HARD TO FIND GAMES

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
coolman66
Flying Officer
Posts: 243
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:37 pm
Location: lancashire GB
Contact:

HARD TO FIND GAMES

Post by coolman66 »

Which in your opinion is the best graphical or best music game on the ORIC but not in the public domain one that intrigues me but one I’ve never seen is CRICKET published by Mirage Software
coolman66
Flying Officer
Posts: 243
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:37 pm
Location: lancashire GB
Contact:

Re: HARD TO FIND GAMES

Post by coolman66 »

It would seem no one has any opinions on this post , my second question has anyone a copy of Mirages Cricket ive alway wanted to see how was implemented one two people have said it was quite addictive anyone ?
User avatar
Dbug
Site Admin
Posts: 4444
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:00 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: HARD TO FIND GAMES

Post by Dbug »

I think the issue is mostly that the question is hard to understand :D
From what I understand, to fit your criteria it has to be
- hard to find (does that mean "quite rare")
- commercial
- with good music or graphics
the problem is: if it was hard to find, I would probably not know about it, but if it was really good then somebody would have made a TAP or DSK version of it, and it would appear in the top 10 of games on oric.org :)
coolman66
Flying Officer
Posts: 243
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:37 pm
Location: lancashire GB
Contact:

Re: HARD TO FIND GAMES

Post by coolman66 »

Sorry to be so unclear , my question was in two parts I must admit , becourse I have had my Oric since the very beginning I have over time seen some really excellent programs and games that have really exploited the capability of the Oric so I always look forwards to seeing programs that might have escaped general popularity . The second part of my question is some software houses programmes while in general very good for example Mirage Softwares "Grendal " other programs like " Cricket " never see the light of day , I always hope some day to be able to see this game might appear on hear or on " ORIC.ORG" thanks for your patience for putting up with my unclear posts !
User avatar
Chema
Game master
Posts: 3014
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:55 am
Location: Gijón, SPAIN
Contact:

Re: HARD TO FIND GAMES

Post by Chema »

I agree with Dbug in that games that were great, but less known, were almost all converted to tap or dsk in the mid 90s, and uploaded to oric.org, and so became well known immediately :)

When I had my Oric, very few titles were available in the local shops. My first Oric game was Zorgon's Revenge, and most of the other games I tried were much worse than that one. I found some quite fun to play, though, for instance Ratsplat or Electro Storm. I liked the idea behind adventure games, so I tried some. All of them quite primitive, to be honest: Le rendevouz de la Terreur, for instance, but also some others mainly written in BASIC. I had a lot of fun with Kilburn Encounter, though, but mostly because it was completely mad! (btw, it is a version of a game that also appeared on C64 and ZXSpectrum under different names).

Later on, I stumbled upon Defence-Force, probably the best game I played on the Oric back then. All the other gems that existed were only small ads or mentions in English magazines (The Hobbit, Manic Miner, Tyrann, Scuba Dive, Dam Busters,...).

The Oric probably died too son to have better games back then. Its games were no worse than those on other systems in 1982 or 1983 (though by the end of that year some good titles started appearing on the zx Spectrum which were impressive, such as Beach Head). By 1984 Knight Lore appeared and, for me, that was the end of any fair comparison.

I think the real capabilities of this machine were only discovered (or, at least, used) in more recent games, well in the 90s, when the machine was already a retro memory, and those are well known by the community.
User avatar
ibisum
Wing Commander
Posts: 1646
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:56 am
Location: Vienna, Austria
Contact:

Re: HARD TO FIND GAMES

Post by ibisum »

It has to be understood by newcomers to the Oric scene that this machine was very much the underdog of the 80's, and in spite of having fairly decent specs it didn't get nearly the attention of the other systems that retro-heads have come to know and love.

In Australia, Oric software was very, very hard to find on the shelves - I mostly got my Oric collection going by typing in games from magazines, and even that was an exercise in harvesting .. I got my early programmer chops by trying to convert BASIC listings from other machines, and can honestly say that I wouldn't be the programmer I am today if the Oric. had had a better market share back in the day. :). It gave me the head muscle for many, many other great things.

That said, over the decades since the Oric revival, a lot of amazing devs have pushed the machine to its limits and proven that it was quite capable of doing some astonishing things. It just didn't get the attention it needed to gain market traction .. but nowadays, releasing an Oric title seems to be a rite of passage for retro- fiends all over the world, and we are very lucky to have multiple self-functioning Oric communities - the Spanish scene has kept things very interesting over the years, as have the folks here on defence-force.org - but we've all pretty much exhausted the 'rare Oric title' search, since that mindset was default for original Oric users too, lol...

What we might not have, are some of the Type-in gems that were around .. I myself remember having a tape full of goodies that I can't seem to spot in any of the archives, so there may be opportunities for TYPE-IN harvesters, even still ..
User avatar
Steve M
Squad Leader
Posts: 787
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:33 am
Location: Cumbria, UK
Contact:

Re: HARD TO FIND GAMES

Post by Steve M »

Sorry, I missed this post. That's why I didn't reply.

I have played Cricket. It and Grendel were both by Alistair Way. I do have it. It's one I need to try and convert but my hardware is letting me down at the moment - (on the PC front. ) I've got a power supply coming that should help me convert disks (It's a long story. )

So - what rare games are good? You mean, not the usual suspects? I liked S.A.G.A for the music. It was lesser known in the UK. I've also come across Krokotile Waltz recently which is quite fun. It is similar to Loch Ness Monsters, by the same author. That's another fun one that not many know.
For good graphics I keep referring to Psychiatric. But there's some like Ice Giant and Dracula's Revenge that are good games. Not sure if they are rare enough ?

Most of the Mirage titles were fairly rare. One of my favourites was Zebulon that was sent to me when they couldn't supply the thing I'd ordered. I was a bit annoyed until I started playing. It's a simple but nice game that makes you think. Magnetix has some similarities and has some great music. There's other games like Tyrant which was rare as it came through the Your Oric mag, so didn't have a proper commercial release.

Have you played the new games Blakes 7, Stormlord, Oricium etc? All great to play. But maybe not rare enough for you?
Post Reply