Title: Castle
Disk: Disk1
File Name: 'castle'
Category: Demo
Genre: animating image
Players: n/a
Date created: ??
Completed? Yes
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Location: Boston, Massachusetts - USA Year of Birth: 1959 Date created: 1985 to 1994 |
Finished games: 7 Finished Demos: 2 |
Unfinished games: 2 Unfinished Demos: 0 |
Paul was kind enough to send in some of his GKGM games on the original disks. One disk no longer worked and the files could not be recovered, but the rest were intact. Paul's games are well polished and some even harken back to the pre-C64 pong days of video gaming.
I was born in 59 and I was living in Hyde Park section of Boston between 83 and 87 ... I really don't remember using the C64 after I moved but your right, there are some dates on things ... I know I bought GKGM the second it came on the market, I did a version of Astroides which took me forever but the game was in the arcades so that may give you a closer idea to the year, astroids took me months to perfect.
I do remember one thing very clearly and that is how much I enjoyed GKGM, I was working on it all the time, I have since tried some of the newer Game makers and nothing compares to the ease of game marker.
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Title: Castle |
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Webmaster Comments: It's like Defender of the Crown Jr. This demo features a nicely drawn castle (considering the limitations of SceneMaker) with pennants rippling in the wind.
Author Comments: The Castle game all that I remember was the flags waving in the air and how nice they looked.
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Title: Pong Disk: DISK1 File Name: 'trpong' Category:Game Genre: Pong Players:2 Date created:?? Completed? Yes |
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Webmaster Comments: This 2 player game is typical of Pong games in the mid-Eighties, such as "Superstar Ping-Pong" (1986) or "Konami's Ping-Pong" (1985). I think I even remember a pong game being included in a multi-event sports game. I remember trying to work out rebound angles on my own games, and it was pretty gratifying at that early age.
Author Comments: Pong, I was always obsessed with and still are to this day, don't remember much else.
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Title: WWF Wrestling |
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Webmaster Comments: Apparently Paul had enough money to licence the game rights from WWF. He must have had a pretty big paper route! This game features Hulk Hogan vs. the Ultimate Warrior. Nice look for a GameMaker game!
Author Comments: I made the WWF game for my son Kyle who was probaly 2 at the time (Kyle was born in 87 so I must have still been using the game up until 89/90 or longer, the minds the second thing to go, lol)
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Title: Pong 2 Disk: DISK1 File Name: 'trpon2' and 'pong' Category:Game Genre: Pong Players:1 or 2 Date created:?? Completed? Yes |
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Webmaster Comments: This pong game is more hi-res, using a tiny ball. The second file 'pong' actually has an AI controlled opponent who is so good I doubt the ball ever gets past him.
Author Comments:
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Title: Hockey Disk: DISK1 File Name: '93hoky' Category:Game Genre: Sports Players:2 Date created:1993? Completed? No |
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Webmaster Comments: The graphics for this game are very polished. In a way, it looks a lot like the very popular Capcom game, Hat Trick. I remember having a blast playing this one in the arcades and was pretty damn happy when it was ported to the C64. Unfortunately, Paul's game is not complete and you can't actually skate around.
Author Comments: Hockey another passion of mine but don't remember the game at all.
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Title: Mario Disk: DISK2 File Name: 'mario' Category:Game Genre: Platformer Players:1 Date created:?? Completed? No |
 
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Webmaster Comments:Here is an ambitious project. Paul wanted to create a Super Mario Brothers style game using GameMaker, which can't do scrolling. So Paul cleverly modified the gameplay to produce a cross between Donkey Kong and Pitfall. Mario jumps barrels and pits, and on the next screen he has to dodge plungers. After, that, there are no more screens but the colors for each screen change. It looks like the screens are built from individually drawn blocks, which would allow for real flexability in the level design. He got about as far with this as I did trying to design my Zelda game.
Author Comments: Mario, again I made a few of these but they were mostly for my children.
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Title: Eight Dog Races Disk: DISK2 File Name: '8 dogs' Category:Game Genre: Gambling Players:up to 8 Date created:??? Completed? Yes |
 
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Webmaster Comments: This is a highly polished Dog-racing game. The intro screen is well done, with scrolling credits and a car that drives by. When the game starts there is a long countdown clock of about 2 minutes, then they're off. As they round the track, there is some dialog to indicate which stretch of the track they are on. There is no integrated betting feature, so I assume players use monopoly money or (*grin*) real money. This sort of reminds me of a horse racing game at a local casino made by Sega where everyone sits around a computer controlled racetrack placing bets with quarters. Here's a question to ponder: Has anyone ever actually seen a green or blue dog in real life?
Note: I also found a 4-dog compiled game on one of the disks which was slightly different from this, including an actual map indicating where the dogs were. Disk 3 contains a file named 'dg1990' which is a dog racing game, but unfortunately the background is not found on the disk so maybe it was scratched to make room at some point. (disk space seemed more scarce back then when your allowance or paper route money had to pay for disks)
Author Comments: The dog racing game worked better than I expected and was a big hit at house partys. One problem, the x or y of the dog is taken from the center so the dog that wins isn't always the first over the line but it is so minute no one would notice ...
There is no way to place a bet, we use to have
different color tickets (a few for each colored dog) and amongst ourselves
we would all throw in a quarter and bet whatever dog we wanted, I would
always let the last person pick my dog because were I made the game I didn't
want people thinking I cheated ...
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Title: Tennis Disk: DISK2 File Name: 'teniss' Category:Game Genre: Sports Players:2 Date created:?? Completed? Yes |
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Webmaster Comments: Remember being young and innocent, and not being able to spell 'tennis'? (see filename above) This is another riff on the Pong style genre. Apparently this type of game must have appealed to a lot of game programmers, because Fabian Del Priore (another GKGM programmer) also created a large number of variations on Pong. This game plays a nice tune while you and a friend square off. One interesting touch in this is that the racket actually swings when it touches the ball.
Author Comments:
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Title: Boston Bruins Disk: DISK3 File Name: 'bruins' Category:Demo Genre: Card Players:n/a Date created:1988 Completed? Yes |
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Webmaster Comments: This demo gives us a good timestamp of when these creations were made. It looks like a celebration demo for the Boston Bruins.
Author Comments: Forgot all about it and don't remember what I was going to use it for.
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Title: Pong |
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Webmaster Comments: The filename for this game might indicate it was made in 1994. It's another good attempt at a hi-res pong game, this time looking very much how I remmeber it looking on the full-time Pong consoles.
Author Comments: