Games
riscos.info Games
Games hosted on riscos.info are found in the games section of the autobuilder.
Introduction
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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.
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.
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:
- 7th Software
- Acorn Arcade
- Alligata Media / ProAction
- APDL / 4th Dimension
- Blasts of the Xtreme / AcornGamez
- Brain Games
- Chris Bazley
- Cloudsprinter Software
- CJE Micro's
- Fantasia FAN
- GEK Studios
- David Llywelyn Jones (A.K.A. Flying Pig)
- Little Yellow Moon Software
- Marc Zinnschlag
- New Breed Software
- Ian Hamilton
- iSV Products
- Jason Tribbeck (A.K.A. Tribbles)
- Jeffrey Lee (A.K.A. Phlamethrower)
- R-Comp / R-Comp Interactive
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.
riscos.info has covered a selection of open source 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!
Commercial Games
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.
List of commercial releases over 2005:
- Adventure Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Flight Simulator Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Maze Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Platforms Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Puzzle Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Racing Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Shooting Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Sports Games Collection - 4th Dimension - http://www.apdl.co.uk
- Wari - Brain Games - http://www.maceng.karoo.net/BG/
List of commercial releases over 2006
- Era of the Phoenix - Blasts of the Xtreme - http://www.blastsofthextreme.com
List of commercial releases over 2007
- Bloody Battlegrounds - Blasts of the Xtreme - http://www.blastsofthextreme.com
- Sword Clash - Blasts of the Xtreme - http://www.blastsofthextreme.com
Some of the best freeware and shareware games released for RISC OS are listed below:
- Quake2 - A port of the awsome Quake II from ID Software
- MarsQuake - One of the best Bomberman clones for RISC OS
- PicoDrive - A SEGA Megadrive emulator for RISC OS
- SuperDoku - One of the best Sudoku programs for RISC OS
- Angband - A roguelike. The latest version of the original Angband is available from the official Angband site, and ports of some of the many Angband variants are available from The Isparp Angband Pages.
Interactive Fiction
RISC OS has fairly good support for both playing and writing Interactive Fiction (text adventures).
- Inform interpreters - Play Infocom games, and other games compiled to the Z-Machine format
- TADS 2 intepreter - Labelled AcornTADSruntime.spk
- Inform 6 compiler
- Trellis - Design your own text adventures
- GTAC - Design your own text adventures