Thinking inside the box. Today on.
This Is Me in a nutshell. This is me Me in a nutshell. This is me.
It's thinking. Or maybe not. Howdy folks. How you doing tonight? Welcome to another episode of Press B to cancel. Tonight I am joined by these two wonderful guys, Sick Jake and Sinistar. How are you guys doing?
I am doing well. Things are on a positive note at the moment in my life.
I'm doing great. Always happy to be here with you guys on a Friday. Looking forward to some of the games we're talking about today.
So tonight we are talking about single screen games and you know, we've got the stuff we tend to think of, the stuff we've forgotten and the stuff that kind of surprised us when it occurred to us. So which one of you guys would like to start?
I will go first. I wanted to call out that, that, that it's important to note that this, it's single screen per like stage level. Just. Yeah. So basically no scrolling. Like think the original Mario Brothers. Not Mario, not Super Mario Brothers. Think the original Mario Brothers. But we've each picked a handful of games we're going to see if we can get through a handful. My first one to reference as a memory for me, a huge memory for me. I think a lot of people are going to know this one is Lode Runner. Not L O A D if you're, if you're young. L O D E which I don't even know if it's a word but it's, it exists for this game. So this is a. I played it on the Apple ii, so this is even pre Ms. DOS for me. Um, it. One thing I want to talk about in these games is single screen games are like the epitome of old school hard because you have the claustrophobia, you have, you have like limited pathing, you have enemies that you know, chase you rapidly and. Yeah, so Lode Runner is an epic game that had, we looked it up, both Jake and I thought it had a hundred levels. It looks like it actually had 150 levels.
Wow.
I swore. I swore. Yeah, I swore I beat this game thinking I had 100 levels but, but my memory is 100 levels which now I'm like, did I beat this game? I don't know.
Anyway, explain it for people who haven't played this one. I don't know how many people have played Load Runner.
Yeah, I was going to say the premise is, is it's essentially a, I guess you would call it a 2D puzzler where you are an individual on the COVID You have, like, this. This digging gun. Like. Like your only method to actually defeat enemies is to dig holes. And so the enemies come at you and you have to collect pellets. I don't know if they're called pellets. I never had the manual as a kid. You have to collect all the pellets. When you collect all of the pellets, a ladder appears that lets you exit to the next level. You're being chased. The. Oh, the antagonists can pick up pellets, which makes it even more aggravating because they will run across a pellet and they will pick it up. And the only way to get the pellet is to dig a hole so that they fall in and the pellets.
So I played Load Runner on the. The NES. It was always on one of those 52 and one piracy carts. So I played a fair amount of Loadrunner before I even knew it was spelled L, O, D, E. Because on those piracy cards, you better believe it was L O 80, because they're always spelled wrong. So I played the NES version of this. I didn't realize the bad guys could pick up the. In the NES versions. Gold bars. Actually, I didn't think they could pick them up. So that's interesting.
Okay, yeah, definitely. On the Apple II version, I'm. I'm, you know, fairly certain on the Commodore and the Atari ST and all that they would. They would run across a gold bar. We'll call them gold bars. They'd run across a gold bar, they'd pick it up, and now you have to essentially sink them into the dirt. The problem is, you know, another level of that kind of difficulty is they have the ability to climb out faster than the hole fills in. You can kill them if the hole fills in while they're still in it. And so kind of the premise that you run into is you dig three, four, five holes so that they keep hopping from hole to hole to hole until eventually, you know, hopefully they've. They've been destroyed. The rub there is until you figure out where they spawn on the screen, because they will respawn immediately. This isn't. This isn't Pac man, where the ghosts, you know, give you a second or two, they spawn immediately. They might spawn right on top of you. Yeah, so you have, you have all the, all the, the interesting tropes you have. You know, you have the platform areas where you can dig using your dig gun. There are ones that are. That are marked as solid. You can't dig Those there are hand over hand trap. I don't know what you want to call them. You know, rope bridges, I guess you'd call them, like.
Yeah, like a rope, wire, tripwire or something. Yeah, like, you're right. Like hand over hand, right?
Yeah. And, yeah, 150 levels. I remember 100, which means I probably didn't beat this game, but at least the Apple II version, and I'm sure some of the other versions as well, had a map editor that you could make your own levels. And we were actually kind of, kind of laughing about this before the episode. I remember making a level to have Brother of Sin play where when you finally got all of the gold bars, the ladder appeared. And there was no way to get to the ladder. So there was absolutely no way that you could beat the level or you could exit the level. And it was, of course, you know, trolling. It was brother trolling. So. But I love this game and I know that. I know that there's been modern takes on it. I actually didn't chase any of that in the research, but I definitely remember that there have been some, either modernizations of the same thing or there have been some modern versions that have adjusted.
I want to say There was an N64 version of Lode Runner. I think, if I'm not wrong, I don't remember being especially good. I like the classic, though, and I will say, because I played the Apple II version a little bit today, probably one of the smoothest running Apple II games I've ever played. And it looks crisp. Like, it looks really good. The sprites are really good. The color is fit for what they're doing. Tons of levels. I like how when you finish a stage, it does a spotlight zoom in transition. And compared to some of the other games we might talk about today, this is one of the smoothest Apple II games for sure.
Absolutely. Now, you say nice colors. I played this on my monochrome green monitor.
The green screen that everybody had.
That everybody had.
Okay.
So I actually didn't realize the Apple had color until later when we. When we purchased. You know, it's essentially the same thing that they had on the Atari that was included. It's a radio frequency modulator and we had to buy that and then we plugged it into our TV. So, yeah.
1995, Lode Runner got a sequel called Lode Runner Online. Mad Monk's Revenge. It is still a single screen game.
That's fantastic.
Online, though, it just.
Okay, I guess it's multiplayer and you can play online. I don't Know, I didn't do a ton of research on this. I just learned it. But watching a video of it, it looks like the old game just pretty.
Okay.
The sprites are pretty well detailed and high definition for the time.
Nice.
So, yeah, it's interesting. It definitely looks like a 90s PC game.
All right, well, I do want to mention one of my favorite things was there would be areas where one of the gold bars would be like, in solid wall area. Right. And when you first start playing it, you're like, how do I get to that? And then you end up realizing you have to dig the holes. But of course, the problem is, is if you. If you have like two or three levels to go down, you have to be able to dig the hole and still move. And so you end up like, having to kind of build a reverse pyramid. Right.
Mm.
Or I guess not build. Destroy. A reverse pyramid.
Dig out a pyramid.
Yeah. Now once you figure that out, those were great areas to like, have a breather as well, because the enemies couldn't get to you. So you could get in there. You could just cabin to sit here for a minute.
Yeah. Because there's no timer in these stages in these games, which is a nice break because a lot of games in that era had timers to make things a little bit more stressful.
Yeah.
So that's interesting. I think I'll always remember this one. We did an episode forever ago. I don't even remember if it's on YouTube or if it's audio only. We talked about Eric and the Floaters as the original Bomberman game and how Bomberman was basically the prequel to Lode Runner. Lode Runner is the unofficial sequel to Bomberman. Like, that's why the enemies look so familiar.
Familiar. Okay, so instead of Beat the original.
Bomberman, the ending has a hint toward Lode Runner.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I had no idea. I came into Bomberman much later. I didn't get into Bomberman until probably my Ms. DOS days.
But I mean, between the two, Lode Runner, as compared to the original Bomberman, Lode Runner, infinitely better game by far.
All right, all right. I mean, you basically go from top down to like side not scrolling. We can't say side scrolling, but 2D side running. I don't know what you would call that aspect.
Yeah, that's a good pick. That looks fun. I've never actually played one of those. I need to play Lode Runner.
Really?
Looks fun.
Yeah, it's great.
It's old school, hard. It's, you know, I believe it.
It Looked old school hard.
Yeah.
Even with the, like, you're falling from above, and then all of a sudden you think you're gonna hit the ground. You just keep going because that. It's like.
Right.
And bricks that you're just falling through.
Oh, yes, yes, yes. You have hidden bricks. That's right. I forgot. Or hidden. Hidden empty bricks.
It's also one of the most gruesome ways to die in a video game. If you fall into the hole and it slowly fills up and covers you, it's pretty. Pretty gruesome for that era.
Yeah. So, yeah, so that was my pick. I love that game. I played. I don't know how many hours I played because, of course, back in the day, we didn't have steam timing our hours, but that was definitely, I think, one of the disks that lived in our disk drive for a long time. So.
All right, that's a good pick. Jake, you want to share yours?
Yeah, so mine, I almost didn't pick it because I wasn't sure if it counted. Right. So we're talking single screen games where the gameplay is mostly the same on the single screen. So my pick is Donkey Kong. And the reason I was hesitant to pick it is because there's actually, in the arcade version, there's four different screens. The gameplay is basically the same. Right. Everybody? I think I'm pretty sure if you're watching this or listening to this podcast, you know what Donkey Kong is. But you're essentially Mario, or used to be called Jumpman, actually. And you're basically running and jumping to get the end of the stage, usually to the top of the stage to chase Donkey Kong, to go get Pauline. And there's four different stages. The first one, I think everybody recognizes in video games, it's the girders and you're jumping over barrels. But then the second stage is. It's got these jumping hourglasses you have to dodge. And then there's a third stage with rivets where you have to jump over these rivets on these girders and eventually get all the rivets, they collapse down and take down Donkey Kong. And then also the arcade has a fourth level. I call it Pie factory, but I think it's meant factory, where it's a series of conveyor belts and trays going back and forth. You have to jump over and fireballs coming out of a drum in the middle of the stage. There's four different stages, and they are drastically different looking in terms of color and elements and all that. But the gameplay is the Same. Does this count as a single screen game?
I absolutely think it does, because to me, the requirement is that a level is a single screen. As a level screen, yeah. So basically, every motion that you do to complete a level and is on the same screen, there's no scrolling, there's no, you know, transition in that level. Right. To something else. So, yeah.
Okay. So if it counts. I mean, I. I love Donkey Kong. I mean, this came out in 1981. It's. It's a classic. You know, my dream is if I ever get a second arcade cabinet, I would love for it to be a Donkey Kong. Just something about Nintendo having arcade machines back in the day is something I would love to have, but they're hard to get, especially ones in good condition. But I love this as an arcade game. Vertical screen. It's fantastic, Runs great, plays great. Even today, there's a few different oddities with it, though. The. The Japanese version of Donkey Kong, of those four stages I mentioned, in the Japanese version, you do them in order. So you do barrel girders, and then you do hourglass dodging, and then you have pie factory and then you have rivets. But the American version, it's all over the place. There's different stages and sets of levels. The first one, you don't even see to the stages. You just do barrels and then rivets. Then the second set of stages, it's barrels, and I want to say it's hourglasses, then rivets. And then eventually you get pie factory. And it kind of goes through a different series of these stages. By the end of the loop, you end up doing barrels, like three times in a set. So you definitely see that stage a lot more than normal. But it's weird how the order is different compared to the Japanese version. When folks talk about competing. Right. Or speedrunning. This is probably one of the more notorious speedrunning games. Donkey Kong. Most people talk about the American version. And one of the reasons I want to bring it up today is not only is it a single screen game, like we talked about as one of my favorite games of all time, it. It was well known to have after. I think it's 22. 22. Level 22 in terms of, like, sets of stages. Level 22, if you get that far into the game, it's a kill screen. You basically can't proceed. Like you start the level and you have a few seconds, and then Mario dies. And it's been. It's basically been the effective end of the game for years. Just Last month, I guess the community of speedrunners, a guy by the name of Andrew G. Had mentioned, you know, how you know people who speed run Donkey Kong, There's a ladder glitch where you can kind of climb the ladder with Mario. And if you wiggle the joystick a certain number of frames at just the right timing, you can continue to climb the ladder invisibly up to the top of the stage. And really, to beat a Donkey Kong stage, all you need to do is get to the top of the level. It doesn't matter how you do it, right? So that the Speedrun trick was to use this invisible ladder glitch. And Andrew G. And Discord said, what can you use this ladder glitch on level 22 to kind of speed run the level before you die on the kill screen?
Before the kill screen hits?
Before the kill screen takes effect. So there's another speedrunner by the name of Cosmic. He's fairly well known speedrunner, mostly Mario brothers. And he said no, but he eventually said, you know, let's try it. And he's got a fantastic YouTube video where he talked about how using that glitch, that ladder glitch, while it's probably not humanly possible, if you do a task run, which is tool assisted Speedrun, which means using an emulator and programming it, he set it up frame by frame to do the ladder glitch a dozen times perfectly in a row on that stage 22. And it worked. He was able to do the ladder glitch, get to the top, and beat the stage before the kill screen took effect. Okay, so in effect, a game that has been decades beaten has another round of stages in it. He was able to go, I think up till, I want to say 26, I could be wrong, but it was at least four or five more rounds before the, the, the new kill screen, the screw, the timer was so, so fast, you couldn't get anywhere in that stage.
Gotcha.
But it's a game that's been, that's been thought to be beaten for so long and there's a way to, there's still a way to keep going. Again, not by human hands right now, although I'm sure somebody crazy enough will do it. But it's interesting that that's a game that's kind of been busted open again.
Well, one of the things that's interesting there. So most of the time if now I'm going to, I'm going to hopefully speak with a little authority, but maybe I'm wrong, but you know One of the reasons that kill screens happen are because some counter essentially hits whatever limit there is, whether it's an 8 bit limit or a 16 bit limit or a 32 bit or whatever. Right. And a lot of those early games had, you know, eight bit counters. Right. So 32,000 points. Right. Or what? Anyway, I can't remember my numbers. It's fine. It's Friday. I'm tired. But you know, basically. So like my thought when you were describing this is, you know, I've watched King of Kong and all of those, you know, unfortunate stories. I'm going to call them unfortunate stories.
The hot sauce mogul, Billy Mitchell himself.
Billy Mitchell. Let's go. Billy Mitchell. Don't sue us, please. But you know, like my thought there is what if, you know, the counter was based on the score? What if you actually tried to keep your score as low as possible? Right. Maybe the kill. And so like that was a thought, but it's probably actually based on some other counter that's. That's hitting the.
From whatever recall it was. It's a. It's an eight bit register. So I think it's. That means 256, if I'm. If I'm not wrong.
Yeah.
And it was a combination of the stage counter. The counter of the stage that you're on, the level that you're on, combined with the timer. So the higher the stage, the less the timer hits a point. And that's when it breaks at level. It's. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like. I think when they design these games, they never expected folks to play that far into the game. Like Pac man has one as well, right. 256, I think it was in Pac man. And it just. They don't, they don't expect people to be that hardcore to go that long.
Yeah. The developers that made this game never made it to that level ever, right?
No, I mean, I'm lucky if I make it to stage five. Like. Right. I love this game. I'm terrible at it.
Right. So, yeah, I guarantee there was no QA individual that was making it to the kill screen. So. Yeah, you know, anyway, no, I. One thing I wanted to call out is I love, I absolutely love Donkey Kong. One of the things I love is like, I don't know, I call it the story where like it starts and all of the girders are like level. And Donkey Kong climbs up and then he sits there and he jumps. Right. And the girders like offset to each other. And I Just kind of love that. And then the other thing that's really interesting is as a kid dumping quarters into this. Because I played this in the arcade, dumping quarters into it. I would always pick up the hammer. And the hammer is such a double edged, like it's a double edged sword, right? I know it's a hammer, but hear me out.
Double ended hammer.
Yeah, but the problem is, is you pick up the hammer and now you lose the ability to climb anymore. Until the hammer is gone. And so all you're doing is delaying, right? And in a game of quarter dumping, all you're doing is making your life worse. But of course you feel all powerful with that hammer because it's like I'm taking out barrels, right. And so, yeah, like I, I learned much later, no, fuck the hammer, move on.
You know, it's funny you say that because one of my favorite Game Boy games of all time, I've said it many times before, is Donkey Kong on the Game Boy. Which starts with the original four Donkey Kong stages. And then it goes into a full blown 100 level epic puzzle game. Yeah, everything is still single screen, mind you, but the, the hammer in that game, you can actually hit the B button to throw it in the air so you don't have to carry it with you and wait. Which I thought was like the biggest quality of life improvement for Donkey Kong ever. Not having to sit there and wait 10 seconds for the hammer to disappear. Because you're right, it's. It's like a necessary thing. You want to use it. Especially like the, the rivet stage.
Oh yeah.
Where those ghosts are go. The fire ghosts are going back and forth. And if they go in the wrong way and they bundle up, it's. You're screwing yourself. Unless you use the hammer to take him out. But you're right, sitting there for five seconds for it to disappear is very annoying.
Well, and I argue that they gave you the ability to throw the hammer away because it didn't require quarters for that game. Probably.
I mean, that's how they get you.
Yeah, the arcade was never going to give you the option to ditch that hammer. That hammer is a fucking MacGuffin to pull you.
It's the, the hammer is a plot point. You know what's funny too is the pie factory stage. I didn't even know that existed until only a few years ago because I also played in the arcades mostly actually, not arcades. Chuck E. Cheese back in the day used to have arcade games. And I remember playing this at Chuck E. Cheese. Again, never Good at it. So I never got that far to see the PI factory level and the home port on the NES and the port I had on my Atari 2600, which is whole terrible looking port, but neither of those had that stage. They cut it because of size limitations.
Right.
So I didn't even know that that was a stage. One, because they didn't have it in home port, and two, because I was never great enough in the arcade game or even when I'm playing on Mame at the time to get that far. It's also only recently I found that stage even exists. And I thought it's wild to see a new stage for me.
Right.
So it's. It's a really interesting level. There is a ROM hack for the NES version of Donkey Kong now that sneaks in that stage. It fits it in there now because Obviously, you know, ROMs can be bigger than cart sizes, so it's really interesting stuff.
Well, yeah, so I loved, I love Donkey Kong. And what's funny is most of my experience with Donkey Kong honestly was dumping quarters into the machine.
Yeah.
I. I honestly didn't know that the pie factory stage existed until now. I played this game, I've played the actual arcade machine, but I've never been good enough at the game to get that far.
The social media today meme, by the way, is I was today years old.
Yeah. I don't say that I was 42, damn it.
Yeah. Yeah. No, Brother Sin says I didn't like it when I ran out of quarters, though. That was always the struggle in arcades. Always. You felt powerful walking in with your tenor and walking out 27 minutes later after your tenors gone. Yeah.
But some of those games you could spend, you could spend quite a while on one quarter. Right. It wasn't. The early 80s games, I find weren't as bad of a ripoff as some of the later 80s ones. Right. Like trying to play, you know, honestly, half of the Neo Geo arcade games in the 90s, those I always felt would be a huge ripoff in quarters. Right. Because you died so easily. But like a round of Donkey Kong was okay. The original Mario Brothers wasn't so bad. There's. There's some, there's some time there that.
I could spend once you, Once you spent like your first, your first handful of quarters when you're learning how the game works go very quickly. Right. But yeah, you're right, you could, you could get at least a couple, two, three, four stages out of a quarter once you had, you know, gotten to that Level. So. Yeah, no, good pick, Good pick.
Yeah. All right. For mine, Jake, which one do you have queued up? R or B?
You had two R picks. The older one.
Yeah. Okay. I figured we were going with the older ones first, so I was.
Okay. Yeah.
All right. All right. So my first pick is. It's a. It's one that maybe some of you haven't ever heard of. Really? It's not the most prominent game. Robotron 2084.
I know, I've heard of the game, but I can't picture the screen.
You're literally a little dude about lode runner sized with a bunch of dudes just spawning around you, creeping up on you. And you just have to turn your laser shots back and forth in the 360° to shoot them. So you're moving and changing the degree of your laser.
To me you just described berserk.
This was a twin stick shooter, I.
Think, wasn't it in the arcades? It might have been. I played it on the Lynx. So literally it was like the gun was constantly firing and B and A changed the. It turned it back and forth. So D pad moved you. A would turn your laser beam clockwise, B would turn it counterclockwise.
Yeah, it's. It's berserk without the walls.
A much faster pace though.
Well, this was an arcade game. This, the.
This was like substantially fast, fast paced. Diarrhea, Christmas lights, bullet hell, like and.
Oh, and it looks like you have to rescue people. Oh, this is. Yeah, this is both glorious and horrible.
Oh, it's hard. Super stressful.
Yeah.
I don't think I would be any good at this anymore. I was okay at it back when I played it on Lynx as a kid. I don't think I can do this anymore. There's so much happening.
Oh, there's snakes. There's fucking snakes coming at you.
Yeah, you just. You get new things happening to you every few levels and it's just wild what's going on. And as soon as you kill the last thing, there's like no fanfare whatsoever, literally, the stage erases on you and a new one appears. So if you didn't collect any of your goodies or power ups or people before the end of the stage, too bad.
Welcome. Welcome to More Pain, my friend.
Yeah. Sisters in Chat is saying Vampire Survivor Progenitor. And like yes, 100%. Kind of a mob of enemies all over the place. Pure chaos. And you're just shooting like mad. Except at least in this you can control where you move or where you're Shooting.
Yeah. Oh, the. Oh, my gosh. The colors like it. This is fantastic. Wolf. This is an amazing pick. Like, I am looking at the colors going. This is like the perfect, like, nostalgia hit for me. Like, you know, slap my arm. Like, oh, the nostalgia is real. This is awesome.
And the different shaped bullets flying around and.
Yeah. Oh, this is insane.
Mayhem.
Yeah. This is insane. And I love every shoot.
People you're supposed to save by accident, I think. Was that a thing in this one?
I just remember this baby happening in this. I saw it might have been in other releases that came after this one, like, ports and stuff, that the gameplay had to be slowed down a bit. Look at all those 2084s.
Yeah. I saw the people you're supposed to get or you're supposed to rescue get run over by the enemies and they become square crossbones. Yeah.
Which is great.
Yeah. Oh, the snakes are tweaking me out. This is awesome. I love it.
Yeah. This is a game in the arcades. Like, it would immediately grab your attention with just the constant strobing of rainbow colors. Like. Like, this is peak. It reminds me of the Atari in a lot of the ways. The Atari logo constantly is changing colors.
Like.
Yeah.
Even your life counter at the top is just.
Yeah.
Oh, it's. It's. It's hitting on every single nostalgia, like, buzz point ever.
Yeah. And I love this because you're literally in a box, right? Like, you're literally in a square. You can't go out of it. You're constantly trying to avoid the mob of enemies swarming around you. Like, when we say the title of this episode is Boxed in, this is. This is literally, you're boxed in. I never got far in this. I don't think I ever made it past stage three in the original. I can't imagine playing this in the links where the resolution's so much lower. Was there, what, three enemies on the screen in that version or was it like. It can't have been like this.
It kind of was like this.
Really?
Yeah. I think that the gameplay space was a little smaller, and so there was obviously less room for the enemies. But I mean, looking at the resolution that you're seeing on this screen, it's not super high. So they just kind of made the characters a little lower res as it was, and they could kind of fit everything still in that space.
Oh, this is so good.
Yeah. I hope you know how many stages there are in this.
I hope that there's a Mr. Arcade port on this. Like, I'm going to have to check this out.
Williams. There might. There might be. Yeah, there is a. There is a. Can I show the port of this that the port I'm most familiar with is the N64 version, which I think, Wolf, you said you never heard of.
Yeah, I didn't know that was a thing. I'm interested.
It still fits because you're still in a box.
The game does not have a specific number of levels or waves.
It's all random, probably, but players aim.
To reach wave 200 as an achievement.
This N64 version is fantastic as well. It even has the strobing rainbow colors. It's great.
Yeah.
Yeah. Like anything you'd want in the original is pretty much represented here. It's just not as busy and I found it easier. What I love about this one though is it had different control schemes. You could, if you wanted to use two N64 joysticks, one in each hand controllers to do the dual stick thing, which I think is kind of funny.
Wait, that's. I already need three hands for a Nintendo 64 controller. You're telling me. I need six now.
Just this wild. It's neat. I got pretty cool into this version. Yeah, I think I got decently far. But I like how it's still the square arena. They just randomly slide it around.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
The angle is adjusted based on where you are in the arena.
Yeah, you're like. You're like a gray too. You've. You've got the big bulbous head.
Yeah. Yeah. This is a. This is a great pick.
Yeah, this is a fantastic pick. So you played this in the arcade, Wolf?
I have played it at the arcade. I mostly played it on my links, but I've. I've gone up to the machine a few times at the arcade after I played it on the links. Like, hey, let me check this out. And I did not last long.
No, I love this. I hope that there's a. I hope that there's a version on the Mist.
Oh, so we lost Sinistar. We'll get a minute. There he is. It wasn't me this time.
Oh dear.
You hope that there's a. I hope.
That there's a Mr. Version. I hope that there's a port on.
The Mr. Yeah, I can't imagine there wouldn't be, honestly.
Or not really a port. I hope there's a rom on the Mr.
So this is one of those games that I never knew existed when I got was a gift for. It was one of my Christmas gifts one year at My uncle's recommendation to my dad, he was like, oh, you should get Jimmy this. And I got it. I was like, holy crap. This is just insanity.
Yeah. That's fantastic.
It's turmoil at my eyeballs.
Yeah. Yeah. That is fantastic. I love everything about that game.
Yeah.
And it like, honestly, I wonder if Berserk or that came first because it looks like. It looks like essentially like a fast paced Berserk without the walls. Right. And by the way, I know we're probably not going to talk about Berserk today. I'm just going to call that out as an early honorable mention because there's nothing like just repeatedly shooting the wall in Berserk and hearing that noise as you get closer.
Yeah. Anyway, digital speech and just the monsters and just. Is it the smiley face that comes after you? I think in certain states.
Oh, yes. Terrifying. It's the buzzard.
It looks like Berserk Beat it by two years.
Okay.
Yeah.
So somebody basically looked at Berserk and was like, we can make this hyperactive and ridiculous. Good pick. We're looking something up here.
Yeah, I was just wondering if they were the same developer at all. They were not. Anyway, thank you. All right, Sinistar, let's hear your second pick.
Okay, so another Apple II era for me, and I don't know, I didn't look this up enough to determine if there was multiple releases or if this was an Apple II only. But Brother of Sin will probably remember this game. Dino Eggs and I want to share Dino Eggs. So Dino Eggs. Honestly, it's a very cool concept for a game. The whole premise is. Well, it tells you in scrolling text at the beginning. And I wrote this down so that I could read it because it's great. This is. This is as. This is at the same level as Bowser, turning all of the people from the Mushroom Kingdom into the bricks.
Into bricks. Okay.
Yeah. So exploring the past via time warp. You infect dinosaurs with common measles, accidentally condemning them to extinction. Overcome with remorse, you devote yourself to rescuing the entire dinosaur population. You can do it. For you are Time Master Tim.
Time Master Tim.
Yeah.
That's a heck of a.
Using your time warp, you can find and carry dino eggs and dino babies safely into the 21st century. The dinosaurs live again in our future. Thank you, Time Master Tim.
I've never heard of this game ever.
Yeah, they're thanking Time Master Tim for giving all of the dinosaurs measles.
Wow.
Okay. Have we not learned anything from every Time movie ever that you will do something wrong? The fucking like butterfly effect over time. Right. Anyway, no, so no, this game, it's like all of these. Like most of these games, it's, you know, jumping from platform to platform. But the very cool premise is that basically you have to collect these eggs, you have to get back to your warp, you have to bring them back by default. You can only carry three eggs at a time. And so you're constantly running back and forth with your time warp. Now, I want to call something out that I noticed as I was. As I was replaying this and retrying this out. I think this was the precursor to what's the game, the modern game where you cry like you cry tears and shoot like your mom makes you cry.
Oh, Binding of Isaac.
Binding of Isaac. Because there is literally. There is literally a part where it says the. The mother dinosaur is coming and a giant goddamn foot goes onto the screen in one area, which if you've played Binding of Isaac, there's a level where mom tries to stomp you. Right. So anyway, no, this game, I remember this game. Like you have. It's. It's so many multiple different things that you have to deal with. There are boulders covering up the dinosaur eggs, so you have to first go and remove a boulder. There are snakes. And the manual talks about how you're susceptible to their diseases as well. So if you get touched by a snake or something, you get a countdown that's basically like, oh, you're screwed and you're going to turn into a proto spider. So, yeah, it's worse than the measles.
Spider Measles, yeah.
Sorry, sir. The common measles.
Right, the common measles.
Okay.
Not this. Anyway, spider plague.
Yeah. No, I love this game. I remember playing hours and hours of this game and it's just a very cool concept. Like I said, you've got multiple enemies. You've got spiders that generate and come drop down on where you are. You've got snakes that move across a different direction. You've got the mother dinosaur. You can. You can mitigate these by creating fires, you know, so the spider or whatever, or the snake or even mom won't like stomp on a fire anyway.
And the eggs hatch.
Oh, yes. So the eggs hatch. And then once the eggs hatch, so if you go to your teleporter while you don't. Well, you're not carrying any eggs. You basically have a yes, no dialogue or basically kind of a second I have to try to transport again that says abandon the cliff. And so if you think you've earned enough points to move on, you can essentially abandon the cliff and move to the next level or the game will say you didn't in game over on you. But you can. Along with carrying the eggs, you can cage the dinosaurs that hatch. Once they're caged, they will transport to the future as well. So. And by the way, the Future is the 21st century, folks.
I feel like this is the plot that Jurassic park should have ended up at. I know there's a new one coming out, but if it doesn't include time travel, I don't know what they're doing now.
And the common measles.
And the common measles. Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
When you said Dino Eggs, I thought it was like a Pac man clone or something. With the maze recollecting eggs. I had no idea. This is what it is. This is like a platformer. There's a lot going on on that screen. From boulders and webs and spiders. I just got for people watching the video a few minutes ago. The mama's foot coming down. It's meant to be a gigantic frickin rectangle, Green just flying down and stomping you and then it smashes you. Then it says Tim's first life. There's a lot of charm in this game. A lot of charm. I have to check this one out.
Yeah. Now, I don't know if there was. If there was more than the Apple II version. Sorry, I'm going to my mind palace.
There is. I looked it up. There is a C64 port and there's also windows. There's an IBM PC port or DOS port, I guess. Okay, so there's two.
Hold on.
I've not seen a sequel or anything else.
There is a sequel.
Is there?
In 2016, he revived it. It's called Dino Eggs Rebirth.
It's on for 10 bucks in the 21st century. He revived it.
He's got a daughter now, apparently.
Huh.
So it's Tim and Tam is what it looks like.
Tim and Tam. Oh, hold on, hold on, I'll show it. I'll show it. For the people watching the YouTube. I'll show a clip of it. Hold on.
You found. You found a clip.
Oh, wait, that's not it. Here it is. Actually, you know, it looks not bad. Is this a trailer? This is a trailer. Even has Mama's foot.
This is beta footage. This isn't even like what the game looks like now, I don't think. Or are you doing it through Steam?
This is. This is from YouTube. But yeah, it's definitely Dino Eggs.
Oh, this might actually footage you can climb.
Mom's foot in the. In the new world.
I saw that.
Oh, okay. I love the dino mom coming. Yeah. Oh, and I love the stacks.
Who?
The eggs.
Okay, this looks wild.
Is that eggs?
They're dino eggs. Yeah.
Okay. Weird.
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. This is.
That foot's hilarious. Just a giant rectangle coming down.
I'm going to wish list this game. Yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
I'm so pleased that there was a follow up to this. So, no, I love this game. Like I said, I played it on the Apple ii. It. It's. It's memorable for me for sure.
So, yeah, this is one I've never heard of until you mentioned it in Marco Polo recently. And this actually looks kind of fun. I'm not going to lie. It looks a little bit like somewhere between Flicky and Mappy land. But like on one single screen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, there's a lot of things going on. There's a lot of things going on. So I remember just one of those things, like at the top, the spiders hatch right at the very top. And I know that like. And the thing that always tweaked me out was like one spider leg would come out and it would be like, like twitching and you're like. So. Yeah, I don't like spiders, guys.
It's an interesting pick. I'm going to have to check that one out too.
Yeah, that looks awesome.
All right, Jake, you want to give us your second pick?
Yeah, you know what? Okay. I'm going to go with one that's actually a little bit newer. Well, I say newer, but it came out in 2013 and it's Tower Fall. I think we've all played Tower Fall. We had to have, right?
Yeah.
Right. You haven't played Towerfall. Okay, so Towerfall.
I think I have it.
That's the Steam thing, right? It's probably in a Steam library somewhere. Never tried it.
Yeah, this is why I played with kids.
Yeah, that's the one. Yeah. It's like, it reminds me of Smash Brothers, but definitely like an 8 bit, 16 bit charm of pixel artwork. That's pretty interesting. But it's up to four player game. Well, originally four player game and you're all archers. You all got bow and you have a limited number of arrows. I want to say it's like four or five arrows and it's basically deathmatch style. It's 2D. You're jumping around this small enclosed one screen trying to snipe you, the players. And when you Run out of arrows. You have to, you know, haphazardly run to the ones on the ground, pick them up and you keep shooting them. And there's power ups and all that kind of cool stuff. This came out in 2013. It was originally an exclusive to the Ouya, which was that kind of. What do you. I don't. Was it a Kickstarter campaign for the Ouya, like a home console?
I backed. I backed this and I have an Ouya.
Android based home console.
It is, yeah, it was an Android. I think it had an Nvidia Tegra chip.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not gonna lie, when they announced it, it sounded pretty cool.
Oh, every, every bit of hype around it was awesome. And then it came out well.
But you know what? There was games on the Ouya that I always wanted to play and this is one of the ones I wanted to really play. And eventually it came out on Windows a year later and eventually got a release on the Switch with new content and all that kind of stuff. The current version you can get now, Towerfall Ascension on Steam and on Switch, I believe, and I think it's even on PS4, I want to say is up to eight players. But this game is wild. It was made by Matty makes games. Mandy Thorson, who people might know, she's the one who makes the last, which is another kind of single screen game, kind of. And her company or her studio, it's a small indie studio, made this game originally. It's her first commercial game. This came out in 2013, which is around the time when Steam was kind of taking off and trying to bring about the idea of Steam machines. The idea of you can play games on your PC on a tv. You can play games on Steam with a controller just like you could a console. Right. This is the cusp of when we moved from the era of hey, you want to play games on your tv, you need a console to hey, no, you can just hook up a TV to your computer, to your tv. And I remember this is one of the first games I did that with. I saw the idea of Steam machines, I didn't want to buy one, but I already had a small computer, a media centric PC and I had Steam on it, so why not? And they brought out Steam big picture mode, which we take for granted, Big picture mode these days, which is that they call it a 10 foot interface, where it's Steam but it fills a TV, a full size TV, but it's the same interface we have today on Steam. Decks Right. It's the basic basis of SteamOS, which is huge right now. Like, SteamOS is an awesome interface for playing Steam games, but it goes back to 2012, when they first brought that out. But people don't remember, I think as well, how in 2011, 2010 to use a controller on a PC was kind of a pain in the butt. It's not like it is today. Nowadays you can connect any Bluetooth controller to your PC and it works like that, right? DirectX Input, no problem. Like, we get almost spoiled with how easy it is to use controllers on PC games. It wasn't always this easy, but I remember I wanted, you know, the idea of a Steam machine at home. So I took a media center PC, slapped a picture mode on it. I had it boot into Steam. I was that hardcore with this. And I remember having four Xbox 360 controllers, wireless, with wireless dongles. I think you could use two dongles and having friends over to play this game. This is the era of Couch Co op, when it was really taking off. I think it really started with. For me, it started with Towerfall. So sinister. You played this, I guess on the Ouya.
Yes.
Or did you play else?
No, I played this. I played this on the PC. I actually played this as part of my cousins and brother Sin and I occasionally do what we call these nostalgia nights, where we pick a game that's like an old game and we play it, but then generally we kind of are like, all right, that's old school hard. Let's go play something else for a little while. And so, yeah, we played Tower Fall, Ascension and. Oh, it's, it's. It's epically fun. Especially, you know, like you turn into the ghost when you get shot and then there's the way to come back and it's just, you know, it's just. It's stupid big fun. We did this. And Gang Beasts and a bunch of other.
Yes. Like, yeah, yeah. I think on the screen right now, I have the single player mode, which they added later on in Ascension, but the original four player battle and now with a player battle, it's just, it's just a hectic mess of people shooting arrows back and forth. It's. Oh, yeah, chaotic fun. Anybody can play this game. Like, I. I was playing with this my kids years ago and it just, it's just easy to pick up and play and just something about. You have like four arrows and you get us. You can snipe and time it, or you can just let them all go at once and then Frantically try to get to the other side of the screen and pick up arrows. Or you can dodge an enemy's arrow and pick it up and shoot it right back at them. Like it just. It's a frantic, fun game. I love it. There's nothing quite like it for me that's like this. All right there. There's definitely other couch co op games, but it's either this or Smash is. Is the two games I always wanted to play with friends on and couch co op. So I really love Tower.
I would throw out a third option from that li or for that list. And that's also Duck game.
Duck game. I played a little bit of duck game. Duck game is also a really fun party game too. Yeah.
Yeah. So yeah. Yep. But yeah, no, this is. This is a fantastically fun game and I'm one of those people that spazzes and throws all four of my arrows out and then I'm chasing for a little while trying to. Trying to dodge and get more arrows. Right. Yeah, I'm. I'm that. I'm that person.
Yeah. Anybody. Anybody who has any. Like, this is. This is the ultimate game to play with friends. I don't even know if there's online. Although with Steam these days you can do the online stream to get the Steam together mode.
Oh yeah.
With friends online. But it's. It's a. It's an awesome game. Tons of power ups, tons of stages, variety, and it's all single screen. So when we first talked about doing a single screen game episode, I kind of wanted to pick some classic arcade games from the beginning, but I also wanted to do a couple modern games because even though they're modern games, they still kind of. They're still. It's still a great format. Right. The idea of a single screen game still makes sense for modern games. Right. For this reason. So I thought it was a good pick.
Yep.
Yeah, it's a good pick. It looks really fun. That's why I have it. I just never actually fired it up to play it for some reason.
I bet your kid would love this game. Like, I think he'd find it hilarious. Maybe it's a blast.
He's not a twitchy gameplay kind of kid.
Okay.
But. All right, that is a good pick. I'll have to actually fire that up and try the single player. I think I'd be terrible at it, but I'll have to try it. All right. So my second.
I just want to call. Sorry, I want to call out. I'm terrible at any single screen game.
Anymore.
Yeah. I haven't seen most of these I've seen tonight. I'm like, I don't think I'd be good at this now.
Right. Except this one. Okay. Okay.
Bubble Bobble. I know we talked about it on the podcast in the past, but you're.
Still good at bubble bobble. I am terrible at this game.
I'm still pretty good at bubble bobble. I.
Bubble Bobble has the advantage of distance. You can still play at a distance, right. Because you're shooting the bubbles out, right?
Yeah.
Where, like, Lode Runner. You're like, they're on my ass. Anyway.
Yeah. This is one of those games I have never stopped loving. You know, sometimes you get older and you play some of these games you played as a kid and you're like, what was I thinking? Or. Or it's just. It's not aged well or whatever. But this is one that has aged wonderfully, in my opinion.
Yep. And one of the best multiplayer experiences on the nes. Seriously.
And the music, like, I know the music is a little bit much, but I don't get tired of that either.
Yeah.
Well, it's epic, but it's iconic. Right. Like, when you think bubble Bobble, you instantly hear that sound, that music in your brain, like, immediately. It's one of those games.
Yep. No, I love this. I love this game. How many levels? 99, if I remember right.
I think it was 99. And then the boss.
Yeah.
Yeah. Just one boss. Let's remember, there's a level select, I think, for some of the levels, I think so you could skip ahead so you didn't have to.
Yeah.
You can start from the very beginning.
Jump straight to level 30. I think that's where it tops off.
Yeah. Sinstress points out, aged so well, they made it. They made a level like it in or a game like it in UFO 50.
Yeah.
Oh, was that the soccer game? Yeah.
Which I actually really enjoyed that game. And I was pretty good at that too.
This game had an impact in a few other games too. Right. Like the. Not just UFO 50, but like the idea of where you have a screen full of enemies and you have to. You attack them with bubbles, in this case, to stun them, and then you go touch them and you blow and it kills them. The other game that's like, this is Snow Brothers. I. I love the hell out of Snow Brothers in the arcades. And that's the same idea. Right. You throw energy at enemies, make them snowballs, and you touch them and they go flying on the screen. Reminds me Very much of Bubble. Bubble.
Nice. Yeah. And. And if I remember right, wasn't it the same characters from Bubble Bobble that were in like, bust a move? Like the same.
Yep.
Like.
Yeah, it's the same world of characters. That and Rainbow Islands.
Yeah, Rainbow Island. That's. That's a hard ass game. But that's all. That's not. Single screen, though.
No, that's.
Yeah. Scrolling to that one.
Yeah.
Oh, I just.
I remember a ton of variety in Bubble Bobble. Right. It's not just the same two, three enemies. There's quite a bit of variety. The stages are all pretty fun. There's a lot of fun Easter eggs with the shapes of the levels being fruit or other enemies. And they got creative with stages.
Some of them are just like neat shape or one of the enemies in the game. And then some of them are like, all right, we designed this stage to be an actual platformer. Have fun.
Yeah.
Well, looking at the video right now, it's Space Invaders, right? I mean.
Yes. Well, this is a Taito game, right? I think. Yeah, it was Taito. That makes sense. Yeah. And I love how it has the. The Pac man style warps, but they're on the top and bottom of the screen. So if you fall through the bottom, you come to the top and you have to. You have to use that quite a bit, dodge enemies and to navigate the stage. It's pretty interesting. This is also ported to a bunch of things. I remember playing the NES version. I also played the Commodore version, I want to say. But this is on a lot of different systems. Yeah, yeah, this is a classic.
This is. This is an epically classic game. Yeah, my neighbors had an nes. I mean, you know, you guys know I didn't have one growing up, but my neighbor did. And I remember we played. We played this multiplayer for hours and hours and hours. So. Yep.
Yeah, this is. Yeah, it's. It's just one of the top tier, single. Single screen games, in my opinion. Oh, there. You found the boss.
Yeah, I found the boss really hard and like, not something you see for 99 stages. You imagine playing this for the first time. You're going through 99 stages of just, you know, puzzle bubble, Bobble, and then there's a boss for no damn reason.
Yeah. And all of a sudden you have like, you have lightning bubbles. You're like, what are these?
Yeah, yeah, 99 stages and a boss ain't one.
There you go. Funny.
I love this game. I love.
This is an awesome game. Classic for sure.
All right, well, do we. We're at an hour. Ish. Do we want to do a third or do we want to just do a whole bunch of honorable mentions?
I think honorable mentions and quick discussion of like, is this a single screen game? Because I've got a few that I'm kind of curious about. All right. So I was initially gonna throw my third out there, so I'm gonna just submit this to you guys. Is. Is this a single screen game? Rock Band, Guitar Hero, that sort of thing?
I'm going to say yes, but I'm also kind of a little. It has scrolling.
So the way I took I look at it is, I think if you had said, you know, DDR Dance Dance Revolution, I would say yeah, for sure. Single screen game. Rock Band is just DDR, but at an angle.
Yeah.
So I mean, it's just the plane is in an angle, but it's still, I think, a single screen game. It's very much like puzzle games. Right. Where it's just, it's a single screen game.
So I think it counts. Tetris and columns and things like that would fall into this.
Right.
Okay. I have a couple others that I thought about while we were doing this and just before we did it that I wanted to. Is FTL a single screen game?
No, because you got to pick, you got to pick pathways. Right. Don't you?
Yeah, but that's not the gameplay.
Right. Okay, well, it's level select, Jake. It's level select.
Yeah.
Is it because you pick a ship and there's, there's it's maybe a three screen game. Does that make sense?
I think most of the action takes place on one screen at a time. So I'm gonna say we'll take it as a modern take on a single screen game. How about that?
Yeah. It was just, I was thinking, I was like, oh my goodness, does that count? Because like when you're doing the space battles, it's all just there.
Yes.
All the information is on screen at once, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm good to say it's a modern take on a single screen game.
Balatro.
Totally, totally. It's got to be a single screen game.
Yeah.
The most modern of single screen games.
Yeah.
I'm going to argue that we can probably have a side episode to this of just puzzle games. Right. Which I think Balatro could qualify as well, so.
Which my next mention, Choo Choo Rocket would fall under that. But every single thing in that game is just one screen.
Yeah.
Either that in forever. I forgot about Choo Choo Rocket. I just remember the commercial. The commercial is epic.
Okay. My last one throws the other genres we've talked about out the window. We're going with something different. Super off road.
Is that the. The racing game? Top free course, down view.
Yeah.
Like track.
Yeah.
Where? Super sprint.
Bird's eye. Yeah. No.
Does it not scroll off road?
It does not scroll. It might. Unlike nes, when the game, like the screen wasn't big enough for the. The actual course, but at the arcade, it's a single screen game. The whole track is on screen then.
Yeah, I would say it is like super Sprint. It's a single screen game. It's. It's an awesome one for sure.
Is Super Sprint the one that had like the three wheels on the arcade machine around the screen?
Like, I think there's even screen would be laying down one too.
Oh, maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
But. Yeah, but it's the. It's the same idea. Off road is better though, because you in off. Super off road, you have powerups between stages. Right. You can pick nitro and handling and all that stuff. I. I played the hell of this game in arcades and at home, too. I think I played an EN version. But I love this one too. That's an awesome one.
Those are my submissions and ideas of things that we might not have thought of. Do you guys have any?
Yeah, I'm just going to rattle off.
All right.
Because we can't forget burger time. I think people would revolt if we didn't say burger time.
Yeah.
My friend and I lost many an evening to burger time in high school.
One of the. One of the daddies, of course, is Asteroids.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And Pong. I mean, technically Pong, Right. Sintress brought one up when I was talking to her before the episode that I would have felt remorse if we hadn't brought it up in that Centipede Space Invaders. Punch out. We can't forget Punch Out.
So Punch out is a great one because that's like. I mean, not. I mean, that's what, late 80s, and there's a lot of variety, but it's still a single screen game. It's literally a boxing. Boxing ring. And what a classic game that is. So that's an awesome one.
I hadn't thought of that until you guys mentioned it tonight. I was like, oh, yeah, it is.
Yeah. And then Dig Dug. I'm just going to keep Dig Dug. Qbert.
I tried playing Qbert earlier. Fuck Qbert. The NES version. I don't know if you played the NES version recently, but as soon as you start that game up, they know. They know the controls are going to be weird. They know. And they let you pick what direction inputs you do for every single angle. Like, you have to literally map your controls. Cubert, when he started out, I thought that was funny. On the nes, I like the arcade one because the joystick is angled the right way, but, man, on a home console, Cuba is painful to play today. It's great. I love the character, but I can't.
I can't tell you how many quarters I threw away because I thought I was going, like, One Direction and I jumped off the goddamn pyramid. Right.
Just the best part of Qbert in the arcades, though, if you. If you play on a machine that's still working, is when you hit the bot. When your character falls, the machine knocks. There's a single knockout on the machine that bang. The wood of the arcade cabinet.
We got to play that at a nearby arcade for my kid. We went out. Took my kid out, like, last year, the year before, and it scared the crap out of him when it happened. He's playing Cougar, fell off the side. He was like.
Like, how cool of a thing, right? Especially for back then, because it was an early arcade game for them to think of. Like, how can we make this game more fun and interesting? I don't know. We'll just put a hammer in the bottom of the cabinet, just like that. When you fall, it's wild.
Another couple honorable mentions. Every fucking level in Tron is a single screen game. Every single one. Even though you get to select the different ones. And then what's the. What's the stupid one that you circle around and the things are coming at you, but you're shooting like. It's literally Tempest. Yeah.
Yeah. That's kind of like a rock band situation, right? Where it's like, it's angled coming at you, but it's still. I think it's still single screen. Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, those are my. Those are my honorable mentions, I'm sure. Come talk to us in Discord.
Anyway, yeah, I got. I don't have as many of you guys. The one I'm going to bring up Charted, mentioned this as well. Adventure of Lolo, when we're talking about puzzle games, it's funny, there's three of them on the nes, and it's funny because they all look very similar. In fact, I swear it's the same sprites and the same backgrounds. Although I do like the third one. Although not strictly single screen. A single screen, because there is A level select, if you will, between stages as you move around. But that's a puzzle game where you slide blocks. Not the first two. The first two are definitely single screen, but you're pushing blocks and you're shooting bullets at enemies and there's different enemy types and it's a fantastic puzzle game. But man, the second game when I spun it up, it wastes no time in throwing you into the. Into difficult puzzles. I felt like number two was like, oh, you've beaten one. Well, here you go. It's like lost level situation, how hard it is. Adventure level three though is a lot easier to get into. I do like that one quite a bit.
Three is the two player one, right?
Well, there's two characters. I don't know if you can play at the same time, but you can play between Lolo or Lala.
Yeah. Because I think in one and two Lolo is saving Lala, but then in three you can play as Lala.
Right? Yeah.
So when you said like Lolo 2 was like the first puzzle and then here it's full on, I thought to myself, another modern take on this is Baba is you?
Yes.
God.
Like, oh my goodness.
Yeah.
Well, you feel good on the game.
You feel good on the first puzzle.
You feel like a damn genius after the first few. But then you get to like number five or six and you feel like an idiot. Like that game is.
Yeah. Brutal swings wildly between making you feel super intelligent and like a first crater trying to do, you know, astrophysics.
Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. The other one I want to mention is Arkanoid. Arkanoid in arcades with the spinner. It's one of the few games with a spinner I really freaking love enough that I want to get a spinner for my arcade cabinet. I love Arkanoid, especially some of the later versions or modern version takes on it with the different power ups. I love Arkanoid where it's just. It's single screen, there's tons of levels, different variety, and it's just awesome. There was an Arkanoid clone on Windows. I can't remember. Was it something Pin something Quest? Gosh, I can't remember. I have to look it up at some point. But every stage was completely unique, from blocks that were piano notes to bubbles, to all this variety. And it's Break Quest, I think it's called Break Quest and it was from at least 15 years ago and it's awesome. So I love Arkanoid. What was the other one?
Wizorb is also like, that is It. Okay, yeah, it's a little more like rpgish, but it's very much that same sort of thing, right?
Oh, is Rampage single screen?
I think it has a scrolling element to it.
Does it?
Well, I think when you come into the level, it scrolls a little bit, but no, I think. I think you're right. I think when you're actually climbing the buildings, it doesn't actually scroll.
Yeah, it's a single screen game. I played the crap. I used to go to this one camp. It was mostly a trailer park, but they had a small arcade. So that's how you know it was a really great trailer park slash camp. And they had a Rampage machine. And I played the heck of that. You want to talk about cores wasted? You put a lot of cores in the rampage because you just use it to fill your life meter back up. What a difficult game.
Rampage was a game I absolutely loved on the nes.
I adored it. But the controls were so bad too, because, like, you'd think that you could like stop and start swinging, but no, it's still doing something. And you're like, come on.
When you're like on top of a building and you mean to punch down and you hit the wrong button and you jump off it instead.
Yeah, that is one I think my kid would enjoy.
Rampage is good.
Yeah, that's.
I remember my. I had the 2600 and I remember my dad brought me the Atari version of Rampage. And I remember how excited it was because I love the arcade version, man. How disappointed was I popping that cartridge into the Atari 2600. It looks nothing like the arcade. Surprise, surprise. It's not a bad version of Rampage.
Did your arcade machine actually just sort of bring up Robotron behind you on its own?
No. When we're talking about it, and Sinister is like, is it on the Mr. I'm like, let me look. Because I have a search thing on my computer and I'm like, yeah, I pulled it up, so it's totally on the Mr. Yeah, I thought it just.
Cycled through it and it's attract mode randomly. I was like, wow, that would have been great.
That would have been great. No, my favorite with Rampage was punching down at the tanks. Like, punching down at the tanks.
Eat the soldiers for life. You toilet and you spit water. Like, there's a lot of charm in that game.
Right.
Sinister is mentioning Jump man, which I know we talked offline a bit Sinister about Jumpman. That's another Apple II game. You should talk about that one real quick because that one's a fun One too.
Yeah. So it has some very interesting elements compared to a lot of these others. Like, there are a lot of different enemy types in this game. Like the very first level, there's kind of this little white. I call it a bullet, but it's. It's just kind of floating across the screen. And when it reaches a 90 degree, like, you know, angle from you, it essentially launches at you at high speed. But anyway, it's, It's. It's platforms. You're jumping from place to place. You're trying to collect different pieces. It has, you know, platform areas that disappear after you go over them. One of the most charming things ever is when you die because you rotate in, like, we're talking like, three frames per second. Don't think this is, like, nice rotation, but you bounce off of, like, any, like, platform you get near. You're spinning and bouncing until you reach the bottom of the screen. Yeah, no, it's. I mean, it basically is like, what would it. What would it be? It was. It's. It's like the original Mario Brothers, but instead of, like, hitting things from the bottom, you have to jump over them. And there's some angled platforms and stuff, and you're just collecting pieces. But it's, It's. I love the game. I think there was multiple Jumpman games. Yeah.
Like, I don't know if it's the. The first platforming game, but it's got to be one of the earliest ones. Right. And it definitely influences a lot of ones later on down the line. It is funny, though. I. I appreciate it, but it's hard. You die a lot. I think I made it to Stage two today, but you. You just. You just. You wing a girder by the wrong, wrong pixel and you go tumbling, and it was driving me freaking nuts. I was playing earlier today, but it's neat because, like you said, I didn't realize as you're picking up the coins, or assume they're coins, that parts of the stage disappear to make it more difficult to finish a stage. That's really innovative for a game this early. I thought that was awesome in a lot of ways. It reminds me of Lode Runner, right, Where you're trying to collect all the items to exit the stage load. Runner definitely is a more smoother gameplay experience, but Jumpman is awesome for an early game. I want to show that number Stage two, though, because stage two has those robots, which I thought were roller skates, which I thought was funny.
Well, and what's interesting about those is they don't. Well, in that stage, they don't move until you pick up an item and then they have a certain amount of movement where they will try to chase you. But it's also, it's also interesting because if you watch the, the movement, sometimes they'll take a ladder, even though that's not the direct path to you. I, I, I really want to know what the like algorithm was to decide the pathing. Right. And so yeah, yeah.
But yeah, what an awesome game. Jumpman's a, it's a really fun one to go back and play. I don't know if it's on anything else. I think that's like an Apple classic.
I think, I think it might be, it might have been on Commodore 64 because that's the same era. Right. So Commodore 64, Apple 2, Atari 8 bit PC booster. There's apparently a Wii port and a windows port in 2020. Yeah.
Gosh. So the Jumpman Junior on the Cleco Vision, that's interesting.
Yep. No, I love this game too. And made by Epics, which was huge back in the day. Pyx. Right.
Cinterest said jumpman junior on the C64. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
It's awesome. Cool stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, go play some old school hard games.
Yeah. Single screen does not necessarily mean it's old. They're still making them. We just don't notice it.
Right.
Or play Blotro.
Obvious about it these days.
Yeah.
But yeah, that's, this was a fun episode. I loved your reaction to Robotron, by the way. That was.
Oh, it hit all the, it hit all the nostalgia points, like just the rotating rainbow colors. I'm like.
All right, well thank you guys for listening. Do either of you have anything coming up you want to talk about? I know Sinistar. You do your Spin a Star?
Yeah, I do my DJ stuff on my DJ Spin a Star. One word dj Spin a Star. I do Mondays and then on Saturdays I join Soul Archaic and we do Derping because we're idiots together. So.
Yeah, I got two things. Yeah, so there's a YouTuber here. He's also on Twitch. His name is Fortifier. He's been killing it on YouTube the last year or so. He's actually been doing really well. He has a long form video series called the Ready Go Gaming show and he just released an episode on the history of Ubisoft and I do some voice in that one. So if you want to hear me talk over about some stuff about Ubisoft and its history, it's over on YouTube. Fortifer F O R T E F Y R E as well. I just did an episode with Bill and Thrack from the podcast the Three Do Experience. We talked about Mortal Kombat 2 for the Three Do. It's actually a homebrew port of Mortal Kombat 2 made from scratch for the Three Do. It's really interesting stuff. It's still in beta, but for beta it's actually one of the best versions of Mortal Kombat 2 that you can play on a home console. Three do no less. So that's pretty awesome. I'm going to shout out remember 64. I'll be doing an episode with Dave and Jiggy. Look back soon to talk about Paperboy, so I'll make sure I shout that out as well.
Nice.
So definitely a bunch of stuff going on.
All right.
And also I was going to say since he talked Paperboy, maybe a follow up episode to this is isometric, like angled scrollers.
Favorite isometric game. Can we bring in some Mario rpg? Maybe bring in some Landstalker? There's some great gems there.
Sorry.
That's all right. So I don't have anything that I haven't already mentioned in past episodes, so we're going to go ahead and wrap this up. Don't forget to check us out@pressbtocancel.com or pressb.org, wink wink, and check out our discord. Come join the conversation. Let us know if we missed anything. I'm sure we did. If there's something that, you know, maybe we were unaware of completely or have just forgotten, which is more likely the case. But you know, either way, come, come share it. Tell us what you want to bring up from this topic and also please go check out oh my goodness, superpod network dot com.
Yeah, we got it.
We got it. I have examples you can check out if you want me to get rent off people. You Bar Silence is a podcast part of the network and he just did an episode on Streets of Rage. The music of Streets of Rage. I like listening to his podcast stuff.
Nice.
Remember 64?
I gotta listen to that episode.
Yeah. Remember 64? Who? We had Dave on our show a few weeks back. They just did an episode on the World Might be Just Enough. Wait, no, that's not new. No, he just did NFL blitz for the N64, which is NFL Blitz is a really good one too. So those are two I've I listen to regularly. There's a lot there. Superpod saga, of course is there from with Aaron, although I think he's in a break right now and then you have a novel console who started up a few weeks back. They've been doing a lot of great stuff. They're doing Metal Gear Solid series. So he's got a series of episodes based on the Metal Gear Solid games, which is the franchise I think I should go back and play. I'll have to add it to the backlog because there's a few there that I have not touched.
I bought the PS3 collection specifically to do that and have not fired it up yet. Had it for over a year now.
Because Chart has for Fantasy Critic. He picked Metal is Metal Gear 3 Delta. Yeah. And that's supposed to come out this year, so. And I would be interested in it, but I feel like I don't want to play it unless I've played the rest of the games in the series. Right. I only ever played Solid. I didn't play anything else.
Yeah, it's. I know I've played a bit of two and I watched most of two and I played through like half of the original three and then I barely played anything else from it. My brother's got like all of them. He played through Peace Walker on PSP and they even had the Metal Gear Acid games.
That's the card game, right?
Yes.
A card game. Yeah.
Like he was all in on Metal.
Yeah. Well, like, was it. Delta has the. There's the. Apparently the monkey mode was in the original. Apparently coming back.
So it was like this weird Metal Gear Ape Escape mashup. I loved playing that mode. It was ridiculous. But yeah, you had the, you know, snake running around with those ridiculously cartoony looking apes from Ape Escape.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Especially like metal gear solid 3 had such fidelity for the Metal Gear franchise at the time. And then you got those goobers running around looking way out of place.
Yeah. We should do an episode on Metal Gear for sure at some point because like that's a series that it. It's so serious. But it still has a lot of weird wacky in it. Right? Like, yeah, it's like it was even five where you attach balloons to enemies to. To like take them hostage. They go fly into the air with the balloons and you can recruit them in your base. It's such a stupid concept, but it takes it so seriously. Yeah.
Nice.
I gotta play through those. All right, well, thanks again for listening. This has been a very fun episode and we will catch you next week. Have a good one.
Waka waka waka.
It.