Complete solution to 4th Dimension's Black Angel

Botkiller 2 follows on from the success of Jan Klose's freeware game Botkiller which was released last year. The sequel has been completely re-written, and the graphics have been improved so much if you put the two side by side you would hardly know they were related.

Destiny key (re)definitions - Dave's personal favourites

Mice is a simple exterminate the rodents game, built around a point an click engine. The aim of the game is to eliminate all the rodents on each level which, although it sounds easy, requires a bit of skill and a lot of luck. You have various weapons at your disposal, but be warned that mice reproduce quickly, so you can soon have thousands of them on your hands. The gameplay is nice but repetetive. However, the comic effects of the "Lump of Chernobyll" weapon add a lot to the overall fun. A nice game.

The music from Phaethon, remastered in MP3 format. With thanks to Dan Wilson!

This is a front-end for SNES 9X, designed to simplify using the Snes9X emulator to make playing games, erm, fun!!!

Handy module that slows down old games that run too fast on newer machines

Xmas Tanx is a simple yet playable variation on the normal 2D tanks game. You take your tank, and some ammunition, attack opposing tanks, and attempt to be the last one standing after the ensuing carnage. It features some nice effects, and computer players, which are fairly intelligent, and a rather lame arcade battle sequence. However, the overall graphics aren't very good, and it is limited to a small screenmode. Having said this, it is one of the most playable tank games I have seen.

Demo of Ankh from Artex

Later demo of Ankh

Demo of Desktop Hacker from DoggySoft

Quake for RISC OS machines. Only suitable for StrongARM equipped machines. You'll also need the level data from id Software's site.

Free game from Artex!

Bubble Impact is a shareware game from Moving Pixels (makers of Spots). The aim of the game is to clear the screen by destroying all the 'bubbles' in single player mode, or to beat your opponent in two player mode. Bubbles are destroyed when more than two of the same colour are next to each other, but they will only explode if you have shot them.

This is a well-designed game. The gameplay is simple but not simplistic - you must control either a buggy or a flying saucer through 40 levels of dangerous obstacle courses and nasty aliens, destroying various things and reaching the exit. The graphics are decent for a freeware game - they work, which is the main thing - and the gameplay is just varied enough - new elements of the game are revealed as you progress through the levels. The music and sound effects are nothing to write home about, but Caves has it where it counts: it is fun to play. Not too challenging, and the password system will make you come back for just one more go.

Playable demo of RCI's port of The Chaos Engine.

If you've ever played Hamsters or Dinosaw, you'll immediately recognise Cycloids as one of Tom Cooper's games. Who else would think of making a game based around a clown on a unicycle, deftly dodging flying elephants and giant slugs?
Cycloids was originally released by Software 42 in 1993, but is now freeware thanks to Imparo, who own the rights to it.
This version should work fine on anything from RISC OS 2 to Select.

DarkWood is one of Tom Cooper's latter games, being released by Eclipse in 1995. It's certainly one of his most technically impressive, taking full advantage of the Risc PC's hardware to provide a texture mapped 3D world for you to wander round in.

Described by the man himself as a 'massive arcade adventure', I'd class it more as a Role Playing Game due to its heavy walkabout-and-talk-to-people bias. There are still plenty of things to kill though, ranging from innocent bunnies and locals to undead skeletons and other monsters.

Doom level editor

Digger is a conversion of an almost prehistoric PC game of the same name. The basic idea is to collect a load of crystals in a digging machine (shaped like a four wheel drive crocodile!) before you are eaten by mutant space aliens of one form or another. The nostalgia factor is the only positive aspect to this game, and the coder has got the colour, sound effects and even annoying soundtrack dead on. Unfortunatly, the game is very boring, repetetive and downright frustrating for the most part. Basically, you only want this game if you've got a lot of time on your hands, nothing at all to do and a strange craving for those old (not so) classics.

The unbelievably rare full version of DinoSaw, featuring all 15 levels of chainsaw based fun.

This version has been patched to run on anything from RISC OS 2 to RISC OS Select.

Code to accompany the Building the Dream 2 article. Now updated to compile with GCC 4.

Elite is one of the best games ever. This is the Archimedes version of Elite, a title dating back as far as the BBC Micro, which has been updated to work on all RISC OS machines including StrongARM RiscPCs.

The aim of the game is to achieve domination in the galaxy that your settlers have chosen as their home. Weaponry and goods may be traded with the other lords in the galaxy and other planets may be colonised or taken over by force. The other lords are a mixed bunch really, but as you play the game, you'll get to know which lords are hostile and which will be willing to form trading and military alliances.

Sim City 2000 map by Alisdair Baily.

This city started off life as the scenario Flint that is supplied with Sim City. However, it is much improved and now has very high land values due to the large number of waterways. The city's population has been taken above 2 million with the use of hidden arcologies which are dotted abou the map.

Far into the 21st century, the world as the average punter in the 20th century knew it was in dis-repair, and generally in need of a good, stiff talking to. This world was so polluted, so barren, so empty that mankind simply thought "stuff this" and went to live on the moon. One punter, however, was left behind - You.

Although Gyrinus 2 is and always has been in the public domain, there have been various requests for this and Tom Cooper's other freeware games so I thought I might as well start putting them up. Gyrinus 2 should run fine on anything from RISC OS 2 to 5 (with a little help from Aemulor Pro). However there can be issues with the sound effects on Risc PC's, and users with 1MB of RAM will have to use the program !MrMemory hidden in !Gyrinus2.Gyrinus2 to switch the game into 1MB mode.

If you haven't heard of Hamsters, you're obviously dead. In my opinion this is one of the greatest, if not the greatest game by Tom Cooper - and now it's available for free.

The aim of the game is to guide your mallet weilding hamster through each of the 80 levels, squishing everything in his path. And for those of you wanting a reason to go on an adrenaline fueled whacking fest using a giant mallet, it's because you forgot to charge your laser gun before leaving home in the morning. If it's good enough for Cooper, it's good enough for me.

Sim city 2000 map by Alasdair Bailey.

The terraced area in this city allows the commercial to thrive, some areas are nearly all 3 by 3 office blocks. This city gets all of it's power from hydro-electric dams placed on a small, winding stream. This city relies on highways and rails as it's main forms of transport.

A rather old Heretic patch. See here.

Iron Dignity is an action game with an impressive 3D engine and movie cut scenes with real actors. Both a RISC OS and PC version were to be produced, but sadly the PC publishing house originally chosen went bust which has set things back a bit. It does appear to have reached beta test stage on the PC however.

Infestation is a game which is fairly similar to MarsQuake in a way, with the objective being to destroy all the enemy units. The concept is fairly sound, and the game exploits a large array of weapons to use, from making your own units to homing missiles. However, the gameplay is fairly boring and repetetive, and once you've played past about level 3 you've seen all that there is to the game. The graphics are awful and despite having a fairly nice multiplayer option, the game interface is terrible. One to miss I'm afraid.

A small BASIC program to solve Inform adventures

An IRC client so you can join in the fun on #acornagaming!

Ixion is one of many home-grown Acorn games by the god of programming that is Tom Cooper. Originally released by Software 42 in 1992, the game is now freeware thanks to the kind folks at Imparo who now own the rights to it.

This version should work fine on anything from RISC OS 2 to Select.

PDF version of the Karma Flight Trainer (v1.00) manual and errata.

You play the role of Kryten (of Red Dwarf fame) on who wakes up after rebooting to find himself alone in empty quarters. Your mission is to find and revive the rest of the crew. The game is a fairly basic text adventure game, with a simple to use yet effective parser. On bootup a strange mix of the Red Dwarf theme tune is loaded, this alone being reason enough to download the game. The game contains 155 rooms and 84 objects. The locations range from a "little boys' room" to a vat of dogs' milk. Interaction with characters from the main series and the first two books is also possible.

No, not Lemmings, but Lemings, the game by Tom Cooper. Much like it's namesake this game is based around you rescuing dozens of cute fury animals from a myriad of traps dotted around the levels, and successfully guiding them to the exit. Like with Gyrinus 2 this game has always been freeware, but unlike Gyrinus it's been having a bit of trouble running on newer machines - so we thought we'd give it a bit of a brush up.

Level9 - an interpreter for games from the British text adventure company Level 9. The interpreter was written by Glen Summers. Capable of playing Level 9 games in any format, including Spectrum Snapshots.

RISC OS port by Colin Turnbull.

Well, where can I start? A tried and tested formula for a great board game which was a delight to play. The game is aesthetically pleasing, and features a good wimp driven board. The controls are great, and the whole game is good to play. The entire rules are implemented, along with some artificial (not very) intelligent computer players. The whole game is certainly worth downloading, and is a good contribution to the PD scene in general. The only improvements that could be made would be to have street names resettable for different countries, and possibly a net-play mode. All in all however, this is one of the best freeware games available. Get it now!

Sim city 2000 map by Alasdair Bailey.

When I built this city I decided that I would base it in a mountainous area to make building all the more challenging. The numerous different mini-settlements that make up this city are all linked by a series of twisting, expensive to build hihways that look quite breathtaking! The tree-covered slopes, however, raise the land values significantly and therefore this city is very profitable. Although not of arcology size, this city still has a lot of potential building space.

This game is a Bomber Man clone, yet far better than the original. Your task is to drop bombs around a playing area to destroy the rubble created by some huge explosion. The game is, however, a lot more difficult than that because there are various kinds of robot and pipes which will take your explosions to different areas of the screen!

This games has only one flaw - a very tedious menu system where about 7 menus must be worked through in order to start a game. Other than that minor niggle, the playability is excellent and as usual, and the multi-player modes are simply outstanding.

This download is of version 1.14

4th Dimension games copy protection remover

USE ONLY ON YOUR OWN LEGAL COPY OF THE GAME. DISTRIBUTION OF CRACKED COPIES OR OTHERWISE OF COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE IS *ILLEGAL*.

The main use for this program is to circumvent the copy protection system which causes problems for strongarm machines by patching the hard disc installation.

Replace 'File$' with the filename of the disc protection module.

Patch by Theo v/d Boogaert to allow Phaethon to be played on post-A5000 machines. If you have RISC OS 4, you will also require StrongGuard from the Arm Club.

Phaethon is a classic game in the style of Trail Blazer, released by System Interrupt at Acorn World '93. Unfortunately, it sold very few copies, and soon after was taken off the market. But now, you can download the complete game for free, here from Acorn Arcade.

Note that if you wish to play Phaethon on a later machine (RiscPC, A7000, RiscStation, Mico) you will have to download the patch above.

Plig is a very simple game, you control a cute looking character who must be guided around a screen, collecting tokens. However, if this sounds too simple, there is a twist, you can only change direction when stationary. This means that the solid objects scattered around the screen must be used to stop your character and change his direction. Later levels include flames which are deadly on contact and also more restricting time limits.

Quake 2 v3.14 demo files, repackaged as a plain ZIP for easier extracting under RISC OS.

Latest version of GLQuake2 for RISC OS, ported by Dave Brown. Requires an Iyonix with compatible GeForce card and elfloader - see thread for more details.

Early port of the Quake 2 source code to RISC OS by Dave Brown. See here.

The latest version also includes a track map editor for all you model railway builders out there!

This game is a railway signal box simulator and requires you to guide the trains into their appropriate station or depot. This game is very playable and it is easy to get hooked! I think that even non-rail enthusiasts will probably like this game because it is so easy to get the hang of. The graphics are as good as they need to be for this type of game and there are plenty of confusing and complicated track layouts for you to play with.

RHFT is an acronym for Rock Hard Fluffy Thing and this game is based around a central, rather fluffy charachter. The plot is that the fluffy things have had their diamonds stolen and so you must help them to recover them. The game is puzzle based and each level contains diamonds which must be collected before the level can be completed. There is also a time limit on each level to make it that bit trickier. The game is very addictive and has good sound effects and medium graphics.

Santa Cool is a pet project of mine which I started a long time ago and haven't really done much on since. The idea was for it to be a PD game for the RiscPC that could be released around Christmas time, for obvious reasons. I can't even pretend that I can program and the coding is very bad basic, but I feel that it could be a very playable public domain platformer. I have spent a lot of time creating all the pre-rendered graphics in 3D and the result is a set of high quality graphics.

In SunBurst, I was expecting yet another Elite/Frontier clone, with slightly less than average graphics, and gameplay nowhere near as good as the original Elite. My first impressions of the game weren't too good. Nice filer icon, but when you actually click on it, the loading screen appears, you wait for a few seconds, the VOTI logo flashes up, and then you are returned to the desktop. Now I don't mind games having title/credits screens, but I don't want to be returned to the desktop after they have been displayed, so that I have to click on the icon bar icon again to actually play!

Handy utility for taking screenshots in single-tasking games.

A random Slige map

Another random Slige map

Snowland is a simple platformer, where you control Santa and must collect presents and deliver them to childrens bedsides. Your only enemies are time, and the evil snowmen that persist to get in your way As you go along delivering presents, depending on your actions, bits of the screen may appear/disappear, so make sure you deliver the presents in the correct order. Also there are Tangerines and Christmas Puds to collect for points and the joyous sound of simple BASIC effects.

Remake of a classic C64 game.

Your a cabbie driver working either morning, day, or night shift. Pick up customers and drop them off without crashing and while going through some tough challenges.

Spots is a multi-player strategy game where the idea is to get as many spots as possible, either by stealing from your opponents or by making your own. Stealing spots is done by positioning one of your spots next to one of your opponents'. The game features reasonably good graphics and adequate sound effects. This is one of the most playable games of it's type that I have come across, and sometimes requires a lot of forward planning. It is well worth obtaining a copy of spots if you enjoy multi-player games, and playing against the computer generated opponents is also highly enjoyable.

If you've ever played Peter Naulls' port of icebreaker, or numerous other games in the same vein, then you'll know what to expect. You must fill in areas of the landscape by drawing lines between the walls, all the while avoiding the local nasties who are out to get you. In Styx these take the form of pretty yet deadly sparkly things, and not so pretty but equally deadly yellow blobs. Since this game is from the early 90's, there's some obligatory scroll text and Tracker music to help spice up the action. Don't let this put you off though, as the game also uses textured backgrounds to good effect. Each section of the screen that gets filled in will be replaced with the appropriate part of the background image for the next level, although once you get to the higher levels you'll be too busy trying to stay alive to find the time to look at them.

What can I say? A tried and tested formula, beautifully and seamlessly executed. Super Foul Egg is a tetris/columns variant with emphasis on multiplayer action. Two to four players compete against each other, any of which is a computer player.

The graphics are at first sight simplistic but work very well - some nice shadowing effects and little explosive effects give a quite smooth presentation to the game. The music (which unfortunately only plays in the menu screens) is of good quality with good, beefy bass. The sound is the best feature of the game however; lovely ploppy squelchy noises, yelps and yippees, crunches, explosions... it makes it a joy to play.

The basic idea of the game Swarm is to fly a little jetpacker around the screen and collect all of the crystals to complete the level. Also, to make the game a little harder there are of course some bad guys and mines dotted around the playing area.

The baddies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, some just follow you around the screen, others fire at you but luckily you do have a gun to get rid of them. This game is about the only one out of those reviewed in this mag which I have completed, well, I say completed, but then again it just crashed and returned me to the desktop after about level 46 so I presume this was because it had ran out of levels. This really annoyed me because I had spent a whole afternoon trying to complete it, hoping for a nice congratulations screen!

One level demo (Central Europe) of RCI's cracking conversion of the classic Bullfrog game. Click with the left mouse button to get your agents to move, and the right mouse button to fire. You might want to start clicking on the icons on the left hand side too...

The first game I ever played on the Acorn. A fantastic platform adventure in which you take command of one of 5 brave adventurers, each with a different story to follow in finding the professor and saving the earth. Big thanks to Shaun Hollingworth for permission to get Terramex back on the scene. This is the first in our get it here series.

This is the complete game, but currently requires some utility to slow the game down by trapping every other vsync. Game On! from the ARM club does this, and it is supported directly by the game.

Tremor 2 is a game for Acorn Risc PCs, and it works fine on our original vintage ARM6 machine. It rather needs a megabyte of VRAM (nothing compared to your 32MB PC graohics cards!), and 8MB of DRAM wouldn't go amiss. A StrongARM chip also means that a lot of explosions don't really slow the game down noticeably. It's pretty poor programming, with 'normal' sprites (except for being 15-bit), and it even works on the A7000 with slightly reduced performance.
It is vaguely based on Moonquake, which is itself based on some older game... Since Moonquake, the original author has released Marsquake.

Tron is one of those line games where each player must guide his/her line around the screen without crashing. Its muliti-player option and the power-ups which can be obtained make it a lot more fun than the average Tron light cycles game clone. With its 6 player mode, Tron is an excellent game to play when you have friends around. However, if you have no friends then this game won't be much use as it has no single player mode :-). This game is well worth obtaining.

Lovely graphics, brilliant music, great characterisation and fun gameplay lead to one of the most enjoyable games available. Will run on Risc PC with fix from Alex Card's web site, or use the version on the March 1997 Acorn User coverdisc. 200th issue Acorn User CD contained improved version, with background colours and some music fixes.

Sim city 2000 map by Alasdair Bailey

Waterfall is a pleasant city based around a large waterfall. It's residents get all of their power from the hydro-electric dams built across the main waterfall to keep pollution and costs at a minimum. There is a network of highways to relieve traffic and ample police protection for the citizens.

Wizard's Apprentice is the first game from a new group called Fantasia who are based in Greece and distribute their games in the UK through The Datafile. The game retails for £30 and can be brought directly from The Datafile or through one of the many Acorn dealers. The game is RiscPC only due it's use of high-resolution graphics and numerous animations. It's also distributed on CD-ROM so unless you have about 300Mb hard disc space to spare, you'll need at least a 4-speed CD drive to be able to enjoy this game because it really was unplayable on my old 2-speed model but is fine on my new 24-speed drive!.