Game & Demo, the place for all the coolcats

Recently I erroneously stated that gw is no longer about gamemaking. It was rather quickly brought to my attention by an anonymous benefactor that there is in fact a rather large underground movement taking place - with the aim to reinvigorate the game making scene at Gaming World. "What is this sacred place?" I uttered to him in a dazed whisper, unable to believe that the very thing I have been striving for has been there all along. "Game & Demo" was all the cloaked figure said as he handed me a small photo, taken from the camera of a previous adventurer's helmet.


All that remains of an angry welsh man's tale
And with that he disappeared into the early morning mist. We'd all heard the rumours, of course. The last person that ventured out to investigate the mysterious place never returned, and this photo was all that remained of his journey. Nevertheless my inquisitive nature got the better of me and I set forth, with merely a waterskin filled with muddy water and a half-spent torch, setting foot into the vast cavernous complex in search of treasure. Today, dear readers (all 6 of you), I'm going to share with you what I found in this creepy place.

What is Game & Demo?
Game and Demo is an often overlooked section of the forums, but nevertheless it SHOULD be the most important one. Those of you who joined before 2007 or so will remember GW having a mainsite that was a depository for all games being churned out by our overly talented homebrew crowd, as well as a place to show off your up and coming projects. Without a mainsite to deal with these anymore, G&D has essentially become the home of game making in the forums. It's a place where people go to post screenshots, demos, full games and the odd FF erotica (ed: This may or may not be true) in order to showcase their marvellous talents or get criticisms in order to improve their slightly-less-than-marvellous attempts. It's a friendly place where most of the decent members will take a good portion of their own free time in order to help another improve their game and skills. Enough about the forum itself, lets jump in and see what plunders we can find!

The Screenshot Thread
A veritable wealth of SNEAK PREVIEWS of games, I say! The perfect place to show off not only your own mapping skills, custom engines, and of course graphical talents, but also get to have a look at what everybody else is working on in a nice collective thread.


crumply has posted this screenshot of a mech that he is making in lite-c in order to compete in a certain somebody's fantastic $300 dollar game-making contest (expect this to be name-dropped regularly). I'm deliberately trying to avoid all plot details of potential entrants so as not to spoil them for when I judge, but damn this is looking good from the graphics alone. I'm a great fan of mecha and I can see the strong heavy gear/mechwarrior influences here, and that is by no means a bad thing! Not to mention it's fully 3d.


Sanosuke posted this image, among a few others in order to entice the masses into falling in love with his game during the initial stages of development. I'm not a great fan of jrpgs but boy does this look good. I have no experience at all with the programs, so that may even be RTP and you're all going to laugh your arse off, but it looks great! The interface is simple yet it has a pleasant look to it, and the sprites are good. My only criticism is Ian is the name of my boss at work and I don't really want to play a whole game as my boss!


Here's a lovely gem from Anima_DnB My good buddy steel already made a few comments on this article, and I am going to shamelessly steal what he says as it is really good.

[blockquote]It's very interesting how popular lighting effects have become, and yet outside of games like this they don't seem to use them too well. Horror requires lighting, and with only two dimensions, it becomes a necessity (since you can't exactly have that "boo poke around walls" factor). I picked this screenshot from Anima_DnB because I liked what it was trying to apply. It's obviously not an RPG, which is always refreshing. It has a HUD as well, which is pretty cool. As a community (meaning RM2K as a whole) we tend to have a perception of FF7 fangames, and it's nice to see a few games deliberately buck the trend.

Also it's cool to see a map that looks kind of dirty and garbagey as opposed to a nice clean utility closet.[/blockquote]


This one is obviously a glimpse of the custom menu system that ArchTemplar is currently working on. I have to say that it looks fantastic! It's got a lovely retro feel to it that makes me sigh and reminisce about fallout, and all the different options available (in an RM game no less) never cease to amaze me. I would say though that the faces do need to be modified a little as they stick out like a sore thumb and neither blend well with the menu nor do they have the same sorta colour scheme which always can cause it to look a bit strange. It's an early beta though and maybe this will be improved!

There's of course hundreds more screenshots being posted in this thread all the time, and I strongly recommend you to go and check it out if you're got a bit of spare time and want to see what everyone else is doing. Who knows, you could even *gasp* post some of your own.

Game Creation
This is, of course, the central focus of the G&D community. As such there is a goldmine of topics where people have their games and demos posted for people to play and praise, or rip apart. Here's a select few from the current topics!


Barkley How could I post without including this in the article? Some say it is the greatest game ever to be made, others say it is the second coming of Jesus. Most people just want to let the incredibly successful horse have a peaceful afterlife in it's frequently disturbed grave. I won't tell you about the game, you all know about it. All I will add is: This is what can happen with your game, if you frequent the forums and take on board all the criticisms and praise you get for your games. You won't taste the sweet nectar of Chef's diamond-plated goblet without working your way to the top first. Btw I didn't like it.


Ad Nauseum 2 is by the well-known game maker cactus_squid. I've had a little dabble with this myself and it's an extremely enjoyable game to play. It's got the classic art style he tends to use, but we all love it so that's only more praise if anything. Maybe it's just me but it's bloody hard too, and I'm usually extremely good at this sort of game (cough with savescumming cough). I can't reccommend this enough, just go and download it RIGHT NOW.


U.S.G. I would post a screenshot showing some gameplay, but damn hima you doomed yourself when you made this one. I don't even care what the game is like it's the greatest game ever from this alone. On a more serious note this is not only a scrolling-space-shooter, it's an RPG as well. As you progress through the game you level up and get new weapons and stuff like that, adding a lot of depth to an otherwise ordinarily bland genre. The thing that I can't get over is just how bloody professional the game is looking right now, and it's a final version so go out there and bask in it's incredible glory. hima is a homebrew maker to be feared.

this game is also fantastic and needs to be mentioned.

Even more topics!
The G&D explode project Gaming World founder Bart is brainstorming with every member of G&D, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high, in order to make a system for publishing games that YOU want. But we don't know what you want if you don't post, so hurry up and register and get brainstorming! Bart is known to disappear for decades at a time so use this chance whilst you can.

a whole discussion on rpg narrative It's getting on a bit in date, but it's still fairly active and there are some very good posts among some very shit posts. If you're looking for an RPG to start you in the homebrew scene, there's some very very good recommendations here, although as with all debates the same games tend to have follow-up comments saying 'no ur wrong that's shit'.

Feldschlacht IV is trying to overthrow GW You know what to do, go in there and BURN THE TRAITOROUS NAZI GW FOREVER!

And that's all I'm going to cover, for now. The rest is up to you guys to find out for yourselves. If you like what you see, or have your own stuff to post then stop reading my god awful articles, sign up on the forums and head on over to Game & Demo already. TFT may bite you, but give it time and you'll soon look forward to his tongue lashings. I promise.



And so, bloodied and weary, with nothing left spare the torn shirt on my back and a small wooden chest inscribed with runes containing mystical game creation knowledge, I departed from the labyrinthine caverns to return to a world born of sanity again. My experience had left me...undecided as to the the nature of these primitive people. It was a treacherous journey but at the same time one I will never regret partaking, and the knowledge that I had dared to venture and return from the place that the welsh cannot escape will be a treasured memory for the rest of my days.

Yeah, that's basically what I mean. The 'EVERYONE ELSE' crowd don't even click on G&D at all. I'm well aware G&D has decent traffic ('decent'), but nobody else checks it out.