News — Tardis.dk Remakes

Sincerest form of flattery and all that…

August 29, 2011 By Sokurah

It’s a bit funny, but just the other day I found another remake of Rip-Off and I didn’t know what to think when I saw it…it looked almost exactly like my own remake of the game.

Some dude has remade the game – but not the arcade version, he’s remade MY version. He didn’t do his own take on the game … just replicated my version very closely (although not entirely). Okay, he HAS done a different version too – Rip-Off Evolved, which is Rip-Off given the Geometry Wars treatment. I haven’t tried that one though…I just looks too busy from the screenshots and I’m probably too much of a purist to accept it.

Anyway, when I first found the YouTube video of his version I had to watch it several times to see if this really was a new game, or some sort of hacked version of my own game, or something that interpreted my code. It’s that close to my version, and considering he’s even using the same backdrop, same sounds and the music that I had custom made for it, too, I think you can understand why I didn’t really know what I was watching.

Okay, let’s make a few comparisons. First of the menu then of the options screen.

This is the menu from my version. Click to view larger version.

This is the menu from his version. Click to view larger version.

Pretty close, wouldn’t you say? Now, let’s have a comparison between my options menu and his.

This is the options menu from my version. Click to view larger version.

This is the options menu from his version. Click to view larger version.

The funny thing – the antialias, flicker and colour options doesn’t even work in his version. LOL (from the YouTube videos I found they seem to work in the ‘Evolved’ version, though). But apart from that the biggest difference between the games, on the surface, seems to be that I used a nice bitmapped logo and he’s done the logo in vector lettering. And just to make matters even more confusing, he’s even used my logo in some of the betaversions I found on YouTube.

Although I didn’t really know what to think when I first saw it, I’ve decided that “honoured” is probably the be best term for it. Imagine that – people remaking my games. Haha. I think what I’m feeling must be pretty close to what the original authors must feel when they see our remakes – damn freaked out. 😀

It does say “…and we’ve tried to replicate the game to as close as possible to the reference material (found at http://tardis.dk)” on his website though, so he does link to my site – his inspiration. LOL. I wish he would’ve mailed me earlier so I wouldn’t be so … confuzzled … when I found it. 😉

So, that’s like some sort of metaremake, a rip off of a rip off of Rip Off called Rip Off too. Unchecked it could cause the universe to end (thanks Bob). 😉

Filed Under: News, Rant, Reviews Tagged With: Rip Off

Progress report: X-Quest 2

June 22, 2011 By Sokurah

Again it’s been ages since my last update…well, just under two months to be precise (However, I usually post updates to Twitter several times a week, so you might consider following me if you want updates more often).

I may have been very quiet but most of that time I’ve been steadily working on my remake of the old DOS game X-Quest 2 (which again is a remake of an old Mac game called Crystal Quest). I started this remake in december 2007 so it’s been a work in progress for about 3½ years by now (…and man, I’d really like to see it finished soon). 😉

Obviously I haven’t been working at it constantly and I’ve done many other games in the meantime (and a lot of blank staring at the screen instead of actually working on it when I had the time), but now the programming is almost completed and the game will hopefully be released in the near future.

I have a guy who’s agreed to make some original music for it, that I’ll be contacting very soon about it, and because it’s currently re-using the graphics from the original game, I’ve found an artist who has agreed to work on new graphics for it, so hopefully the game will look and sound fantastic, when it’s done. I can’t wait to see the finished game, myself.

The old logo. This should be replaced with something a bit better looking. 😉

I will also post a book review soon, but time just goes by so quickly and I haven’t found the time to do it yet.

Filed Under: News, Remakes Tagged With: X-Quest 2

A few more updates coming.

February 28, 2011 By Sokurah

Hey there. I thought I’d round off the month with some exciting news. 😉

I’m currently working on updates for the 3 games I made in 2008 – Zektor, Space Fury & Dingo.

Well, the Windows versions are done. I think I want to play them a little more to make sure everything is as it should be, but so far they behave as they should. I think I should have them out sometime later this week.

Perhaps, even more exciting, is the news that they’ll will also be available for the Mac OSX.

Yes, I’ve mentioned I’d do a thing like this, but I just haven’t gotten around to it…until now. I still have a few more kinks to iron out, but Zektor is runing perfectly on my Mac, so I expect to have the other two up and running in no time too. And…that includes online scoring. Yay. 🙂

Hopefully I can find the time to put Omega Race 2009 through the wringer too, but when these three are done I need a bit of time before I do that.

Anyway, stay tunes – lots of new game (updates) coming real soon. 😉

Filed Under: News, Updates

Star Castle updated to v1.1

February 21, 2011 By Sokurah

Almost two months since my last update. Not good. Well, here’s a bit of news to show you that I haven’t been completely laid back. 😉

I’ve updated Star Castle to v.1.1
I haven’t touched the gameplay in this version, but I’ve added joystick/joypad support (let me know how it works for you), a pure line mode (non-glowing graphics) and adjustable amount of glow on the graphics if you’re playing the original “neon-mode”. Oh, and there’s a new and more pleasing (imho) backdrop too. Grab it here.

X-Quest 2
This is what I’ve been working on the last month and I’m making really good progress on this title. I have no new screenshots to show as I’ve only been working on the gameplay and not the graphics – so it mostly looks the same as earlier. I hope to find someone to redo the all graphics for me, but if not I’ll be doing them myself, but either way – it’ll have all new graphics before it’s released. I can’t tell you when that’ll be…but it’ll happen. 😉

The iPhone?
I had an idea for an iPhone game yesterday. Not a remake but something original. Well…not original original – more like a mishmash of existing games, but it’ll be fun to make…and hopefully to play too. I’ll start prototyping stuff for it, but for now I’m concentrating my finishing my current PC remake wips.