Games
Introduction
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. As of 2009, there is now no commercial game development.
Most newly appearing RISC OS games are ports (many hosted on riscos.info), with the occasional original title, or a rework of an older BBC Micro or Archimedes game. Many of the ports are relatively processor intensive, and can be impractical on a RiscPC, so an A9, or [[IYONIX pc] is required. Even those platforms are very slow compared to modern x86 hardware, and ports of modern games with 3D graphics, etc are generally impractical.
There are also 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.
riscos.info Games
riscos.info hosts many game ports
The following games have their own pages:
Game Developers
Although there have been many game developers in the past this list contains only links to developers who are somewhat active, or have games available.
- 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.
- 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!
News and Discussion
- Acorn Arcade covers some RISC OS games news, and also has some former commercial games available as freeware.
- The usenet group comp.sys.acorn.games has general RISC OS games discussion.
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.
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
