! It's probably so embarrassing now (18 years ago!) I'm sort of blown away actually, you're the second person I've met since starting making games again in the late 2000's who's actually played it! So, thankyou so much.

[denzquix]

you're welcome! I think I remember the end of Keith's Quest hinted at the possibility of a sequel set in space... d'you remember how far you got with developing that, if at all...? I always wondered...

[superflat]

I've been back in touch with Caspar, who did about half the art in the game, recently and my mum found a lot of his old sketches for it. He lives in NY now and runs a design company called [v]ersion industries. But he's from Cambridge where i now live and we see each other over the new years because he comes over to see his family. We were at the same school but a couple of years apart but even so he ended up moving to the same uni in Manchester. We got as far as making a few sprites and locations in DPaint, but then the Amiga was so close to death at that point, I was getting into music instead of games, and had my first PC, Doom came along, I couldn't find any software I liked on the PC back then so it just sort of died off... Sometimes we talk about making another adventure game together at some stage.

[superflat]

An actual on-topic addition.

I missed them back in the day as they were on DOS, but Bloodlust Software must surely count?

With such classics as...





Executioners





Timeslaughter (my favourite)



Nogginnockers

[denzquix]

wow!! never heard of those... I only knew bloodlust for their emulators... thanks!!

i'll open it out to commercial games too, as long as they're not too well-known already (e.g. duke nukem 3D)

Creatures II: Torture Trouble (1992) for the Commodore 64 had "torture screens" where cute characters get brutally murdered with chainsaws etc. if you don't complete it in time



ultraviolent finishing moves from Eternal Champions: Challenge From The Dark Side (1995) for the Sega Mega-CD:

[superflat]

Oh fuck yeah, Eternal Champions.  Have a real soft spot for the death animations in that one. (*I think my taste is less violent these days, but...)

[denzquix]

to open it out also to pre-1990s:

How to Be a Complete Bastard (1987)
 

[superflat]

there's some great stuff in here.

 

i love how the Last of the Quakers uses AMOS' default colour-cycling palette (the language I made Keith's Quest in haha)

[denzquix]

 

just found out this rude kid was a rip-off of a heavy metal album cover, i had no idea

 

how could you, Zen Software..... we expected better of you....   

[RyanTheBoy]

Okay, so the game I am familiar with is not as old but it has a soft spot in my heart. Time Killers was the best arcade cabinet at the movie theater when I was growing up. I loved the way it actually impeded you to lose limbs; you could strategize around removing your opponent's punching ability for instance. Super awesome.

 

 

EDIT: And it didn't strike me as a kid, but the background art is impressive as heck! 

[skulldrone]

embrace targ

[denzquix]