My latest game - The Spectre of Castle Coris - is now available for download at: adrift.co/game/1443
There are two versions available, a blorb if you have ADRIFT installed on your computer or a zipped executable if you do not. Normally you would also be able to play the game online, but this option is not working at the present time.
This game is the second in “The Adventures of Alaric Blackmoon” series, the first being “The Axe of Kolt” , which you can download at: adrift.co/game/1366.
If you download it I hope you will enjoy playing it. Any feedback much appreciated.
I get the feeling (please correct me if I’m wrong) that as you progressed through the remakes your design became a tad more modern, a tad less oldschool. If this is correct, I’m very curious - are you planning on revisiting The Fortress Of Fear? I’m wondering whether its current ADRIFT incarnation will jar with Axe of Kolt and Spectre of Castle Coris.
Actually, Peter, there are two more in the Alaric Blackmoon series to come, “Die Feuerfaust - The Fist of Fire” and “The Lost Children”, the stand-alone “Run, Bronwynn, Run” (in which Alaric Blackmoon makes a “cameo” appearance) and there were also the three sci-fi games I wrote, “Magnetic Moon”, “Starship Quest” and “Revenge of the Space Pirates”, so I have another 6 to go!
As for whether my games became “more modern”, TBQH I don’t really know as I have actually played very few adventures since I started writing them long ago, so I am not really sure what the difference is between “modern” and “old school”. Maybe someone could enlighten me?
I have no plans to “re-visit” The Fortress of Fear at the present time. It was discovering ADRIFT in 2011 that enabled me to finish that one game I never completed on the Spectrum, hence it appearing out-of-sequence, rather like “Star Wars”! Mind you, the game is so big that I have thought about splitting it into three parts, exactly as the original Spectrum version was supposed to have been.
Thank you for your interest, it makes a pleasant change to get some feedback.
Wow. Colour me impressed. I didn’t know about The Lost Children, because I knew about your series first and foremost from worldofspectrum.org/infoseek … id=0005981.
I’ve just checked and I have your other games as well, just haven’t played them yet. Axe Of Kolt impressed me very favourably when I first played it, it really stood out from the other Spectrum games, so I know I’ve got good things to look forward to!
It’s just a feeling I got, and I haven’t played much of your Adrift ports yet. Maybe we’ll shelve this one, hey?
Hah, I’d completely missed that little factoid!
Yeah, unfortunately ADRIFT does come with some portability caveats that will always limit your feedback somewhat. Have you considered ensuring that the ADRIFT web terp is capable of playing your games properly and distributing the online-playable links more proeminently? People seem to put a lot of importance in that nowadays, and well, to be fair, it DOES mean more people can play.
It may also put people off that it’s the number two of a series. For anyone who doesn’t know it, the first game - Axe Of Kolt - has been released in ADRIFT format as well, it may be playable online, and I have a very positive experience playing its Spectrum incarnation. It’s somewhat oldschool but not off-puttingly so. If you’ve enjoyed Darkiss as a game, you’ll enjoy this series - that the sort of old-school that I remember it being.
Lazzah will field this one, but I would guess that playing in order makes the most sense. It’s a four parter, isn’t it, Lazzah? Together they make up a complete story.
Hi Wade, best to start with “The Axe of Kolt” then “The Spectre of Castle Coris”. The third in the series, “Die Feuerfaust - The Fist of Fire” should be ready in the New Year if I can get it playtested a third time. (Any volunteers???) Beware that “Fortress” is a BIG game, it sort of got out of hand a bit, the ideas just kept coming as I was programming it.
A post on Planet IF from Emily Short reminded me I had expressed interest in playing these games. The catch I discovered right after saying that is they are in Adrift 5, which is only doable on Mac (which is what I have) in an untested runner software after installing a thing called Mono. Mono is a non-trivial something to be user compiled. That pushed these games down my list – which at least, in equal opportunity terms, I haven’t moved on at all for months – to a point I’m unlikely to ever get to them unless I acquire a PC or unlimited time. Sorry about that.
Axe Of Kolt impressed me very favourably when I first played it, it really stood out from the other Spectrum games, so I know I’ve got good things to look forward to!