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kjorteoWhen I posted my closer look at Adventure of Sam, xaq_the_aereon and I got to talking about the now-lost-touch-with third member of the ZZTeam, Atomos, and whatever happened to him. Hopefully he's doing well, wherever he is.
I noted that, while that game's depiction of Xaq and of ChocoboKick (me at the time) definitely isn't something I'm proud of, it's at least informative. It's a sort of time capsule-esque window into my edgy teen phase, and the kind of personality I had back then. By contrast, Atomos in Adventure of Sam had the least personality of the three. He was just sort of the third person there after Xaq and I had our shouting matches with Sam. That made him the most likeable of the three by virtue of being the least hateable, yeah, but... who was Atomos, anyway? The lack of clues in Adventure of Sam paired with his, well, not exactly being here to ask now made me curious. Thus, because I'm a literal packrat and of course I still have them, I set off to go through some of his games. Maybe there'd be some answers in there, I thought.
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes is a QBasic game made by Atomos way back when, well, when we were all hanging out. It was briefly available on my personal website in the GeoCities/Xoom era, and I still to this day have all the files from it mirrored locally because of course I do. I'm guessing the people directly in his friend circle were the only ones who ever played this,so this is the most exciting archaeological dig since davidn posted MasterSpy. (Edit: Or the most exciting davidn-related archaeological dig since, like, four days ago.)
QF5R is a modified clone of my Colosseum game, expanded, advanced, and basically better. (One thing I definitely learned--or at least remembered after having forgotten--was that Atomos was disgustingly good at QBasic compared to me.) It's a menu-based RPG grindfest, wherein the player picks a class, goes out to have a boss battle, then comes back to a very simple menu system to shop/rest/save before going right back out. Those are the only two modes the Colosseum games had, really. It's grindy as hell, there are some design and "some attacks are useless compared to others" balance issues, and one severe bug that actually worked in my favor, so that last one I don't mind. (The only way to get the good ending is to replay the entire game as the unlockable secret class... except that in my run, I got the "oops you died try again" downer ending, then it went on to play the final battle and true ending anyway. ... Okay!)
Did I learn anything about Atomos from this? Yes and no. I mean, there are some clues here, for sure, but I really can't call them indicative of anything in the same breath with which I bemoan how horrible ChocoboKick was in Adventure of Sam. I'm sure Atomos grew up, too.
I did learn that there's an entire separate Colosseum called the Astral Plane that's home to all the author's friend cameos, each of whom rewards you for beating them by giving you a cheat code to play as their special unique custom class. ChocoboKick's class is the Warkior, whose special skill is Wark Speed (all-or-nothing attack that either does high damage+stun or misses.) His Limit Break is a more straightforward move that's just one single attack that does an absurd amount of damage. It's called Limit Beak.
This game is amazing.
xaq_the_aereon and I got to talking about the now-lost-touch-with third member of the ZZTeam, Atomos, and whatever happened to him. Hopefully he's doing well, wherever he is.I noted that, while that game's depiction of Xaq and of ChocoboKick (me at the time) definitely isn't something I'm proud of, it's at least informative. It's a sort of time capsule-esque window into my edgy teen phase, and the kind of personality I had back then. By contrast, Atomos in Adventure of Sam had the least personality of the three. He was just sort of the third person there after Xaq and I had our shouting matches with Sam. That made him the most likeable of the three by virtue of being the least hateable, yeah, but... who was Atomos, anyway? The lack of clues in Adventure of Sam paired with his, well, not exactly being here to ask now made me curious. Thus, because I'm a literal packrat and of course I still have them, I set off to go through some of his games. Maybe there'd be some answers in there, I thought.
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes is a QBasic game made by Atomos way back when, well, when we were all hanging out. It was briefly available on my personal website in the GeoCities/Xoom era, and I still to this day have all the files from it mirrored locally because of course I do. I'm guessing the people directly in his friend circle were the only ones who ever played this,
davidn posted MasterSpy.davidn-related archaeological dig since, like, four days ago.)QF5R is a modified clone of my Colosseum game, expanded, advanced, and basically better. (One thing I definitely learned--or at least remembered after having forgotten--was that Atomos was disgustingly good at QBasic compared to me.) It's a menu-based RPG grindfest, wherein the player picks a class, goes out to have a boss battle, then comes back to a very simple menu system to shop/rest/save before going right back out. Those are the only two modes the Colosseum games had, really. It's grindy as hell, there are some design and "some attacks are useless compared to others" balance issues, and one severe bug that actually worked in my favor, so that last one I don't mind. (The only way to get the good ending is to replay the entire game as the unlockable secret class... except that in my run, I got the "oops you died try again" downer ending, then it went on to play the final battle and true ending anyway. ... Okay!)
Did I learn anything about Atomos from this? Yes and no. I mean, there are some clues here, for sure, but I really can't call them indicative of anything in the same breath with which I bemoan how horrible ChocoboKick was in Adventure of Sam. I'm sure Atomos grew up, too.
I did learn that there's an entire separate Colosseum called the Astral Plane that's home to all the author's friend cameos, each of whom rewards you for beating them by giving you a cheat code to play as their special unique custom class. ChocoboKick's class is the Warkior, whose special skill is Wark Speed (all-or-nothing attack that either does high damage+stun or misses.) His Limit Break is a more straightforward move that's just one single attack that does an absurd amount of damage. It's called Limit Beak.
This game is amazing.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-17 03:40 am (UTC)Masterspy, what a memory :) It's one of those things that's really special to our family because we (and now you) seem to be the only ones who remember it at all, despite it being almost unbelievably clever for its tiny size. I don't remember ever completing it for myself, but this says I have.
My mum particularly loved its version of the London underground with the station names twisted slightly from real life - Turnham Red (Turnham Green) and Henfosters (Cockfosters). I only recently noticed that (of all things) Grand Theft Auto did the same thing, when I was playing it for the DOS game club - San Francisco's Telegraph Hill becomes Telephone Hill, Hackensack becomes Hackenslash.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-17 04:43 am (UTC)PM me sometime. :)