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The Archives : Random pictures from my gaming past, present....and FUTURE?

The Archives

Random pictures from my gaming past, present....and FUTURE?

Updated: Mar 31, 2008 7:20pm PST

Daikatana : Eventually this will hold all Daikatana materials, pictures, etc. that I have!  Daikatana is an FPS game I developed during the Ion Storm/Dallas era (1996-2001).

Daikatana

Eventually this will hold all Daikatana materials, pictures, etc. that ...

Updated: May 22, 2007 11:44pm PST

Commander Keen : Commander Keen, the game that put id Software on the map.  Few people remember that when Commander Keen appeared it was a watershed moment for PC gaming: the very first smooth scrolling game, duplicating a hardware feature of the Nintendo, arrived and it was shareware.  The press rejoiced and many knew there was no looking back.

Commander Keen

Commander Keen, the game that put id Software on the map. Few people ...

Updated: May 21, 2007 9:58pm PST

DOOM : For all things DOOM-related

DOOM

For all things DOOM-related

Updated: May 17, 2007 6:44pm PST

Daikatana SNES : Here are the pictures of Djedditt's custom European Super Nintendo that he themed after Daikatana.  Awesome job!  He sent me a piece of it so I could sign it.

Daikatana SNES

Here are the pictures of Djedditt's custom European Super Nintendo tha ...

Updated: Feb 23, 2007 12:20pm PST

Hyperspace Delivery Boy! : HDB was our first game at Monkeystone Games, written primarily for the PocketPC in 2001.  It took 4.5 months from concept to shipping and we worked insanely hard on it but it was a great experience.  Eventually, HDB would be released on PC, Mac, and Linux too.  A Gameboy Advance version was also finished but never released by Majesco.

Hyperspace Delivery Boy!

HDB was our first game at Monkeystone Games, written primarily for the ...

Updated: Feb 19, 2007 1:41am PST

Pyramids of Egypt : I wanted to make a big maze game with lots of levels ala Lode Runner so I created this crazy thing in Jan-Feb 1985.  It was eventually published on UpTime Disk Monthly in 1987.  I actually made a PC and Commodore 64 version of this game!  The PC version was published but the C64 version never made it (I didn't finish polishing it) and the disk has crumbled into plastic particles (not really, I just lost it).

Pyramids of Egypt

I wanted to make a big maze game with lots of levels ala Lode Runner s ...

Updated: Dec 12, 2006 12:01am PST

Major Mayhem : Major Mayhem was a quick little game I wrote in 1985 while I was living with my Dad in Salt Lake City, Utah.  It took me about 2 weeks to polish up and I eventually sent it in to Nibble Magazine and they published it in their December 1987 issue (over 2 years after I wrote it!)

Major Mayhem

Major Mayhem was a quick little game I wrote in 1985 while I was livin ...

Updated: Dec 03, 2006 1:22am PST

Subnodule : An Apple II side-scrolling shooter that I wrote in December 1984 and eventually published in 1987 through Keypunch Software.  Yes, this game saw retail store shelves!

Subnodule

An Apple II side-scrolling shooter that I wrote in December 1984 and e ...

Updated: Dec 03, 2006 12:07am PST

Cavern Crusader : I created this game to enter the A+ Programming Contest they had during their first year.  The game is a side-scrolling shooter where you just shoot down the aliens coming at you - and there's a lot of em.  Mow them all down and get to the next cave full of em.  It's infitnite fun!

There was a grand prize given for the best submission overall and the grand prize winner was a spreadsheet program called Invisicalc. :(

Cavern Crusader

I created this game to enter the A+ Programming Contest they had d ...

Updated: Apr 09, 2006 4:49pm PST

Cartoon Network Block Party : This is a GBA-only game that we did (Monkeystone) for Majesco using several Cartoon Network licenses.  Lucas Davis was the main coder and this was his first game.  What's really cool is that Majesco kept us all out of the credits in the game and manual!  So classy.

This game was the hump on the back of Monkeystone for 3 years.  When we finally just gave the entire thing back to Majesco it was like slicing open the hump and having three sick fifty-eyed butterflies fluttering away...

Cartoon Network Block Party

This is a GBA-only game that we did (Monkeystone) for Majesco using se ...

Updated: Mar 26, 2006 2:17am PST

Dark Castle - Apple //gs : This was a classic on the Mac and most definitely not on the //gs.  I guess it was just a few years past the perfect time for a game of this type.  I did the Mac-to-//gs graphics conversion and colored them up!

Dark Castle - Apple //gs

This was a classic on the Mac and most definitely not on the //gs. I ...

Updated: Mar 07, 2006 12:57am PST

Alfredo's Stupendous Surprise : Alfredo was a little stick-figure guy who was always getting himself destroyed in hilarious choose-your-path adventure mishaps.  Tom Hall and I decided we should do one together so we did.  As I recall, we slammed this thing together in a night or so very quickly.  It was pure 6502 assembly language but was very quick to code because i made a ton of macros to get animation done quickly.

I should mention that the entire story is Tom Hall's idea. :)

Alfredo's Stupendous Surprise

Alfredo was a little stick-figure guy who was always getting himself d ...

Updated: Mar 07, 2006 12:51am PST

Sub Stalker : While working at Softdisk I wanted to make them their first double-res game so that's what Sub Stalker became!  I had written lots of double-res code before that point but never had it published.  So that was my chance and I created a milestone marker for Softdisk.

This is a two-player game which was also rare on the Apple II.

Sub Stalker

While working at Softdisk I wanted to make them their first double-res ...

Updated: Mar 06, 2006 11:36pm PST

Red Faction (N-Gage) : Monkeystone Games got the contract to port Red Faction to the N-Gage.  Nokia specifically asked THQ Wireless to have us do it.  This was the second port I have done where I had never played the original game - yeah, sounds crazy.

This game took 8 months total with the first 2 months thrown out and we restarted.  So it was really 6 months of work start to ship.

Red Faction (N-Gage)

Monkeystone Games got the contract to port Red Faction to the N-Gage. ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 8:15pm PST

Lethal Labyrinth : The reason I wrote Lethal Labyrinth was to write my first double-res graphics routines and use them in a game.  The game didn't turn out so hot but it was very useful in getting me my Origin Systems job!

You'll see a lot of pages with notes and a comic strip.  My friend Christian drew the comics after I told him my idea for the game - you can tell his style distinctly from mine.

This game was published by UpTime in 1987.

Lethal Labyrinth

The reason I wrote Lethal Labyrinth was to write my first double-res g ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 7:23pm PST

Hovertank : Even though Hovertank was just one of the many Softdisk games we made, this one was actually pretty important - it was John Carmack's very first 3D game.  And it was a little stressful for him trying to figure it all out in our short 2-month window in 1991 we had to make it.  He definitely went through a trial by fire and came out with a much better understanding of 3D coding which prepared him for his next real effort in November of the same year (Catacomb 3D).

As usual the story is short and the point is the action.

Hovertank

Even though Hovertank was just one of the many Softdisk games we made, ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 7:16pm PST

Missle Defense : The very much misspelled "Missle Defense" was a very early game of mine from 1982, written in Applesoft BASIC.  It uses the joystick to control the crosshair and your mission is to shoot down the enemy missiles (ala Missile Command).  On higher levels the missiles come in faster and you have turrets on multiple edges of the screen.

Still, it was not fun.

Missle Defense

The very much misspelled "Missle Defense" was a very early game of min ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 5:28pm PST

Twilight Treasures : Twilight Treasures was the original name I gave to this little game I wrote with my friend Rob.  When Nibble decided to buy it and publish in 1988 it they renamed it, I guessing, to be more direct and to the point.    They ruined my alliterative masterpiece and so when I later ported the game in 1989 to the PC for Softdisk I gave it its rightful name.

The play mechanic in the game is real fun and simple - avoid everything and get the treasure then return back to your boat.  It's similar to Pac-Man.  But if I had only tweaked the idea a bit I could have ended up with the sensation that became Insaniquarium (17 years later, though).

Twilight Treasures

Twilight Treasures was the original name I gave to this little game I ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 3:21am PST

Evil Eye : I wanted to write my own twist on Asteroids.....so I wrote this game and named it Objectoids!  I wrote this game in 1983 and it was eventually retitled Evil Eye and published in UpTime in 1987.

By the way, in this game you are an eyeball.

Evil Eye

I wanted to write my own twist on Asteroids.....so I wrote this game a ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 1:55am PST

Jumpster : Jumpster was a crazy little game that I came up with in 1983 while I was just getting ahold of mastering 6502 Assembly Language.  Eventually this game was published in UpTime Disk Monthly in 1987!

Jumpster

Jumpster was a crazy little game that I came up with in 1983 while I w ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 1:45am PST

Mach-Six : This was one of the games that I wrote purely on paper while I was learning 6502 Assembly Language during 1983 - our Apple II computer was on a 6-month trip on a boat from California to England!

Mach-Six

This was one of the games that I wrote purely on paper while I was lea ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 1:12am PST

Dodge Em : 1982 Apple II game

One of my earliest games - before I knew how to make a decent one.  It's torrific!

Dodge Em

1982 Apple II game One of my earliest games - before I knew how to ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 1:02am PST

Krazy Kobra : I wrote Krazy Kobra in 1983 because I had loved Snake Byte (Chuck Sommerville, 1981) so much that I wanted to write my own clone and have more levels in it.  Snake Byte had 28 levels so I made 50 in Krazy Kobra.  The game is a pretty good version of the classic Snake game.

UpTime wanted to publish it in 1987 so I said, "Hell yeah! Gimme $250!"

Krazy Kobra

I wrote Krazy Kobra in 1983 because I had loved Snake Byte (Chuck Somm ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 12:49am PST

City Centurian : City Centurian was the second game that Nibble Magazine published of mine.  I wrote the game in 1985 while living in Salt Lake City, Utah and submitted it to Nibble.  They eventually published the game in 1988, three years later!  The reason is because they only publish long game listings in December of the year.

City Centurian was my Defender clone with some twists.  I purposefully misspelled Centurion because I wanted to create my own word.....as if the future spelling of Centurion would change the 'a' at the end and be cooler somehow....

City Centurian

City Centurian was the second game that Nibble Magazine published of m ...

Updated: Mar 04, 2006 10:28pm PST

QTEST : QTEST was the Quake Test version we released on February 24, 1996 to the internet.  But we had 7 hardcore DOOMers at the id offices to get their feedback on our latest creation.  Here you see pictures taken and annotated by Wendigo during that day!

QTEST

QTEST was the Quake Test version we released on February 24, 1996 to t ...

Updated: Feb 27, 2006 6:37pm PST

Might & Magic II (C64) : Back in 1988 I left Origin Systems to co-found a new game company named Inside Out Software.  Our first projects were ports and we slowly started getting into original games.  Might & Magic II was our first port (IBM, C64, Amiga).

I worked on the port of Might & Magic II from the Apple II (128K, 16-color double-res) to the Commodore 64 (64K, 4-color mixed-mode).  It was a pretty interesting experience and I learned a lot from it.  The full story is on ROME.RO.

Might & Magic II (C64)

Back in 1988 I left Origin Systems to co-found a new game company name ...

Updated: Feb 26, 2006 5:41pm PST

Phazzar : Hardcore dumb!  This was my first lame Missile Command clone.  I followed it up with Missle Defense [sic].  Hand-crafted in 1982!

Phazzar

Hardcore dumb! This was my first lame Missile Command clone. I follo ...

Updated: Nov 03, 2005 1:04am PST

Congo Cube : Congo Cube is the only puzzle game I've ever made.  It was a really great development experience and the game turned out to be very good!

Congo Cube was made for PC, Pocket PC, BREW and J2ME platforms.

Congo Cube

Congo Cube is the only puzzle game I've ever made. It was a really gr ...

Updated: Sep 09, 2005 10:20am PST

Bongo's Bash : 1984 Apple II game
Published on inCider "HotCider" disk
Published in Cauzin Softstrip advertisements
Published on UpTime Disk Monthly
A fine little Pac-Man clone!

Bongo's Bash

1984 Apple II game Published on inCider "HotCider" disk Published in ...

Updated: Sep 07, 2005 3:01am PST

Dangerous Dave : The legend of Dangerous Dave is an interesting one that began back in 1988 on the Apple II.  Nine versions of Dave later and still no decent sequel to Dave II in sight!

Dangerous Dave

The legend of Dangerous Dave is an interesting one that began back in ...

Updated: Sep 06, 2005 4:58am PST

Dangerous Dave II: The Haunted Mansion : The beautiful sequel to Dangerous Dave - all four of us at id Software spent 2 months making this gem.  It's a fun, tough, long platformer - try to beat it!

Dangerous Dave II: The Haunted Mansion

The beautiful sequel to Dangerous Dave - all four of us at id Software ...

Updated: Sep 06, 2005 3:48am PST

Scout Search : 1984 Apple II game

My first published game, it was printed in inCider magazine in June 1984.
It's in lo-res so it's no awesome feat of coding.  But the program listing is on one page and shows a nice blend of AppleSoft BASIC and machine language for a small type-in size.
My favorite part? The little screams, of course!

Scout Search

1984 Apple II game My first published game, it was printed in inCid ...

Updated: Jul 04, 2005 12:43am PST



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