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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

They're paying you to teach what?

10:54 / 01.09.05

Hi All,

I'll shortly be teaching a 12 week undergraduate course on gaming (http://www.cyberchimp.co.uk/U75105/). I wanted to have a small number of 'set games' made available to the students, which they could play on the university computer network (funds and facilities won't stretch to consoles). However, I've had trouble finding suitable games, which have to fufill the following three conditions:

(1) relatively low spec. (i.e. Pentium 3 933mhz, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD, integrated sound and graphics)
(2) no CD required in the drive (since the students won't have access to the actual discs)
(3) no admin. priviledges required by the player (Half-Life fell foul of this restriction)

Has anyone had any experience in this area? Can you suggest a game or two, or, even better, some (legal) way of working round these restrictions? At the moment all the technician has managed to get working is Civilization II, which is great in itself but provides rather a lop-sided picture of computer gaming. Initially I'd hoped to showcase classic examples of an action game, an adventure game, and a strategy game, but at this stage I'll settle for anything I can install!

Many thanks

12:23 / 01.09.05

I think some of the earlier X-wing/ tie Fighter games might work under those circumstances, though I am not 100% sure.

23:10 / 01.09.05

Why not use emulators to run old games?

You'd have access to pretty much every 16-bit game then. It'd be a little dodgy legal-wise, but I wouldn't think anyone would care.

06:28 / 02.09.05

Thanks guys. I've not played any of the X-Wing or Tie-Figher games - they sound like they might be possibility. Do you have a link, or some titles?

Everything has to be absolutely above-board, so emulators and even abandonware are out of the question, alas.

07:29 / 02.09.05

"X-wing Vs Tie-fighter" was the first one that really took advantage of netowrking iirc. I'm fairly sure it's available cheap from LucasArts budget line. I'd try Amazon if I was you. X-wing: Rebellion was also pretty good, but it might require 3D cards. Gamefaqs will probably have information on all of the series so check them out.

13:52 / 02.09.05

You could try ZDoom or QuakeBlood- both pumped-up versions of classic FPS games, ideal for linked play without killing older machines.
ZDoom
QBlood
And best of all, they're free...

semioticrobotic

00:06 / 04.09.05

I'm drawing blanks on suggestions for games at this point, but I would like to see/hear more about your course. I visited the Web sit you constructed. Do you have a syllabus available for public viewing?

02:52 / 04.09.05

Oh, brainwave! Totallyscrewed Software's "Zombies V.S. Pterodactyls"! Free download, specifically made for LAN and CTF. From the makers of "Zombie Smashers X2: Punks and Skins" and "Survival Crisis Z".

Zombies and Pterodactyls 2005 beta

The support files you'll need for older computers are at the bottom of the page.

07:14 / 04.09.05

Thanks for these suggesetions, guys - I will try them all. (Just to clarify, I don't need the games themselves to be networked, i.e. multiplay, just that they will run when installed on a network, i.e. not individually on each workstation.)

There's no syllabus available yet, but it will be posted in the 'Download' section of the site in a couple of weeks time. Thanks for looking.

01:25 / 11.09.05

Ooh, if I'm not too late, Dink Smallwood is an excellent old freeware adventure game with a lovely, twisted sense of humour.

Dink Smallwood

Free download, and lots of custom mods.

13:15 / 12.09.05

Eh, if you don't think an involved adventure game like that is too time-intensive for the class. The others are pretty much just run-and-gun...

10:30 / 13.09.05

Thanks for that, Lord Morgue. I've downloaded Dink Smallwood and will give it a go tonight. I've also realised that we might be able to get Spacewar! running, which would be fun (and historically appropriate). Ideally I'd like to give the students an action AND an adventure game to try.

The Module Handbook is now online under 'Downloads', if you're interested Bryan. More materials will be posted as the course unfolds.

semioticrobotic

11:08 / 13.09.05

Excellent! I'll definitely be giving it a look-see.

12:51 / 13.09.05

I dug up something else that might be worth a look-see.
PDF of Chris Crawford's "The Art of Computer Game Design", updated for the electronic edition.
Clicky!

06:25 / 14.09.05

Ooooh, shiny pdf. Excellent - good find. Thanks, I've added it to the bibliography.

09:23 / 15.09.05

Awright, found a freeware fighting game.
Little Fighter 2

17:28 / 19.09.05

Nice (and tricky too) - keep them coming!

12:39 / 02.10.05

This is technically off-topic, Dr Chimp, but I forgot to mention to you, I think, that at the last CongressCATH a guy called David Parry (very interesting, PhD student of the deconstructionist David Wills, who wrote Prosthesis) gave a paper on the videogame Escape from Woomera (abstract is here). He's basically making the argument that the videogame, as "replayable archive", is a major shift in the way that information is stored and retrieved and should provoke a similarly major theoretical shift in thinking about the archive, "discourse networks", etc.

I don't know whether Escape from Woomera itself is playable by your students - a quick look at the website suggests not, since they say you need a registered copy of Half-life to be able to play it - but you might like to link to its website, since it's an interesting project.

07:20 / 09.10.05

Escape from Woomera, the game he discusses, is available here. Its a single-player Half-Life mod, in which you're imprisoned in an Australian immigration detention center. Games meet politics - who'd have thunk.

13:23 / 09.10.05

Good, about time. I've whined before about what people like the creators of Typhoid Mary and All-New Gen could do with a plot-based commercial games engine like Half-Life or Deus Ex, nice to see someone putting the message back into interactive computer art in a way that hasn't been done since before the technology could meet the asperations of the artists.
Although the fourth-wall-breaking Metal Gear 3 came pretty close...

19:42 / 09.10.05

If you're looking for a historical education here you could use the Frotz client, which compiles and plays games written in Z-Code - not only do people still write in this, but it's also used by the classic Infocom text adventures, Zork, Hitchhikers, all those. I believe that one can download and use the originals for a nominal fee. These strike me as being pretty important, and it's still a live medium.

(Disclaimer: I may be biased since I write stuff in Inform, which is compiled to produce Z-Code, so I have a preference for this platform. There are some really good things being written still though, see the IF Archive.)

08:30 / 29.10.05

Many thanks for this fridgemagnet: I've added a link to Baf's guide, along with one to the iFiction collection which also looks good.

08:05 / 11.11.05

Two more right-on games for those who might be interested:

Food Force
PeaceMaker