Last week, on Weekend Download, I had the tiny problem of listening to the constant droning of a leaf blower somewhere in my neighborhood. This week it was back, with a vengeance, and it directly affected my downloadable game playing experiences. When I was playing Oxyd, all I could do was smash into walls. When I played IVAN, I couldn't kill a bat. I couldn't explore all of Elona because focusing was out of the question. And zombies in Rock Boshers took me out a few times too many because my mind was elsewhere. Maybe I should take a hint from the protagonist in Violet and start eliminating the distractions by any zany means available?
Enigma (Mac/Windows/Linux, 10-15MB, free) - A puzzle game inspired by Oxyd for the Atari ST, the object is to uncover pairs of identically colored stones by bumping into them with your cursor (a ball). Traps, mazes, laser beams, and a fistful of dangerous puzzles stand in your way, so it's never a straightforward tap-and-win affair. The physics are great, the visuals crisp, and there are over 1,000 levels to play, so you won't get bored any time soon.
Iter Vehemens ad Necem (IVAN) (Mac/Windows/Linux, 1.5MB, free) - Translated as "Violent Road to Death", IVAN is a graphical roguelike RPG that includes a slightly off-kilter plot and a high level of difficulty. Your day starts out like any other with a little tree climbing, banana gathering, and a dip in the crocodile pool. The colony's viceroy soon contacts you with a quest to a neighboring island whose inhabitants he suspects are plotting against him. To travel there, you must trek through a monster-infested underground tunnel. The game plays like most roguelikes/RPGs, but there are a number of ways to die in IVAN, and if you do, you have to start over from the beginning.
Elona (download mirror) (Windows, 24MB, free) - Call it a rogue-like, an old-school RPG, or, if you're feeling gutsy, a Dwarf Fortress-like simulation game, Elona doesn't fit squarely in any genre, per se. The Japanese-made game features a detailed character creation system that lets you customize almost every aspect of your avatar, then drops you in a world where quests, dungeons, and items are randomly generated. You can do things like fish, mine, negotiate, buy and sell furniture, own a house, run a shop or museum, have a pet, even poison a town well, splice genes, and nuke a city. The game has an enormous array of bells and whistles to explore, with the only price of admission being a rough-around-the-edges translation and presentation. Work through the game's tutorial before you dive in, it does a great job introducing the open-ended world.
Rock Boshers (Windows, 4MB, free) - A ZX Spectrum-style demake of Red Faction, Rock Boshers tells the story of a man lured to work on a distant planet with the promise of riches only to be enslaved by an evil empire. With the help other miners caught in the same trap, he sets out to free everyone and overthrow the empire. There are a few flaws in this game that keep it from being truly stellar, such as a faulty full screen mode and the fact that hitting ESC immediately kills the game, but the writing is light-hearted and the puzzles enjoyable, so you'll have a good time nonetheless.
Oxyd is back?! Well, there goes all of 2009!
I want to point out that while IVAN hasn't been touched by the original developers for a while, there are a number of branches being worked on by different people over at http://www.attnam.com/
While I do love IVAN and was the one who initally suggested it (heh), the "wiki" for it is a bit sad. So personal experience is mostly the basis for all my playing.
And while items in IVAN are pre-identified, just trying to get by with them becomes a challenge.
When I try to make IVAN under Linux I get this error:
../../FeLib/Include/fearray.h:45: error: invalid use of constructor as a template
Any help?
I would like to point out that as of a few minutes ago, Elona now directs to a Japanese website, and says that it cannot be found. I shoulda downloaded it when I ahd the chance.
Elona's link is unfortunately broken. I tried google but had no success.
Did we slashdot Elona's server? That link goes to something that looks like an error message (and an ad) then redirects to:
http://www.nifty.com/?top20
And are you really claiming that IVAN is harder and less forgiving than your normal roguelike? I didn't think that was possible.
The link to Elona seems to be borked.
@crab: The page says you need SDL 1.2.0 or newer in order to compile it. Do you have that?
On a side note, the download for Elona leads to what I assume is an error page in japanese. I think it went down. Are there any mirrors?
FINALLY, My typekey isn't working right. I keep getting a message saying the text above was entered incorrectly, when there is no text above to incorrectly enter. I think the Captcha code was a little botched.
[Edit: That problem happens when the cookie for your TypeKey expires, but your browser continues to use it. Simply sign-out, then back in again. -Jay]
What opens a RAR? Please give a link.
So, does anyone have the Elona file they could send to me?
I do believe that was the only source to the game as everywhere else on the internet for the game directs to that site, which then errors.
Yep, looks like we were too much for Elona's hosts. Until the site returns, download Elona from JIG! :-)
The Elona Wiki is still functional and is the best source of info for the game. You can also view the Google cached page, though it isn't of much use, now.
Thanks for the tip Jay!
@Tahsis; There are a bunch of programs you can use to open up a .RAR file. I personally use WinRAR, but if you're more into free stuff, 7zip works just as well.
http://www.rarlab.com/
WinRAR opens rars.
Yay! I always hoped someone would resurrect Oxyd! It was one of my favorite games on the Mac, way back around 1991.
(BTW, TypeKey login seems to be hosed. After I'm taken to TypePad.com to log in, and enter my credentials, it sends me back to this page, but I'm still not signed in. I've tried this three times now. I'm using Safari 3.2 on OS X 10.5.5.)
[Edit: Sorry for the inconvenience, Jens. Please create a Casual Gameplay account instead. TypeKey is going through some changes and we have no control over those accounts. We will soon be introducing some community features here at JIG and you'll need a Casual Gameplay account to take part in those. Thanks! -Jay]
My reaction is exactly the same as has been posted three times already. OMG OXYD
One of the great physics puzzlers of its era. Heck, of all time.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Realistically speaking, IVAN does not support Linux any more. This forum topic pretty much says it all:
http://ivan.greatboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=482
Anyone know if Elona is stable in WINE? I have Darwine (can I convert to regular WINE if I'm on an Intel OS X?) and really, really, really want to play it. I don't have Windows installed (yet) because I don't have a Windows disk.
According to Elona Forum (might be outdated or concerning another version - http://elona.squares.net/forum/)
Elona supposedly runs via Parallels Workstation on Mac (nothing about the Linux version), but doesn't work on Wine in Linux
A-Squared Malware found 2 trojans in the download for Elona - beware!
Nice, I've wasted alot of time playing OXYD. Time to waste some more...
I've been addicted to Enigma for many a year, a situation I would recommend to anyone.
Okay, well... Elonda is freaking awesome so far. The writing is much better than I was expecting, and it's immersive without bogging you down.
I still can't figure out how to steal though. :(
To steal you have to have the "Pickpocket" skill (acquired at the beginning with Thief class or learned from the Thieves Guild), then press 'a' (which is the skills menu) select "Pickpocket" and target an object or a person.
Rock Bosher is really a nice retro in principle. But gets rather difficult fast.
Somehow the save progress is broken, so when I go the main menu, my progress is lost! I started 2 times from start, but somehow lost interest now due to this :-(
I'm having a weird problem in that whenever I try to extract Elonda, it causes the windows explorer to shut down. I tried manually transferring the files and when I tried to manually transfer the graphics folder, it did the same thing.
I don't know whether it's corrupted or what.
All righty. I wound up downloading the Crossover trial to try out Elona. I can play it for a little while if I run the installer, but it freezes after a little while. Any idea how to put it into an installer so I can actually play it?
How do you make your pet like you more in elona?
Finally got it to run. I had to manually move the files from the folder itself to one I made on the desktop.
Mystery guest - I do, but I'm just running a precompiled one under WINE now.
Protip for IVAN: Unless you're some sort of master geometrist, throw your lightning wands away . You're twice as likely to hit yourself than that
boss on the third level
How do you compile IVAN on Mac OS X? I'm completely clueless as to *where* to type the compiling stuff. I have the Xcode tools.
Does anyone know how to install IVAN for Mac? It seems the readme-file only recommends windows or Linux. Or am I missing something?
Oh boy, Elona is kind of nice but I've died so many times before ever hitting level 3. Little girl is the best pet ever, but
I made my main character my friend and my little girl me and it is great fun watching me eat human corpses and all.. until she falls into a well or something, haha :{
I love elona, they really did their best. Typically japanase, much more love for the detail than we westerns usually do. This is game I like """investing""" hours and days upon.
Only once in a time there still slips some japanese through (not only in foreign homes, where this is normal, but also on some subquests).
My biggest complain for a game with this size, and this detail love, its really a puzzle for me, why they overlooked to make you keys configureable.
(yes, yes, my typically german complain, that my 'y' and 'z' keys are exchanged, and I need to switch my windows configuration everytime I want to play).
Also an installer might be a bliss for the less tech savy users...
@fuzzyface
Well, it's not technically "them". One man did it all (which makes it even more impressive).
You can still configure your keys in the config.txt file. Oh, and it still in development (though the author went MIA for some time now), so you can always request the key configurability feature :-p
can somone give me a link to download giude for elona i unziped it but then i get stuck because i only unzip mods so i don't know how to start from scratch
@Crab: Lightning wand charges don't go on forever; they eventually peter out. So if you've got an enemy in a long corridor you can't melee successfully, escape from, or just want to soften up, lightning wands are plenty worth it. Of course, this doesn't mean that they (or the other attack wands for that matter) aren't dangerous to hang on to for other reasons...
Elona did a weird thing to my laptop. After I installed it, some keys only type numbers instead of letters (uiojklm, I think), and other keys type different symbols (? doesn't worrk, for example). It's not a problem while Elona is running (as you can see) but otherwise they won't work. Uninstalling it doesn't work (well, deleting the file) so I'm at a loss really. Any ideas?!
I don't have a laptop, but I suppose it did it to cover for the lack of numeric keypad. Maybe just try pressing Num Lock on your keyboard?
Oh boy, I feel like such an idiot. I have an essay due in 1 week, and was completely freaking out, which is the only excuse I have for not realising the Num Lock was on. Thank you, that fixed it!!
I'm trying to get through the Elona tutorial and when I try to equip the Bow, it tells me it's too heavy to equip.. Anyone have any ideas about this?
you don't have to use the bow to kill the putits
@Dean
It might be that you are playing with a Fairy,
and the bow is heavier than you could equip.
Does anyone understand how skill gain works in Elona? The wiki has these charts that show all kinds of things about the 'potential' but how potential goes to skill level and skills level up is a complete gap. In small words, anyone? Please?
@LS:
I believe potential relates to how fast you can gain experience in skills, with 100% being the baseline.
Does anyone know what the modifier "maintains ___" does exactly? If I have a piece of equipment on with that attribute, does that mean I cannot level that "maintained" stat anymore, and/or that I am immune from stat-modifying monster skills?
JIGuest: My guess is that 'maintains' is similar to 'sustains' in *bands, where the affected stat can indeed be increased but *not* decreased by monsters or bad items.
Every link is working EXCEPT the Mac link! And I use a Mac!
Elona's download worked fine for me.
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