Games, computer, recreational

2020-01-22 — 2021-08-01

Wherein a 2D platformer with integrated scripting and level designer is recorded, retro titles are observed to be runnable in browsers, and bespoke arcade hardware is noted as difficult to emulate.

computers are awful
lua
mind

Miscellaneous notes on games (of the recreational/fun variety) that did not fit elsewhere.

1 Tooling

Open surge is a 2D platformer with integrated scripting language and level designer. Cute. cf LÖVE, the Lua-scriptable game engine. Here is chr15m’s Roguelike Browser Boilerplate and there are probably other excellent things on itch.io

2 Retro games

2.1 Lazy in-browser

You can play a bunch of retro games in the browser; e.g. the Archive.org DOS Games collection includes classics (Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2). Similar, but more suspect provenance, Classic Reload.

2.2 Emulate classic games

  • RetroPie is a miniature distribution that makes a Raspberry Pi into a polymorphic games console

2.3 Arcade machines

Turns out they were all weird bespoke platforms and emulating them is hard. The most prominent emulator is MAME

2.4 C64

VICE - the Versatile Commodore Emulator Many games are on the Internet Archive.

3 Incredibly retro games

Games from previous centuries, previous millennia