Go to hell Dungeon Maker!

ok, first of all, I'd like to say that I am a huge Wii and Ds fan, I am NOT a nintendo fanboy, but I just really like the consoles. HOWEVER I get rather angry when I hear people ignorantly refer to them as kiddie consoles....

Anyway my brother has Dungeon Maker on psp, its a pretty cool game that mixes elements of Dungeon Master and Diablo, basically you build a dungeon, it gets populated by monsters, you go in and hunt monsters... sounds fun? it is.. it's got a cool serious themed look to it, and the combat is like I said, Diablo style (i.e. realtime)

Sooo.. I find out this game is coming to ds.. this gets me excited.. it's out.. so I get my hands on it, lucky me. Now the boxart has me worried, its all anime and childish. I like neither. It doesnt matter too much, theres plenty of crappy looking games that are great fun so I start playing. Oh god help me... the story is terrible and so obviously directed to children... but not just children, retarded children. But again, I dont care, I just want to build dungoens and Diablo crawl them (I just invented that term, yay me, it means dungeon crawl in Diablo style :) )
Soo.. I'm in town.. the interface is kinda like that of the original psp version, just colorful and all the shopkeepers are little girls begging to be tenticle raped, not too bad. Once all the parts are purchased I'm off to the cave to start building my dungeon! Again, the anime look kinda gets to me, but its actually not that bad.. the gameplay so far feels right.. I walk to a wall, dig at it, and form a room, keep digging and form a hallway.. put in some furniture to make it a specific type of room to attract monsters the next day... ok I'm going to enjoy this I think!!
Done building, I run out of energy so I rest for the day.. next day comes and I'm eager to Diablo crawl my dungeon! So I quickly get my shopping out of the day and rush off to the rooms where the monsters should be.. oh look some sort of bat! yay! wait a second.. whats my attack button? perhaps when I engage a tutorial will tell me, so I run at the bat.. then it happens.. my character stands still, the bat flys into me and a turn based battle is engaged... WHAT?! wheres my bloody diablo crawling?!

anyway I would have plenty of swearing and cursing to do if i hadnt already vented out on a friend (thanks leero applewuss!!) so I'll spare you. but basically I'm pissed off that the company behind the ds version of Dungeon maker would go trough such efforts to actually make the ds version childish and crappy! dont get me wrong I like turn based combat but it's not for this game.. this was meant to be a Diablo crawl!! It's games like this that give the sony fanboys and general nintendo haters ammo when they want to say the wii and ds are kiddie consoles.. DAMN YOU!!!

old news but...

well this isnt anything new, but for those of you who didnt know...

Area 51 is an awesome first person shooter released for pc/xbox/ps2. its got a great creepy single player and is awesome.. and was released for free recently-ish.

It's sadly not legible for CaG review because its not low spec enough, BUT it is free, so it deserves mention.. if your a gamer with a good pc who just likes free games, do NOT miss out on this beauty :)

Endless Fanta

Here it is, the new ep!!

Episode 8: Endless Fanta



Endless Ages

FantaScape

hello

hey fans or whoever you are.. I've been busy ><

new ep in the making :)

and I'm organizing something huge and uber fun... if it works... keep an eye out for the next ep

Episode 7: Urban mayhem

Episode 7 Urban mayhem



I am aware that my voice is drowned out in the urban brawl by the music, i'll be honest, i rushed it, and didnt consider that completely important, sorry to the creators of Urban brawl, its not that i didnt love your game.

The vid at the end was sent by Bill Moran from thegamespage.com

Get urban terror here

Get Action Doom2, urban Brawl here

And Bill Moran's "the games page" where you can find click copter (and rabbit stew from last weeks ep) Here!

Episode 6

Finally Episode 6 is here!!



(or you can watch it here for better quality)

This episode takes a new approach, and if people like it, you will see more like it :)

Also, as i said in the end of this ep, i want to add more to cheap ass gamer by adding viewer vids, basically replays of you guys playing low spec free games. something like frag vids or just replays of you playing them, if you send me some they will probably end up at the end of an episode!!
Also send emails if you want and i'll reply to them on the next episode!

send all emails (including the demos) to KrazyKain[at]gmail.com

Hey everyone.. i've been away for a while and left you cheap ass episodeless.. sorry about that..

its been 4 weeks and i have my reasons!

Well my girlfriend and love of my life has been here for 3 months, and was leaving to britain, so for 2 weeks cheap ass gamer was a little less important to me then spending time with her, hope you can understand. After that i moved out of the apartment we shared together but forgot about getting a new internet connection at the new place.. and that.. well.. took 2 weeks to do.. and it was the most boring 2 weeks of my life... Anyway i have an episode coming up soon! i promise!

the new age of gaming.... it sucks

Originally this blog was just a place to post the Cheap ass gamer episodes and freeware gaming news, but you know what? it's a blog, I'm going to rant...

Well I've been gaming since the days of the commodore amiga and the snes. Games where simple then, they looked like something a 5 year old drew on paint and they where FUN! One could be a gamer on a reasonable budget. And best of all... the cool kids where too good for gaming! why is that good? because other then being told that gaming makes me a geek i wasnt being told what games to play!

Nowadays picking a new game is like a 17 year old girl picking a new boyfriend... all her friends have to approve... Games have to be cool, lets face it its not like the days of the snes where your games collection was so different to your best friends you'd go over to his place to play his games and he'd come to play yours... now everyone's games collection is more or less the same... if the game has a high rating, its in everyone's collection. And guess what... they are almost all first person shooters too... dont get me wrong I love first person shooters but i preferred it when not everyone else in the world did....

Anyway i'm going off topic as I have yet to touch on what actually got me ranting in the first place. Nowadays a game does not stand a chance unless it looks photo realistic and takes a computer that cost you atleast a months wages to buy. Nobody truly cares about the games... the GAMEPLAY anymore... all these idiots calling themselves hardcore gamers, and yes, if your one of them i just called you an idiot, insist that any game that doesnt need a supercomputer or ps3 to run, its shit. new gamers look at doom, one of the best games ever made, and will spew shit out like "graphics suck". Some people think of me as a nintendo fanboy, but they are wrong, i've been a fan of the playstation up to the ps2.. i never even looked at a gamecube... but this generation its all about bloody graphics, damn right i'm going to love nintendo, they are focusing on this long forgotten aspect of gaming... FUN!

In a forum topic regarding psps and dss someone said the ds is underpowered... remember the days when the BLACK AND WHITE (actually black and green) gameboy was the king of handhelds? it was awesome! now people expect handhelds to be as powerful as home consoles? what the fuck? we're talking about a console thats purpose in life is to make that busride home suck less...

someone once said, "a true gamer is somebody that can play just about anything, no matter how old it is, anyone who sticks to the latest hardware and graphically impressive games is not a gamer but simply a technology enthusiast" And the majority of hardcore gamers out there.. well you call yourself hardcore... yeah.. this applies to you people!!!

Anyway I support freeware and open source because it stands for everything i beleive in... these games dont make money, so they stand to lose nothing by taking risks and being original, and not having amazing graphics.. this is why i am cheap ass gamer, because you do NOT need a supercomputer to be a gamer, it does help, dont get me wrong, i'd love to get my hands on cod4 and some other high spec games (not crysis, played that, it sucks, all graphics, crap game) but i cant afford to as of yet, but that hardly makes me less of a gamer!

Anyway if you've read all this... then leave a comment please. wether its to tell me i'm an asshole and your a hardcore gamer... i welcome your stupid ignorance.. or if its to actually say something intelligent, then please :)

No ep next week and a note on stickman warfare

Next week I will not be preparing an episode for personal reasons.

Also just thought I should share that after releasing episode 5, in which I mentioned the 'pretty but useless blue thingy' .. stressed how useless it is, and how even the developer admitted its useless... I played a quick game and had my ass handed to me by someone using that particular gun

Ep5

Episode 5: Stickman Warfare


Get the game here

Also, as a games developer in training myself, this game inspired me alot, so I interviewed the developer

And for your reading pleasure:

Kain:
Hello, I would like to start by saying thanks for allowing me to interview you

Alex:
Sure, no problem
And hello, btw

K:First of all, I'd like to get some technical stuff out of the way, what was Stickman Warfare programmed in?

A:It was made in Delphi 5 enterprise
And yes, delphi this version is at least 10 years old as I know

K: It seems to be quite an ambitious project for one developer, did you ever feel the project was too much for you and consider giving up?

A: No, not at all, it was not huge in the beginning, I just made up a terrain... and some buildings... and some more buildings
I always added small things, wich were not too much for me

K: fair enough, now, can you explain a little about the networking system and how it allows a high number of players?

A: I guess my ides reinventing the wheel, but it works pretty much
The basic thing is that it is P2P
That means players directly communicate with eachother
The server basically does not do anything, but introduces players to eachother
This really had some challanges because this kind of networking eats up upload bandwidth really fast
and I had to use all kinds of packing and prioritizing stuff

K: alright, I think that satisfies our technical needs, so about the game itself.. what inspired it?

A: First of all, it was just a terrain engine in the beginning
And then I saw a newgrounds movie, De_Aztec, wich was CS match with stickmen
I realy liked it, and it was a good idea, because it is much easier than making actual game characters (modelling and animating all that stuff is boring)

K: Ok, what made you decide on the teams, modern day guns versus futuristic tech guns?

A: That is an interesting story
I am 17 and I'm still doing High School
And I was in some kind of Maths session
where we brainstormed with friends, how to make the game more interesting...Of course, two opposing teams are a good idea. And this guns vs. plasma weapons was the next, wich I really really liked, and implemented that week
It was just some random idea, when I was talking with friends

K: ah, very cool! Is there any particular inspiration with the map?

A: Hmmm, nothing, it's just a mathematical function called "perlin noise"
I just generated a map and I still use it.

K: interesting, what about the random objects littered aroudn the map, such as bunkers and the temple?

A: They are hand modelled and hand placed
They were made by my classmates and other friends, who do modelling as a hobby
And I just placed them on the terrain

K: I see, so is there any development experiences you would like to share with our readers?

A: Hmmm, let me think
Developing this game has really improved my maths and programming skills, that's all I can say... Practice makes
perfect

K: fair enough. now developing a game like this, and apparantly being in highschool too must not leave much time for gaming... do you play anything else yourself?

A: It does leave plenty of time to play
I play all kinds of stuff, from starcraft to need for speed
Currently, I am Playing World Of Warcraft on a private server most of the time

K: hehe, good to know. anyway that just about concludes the interview, thanks again for your time, and goodbye

A: No problem, See you later

Intro

Hello fellow cheap ass gamers :P

I have finally set up a site (blog) for cheap ass gamer!

here i will post the episodes (obviously) as well as General Freeware stuff (news, opinions, reviews ect) and bonus episodes! (an episode that doesnt fit in normal criteria, either non multiplay, mmo or something like that)

anyway the first 4 episodes:

Episode 1


Assault cube

Episode 2



Tremulous

Episode 3



Sauerbraten

Episode 4



Savage