Games

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The RISC OS games scene has never been very active, and became even quieter with the disappearance of Acorn Computers Ltd in 1998. Most of the activity in the present-day RISC OS games market is due to a small number of enthusiasts.

Commercial game releases do pop up one or two times a year but the freeware games scene is much more active. The availability of the IYONIX pc and the A9home makes porting of some of the more recent games from other platforms a viable proposition. Even in this case, games which are very processor- or graphics-intensive and less than 3-5 years old are unlikely to be suitable candidates for conversion. Thus recent real-time games would be unsuitable for conversion, while turn-based and puzzle games would fare significantly better.

Blasts of the Xtreme are aiming to liven up the market with over three new games to be released early Autumn 2007 and several others are in early development. A game is hoped to be ready for the Holland show in September and two others at the South East show in October. Several games are also hoped to be released at the South West show 2008 but no information on them are currently available.

Fantasia FAN are also hoping to liven up the market with a rather major release for the Microsoft Windows and Acorn RISC OS market sometime in Autumn 2007.

The game developer GEK Studios was re-set up Summer 2007 aiming to provide high-quality games for RISC OS computers.

There are a variety of emulators available, such as DosBox and PicoDrive, and these make a wide variety of classic games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers available for play - provided suitable ROM images can be found.

Active Game Developers and Publishers

Past developers and publishers include Visions of the Impossible, FLAYMZ, Artex Software and GEK Studio but the following game developers and publishers are still active:

Acorn Arcade has collated a number of former commercial games that have now been made available as freeware. This includes several Tom Cooper (A.K.A. Berty) titles.

Chris Bazley is keeping Star Fighter 3000 updated.

Jason Tribbeck is writing a couple of new games, currently in alpha or early beta stages of development; ACED and Equinox.

R-Comp has a selection of ported games that have been fully converted to RISC OS (including Quake, Doom and Descent), and a native RISC OS Doom-like game, Destiny.

The Unix Porting Project has covered a selection of freeware games, including puzzle games, a selection of simple arcade games, and some larger games such as FreeCiv, LinCity and Battle for Wesnoth.

APDL now own the rights to and are selling the 4th Dimension's back catalogue. Notable among these games are Cataclysm, Nevryon, E-Type and others. The 4th Dimension Games Collections typically feature 9-12 games on a CD, so there's enough to keep you occupied for a long time!

List of commercial releases over 2005:

List of commercial releases over 2006

List of commercial releases over 2007

Some of the best known commercial games released for RISC OS are listed below:

  • Quake Resurrection - 23UKP (rrp) - A port of the Quake for RISC OS. Includes two expansion packs.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic 2 - 35UKP - A port of Heroes of Might and Magic 2.
  • 6502Em - 15UKP - One of the best BBC Micro emulators on the RISC OS platform.
  • Star Fighter 3000 - 20UKP - The classic RISC OS mission based 3D shoot-em-up.
  • TEK 1608 - 30UKP - A Command & Conquer / Dune II style strategy game.
  • Ankh - 10UKP - A point-and-click adventure, similar in design and humour to the Monkey Island games.

Some of the best freeware and shareware games released for RISC OS are listed below:

Want to make your own games?

  • FST - Design your own flight simulators
  • Trellis - Design your own text adventures
  • Spatience - Design card games
  • GTAC - Design your own text adventures

List of upcoming commercial games:

Equinox - Jason Tribbeck (Date not set) A shoot 'em up in spaceas been in development on and off for over a decade. Current Beta is looking quite nice.

Man Down - Blasts of the Xtreme (September 2007) A graphic text adventure set in World War II. Might be ready for Guildford 2007.

Various Compilations - APDL / 4Th Dimension (Date not set) There are various games such as Black Angel which are yet to be released on a compilation. These games might be released on these upcoming compilations.

Untitled Game - Fantasia FAN (Autumn 2007) A 3D version of a popular puzzle game, to be released on Microsoft Windows and Acorn RISC OS.

Xtreme Soccer 2008 - Blasts of the Xtreme (October 2007) A recently announced soccer managment game to be released in the BOTX Budget Range of games.

Old Fish - Blasts of the Xtreme (October 2007)- A graphic text adventure about the adventures of an old lung fish. A wacky but original idea.

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