shareware

KNP game preservation - 11 KNP games salvaged from a shareware CD

corsar.jpg

Way back in the mid nineties I bought a shareware CD (simply titled Win Games) at a computer expo because I saw not one but two of the screenshots on the cover were from KNP games as I recognized the clip art. Included in the attached zip file are all 11 KNP games that were on the CD.

This probably isn't quite the right place to put this since I don't claim any of the work involved, but hopefully you'd let it slide since it's about game preservation and I wanted to blog a bit about my thoughts on each one

Here is a list of all the games included. Note that some of them have text in German (Mach's Rache, Beewatch, Bumble Boom, Tucker's Adventure, and Spaceballs) if you care about the story, since it doesn't affect gameplay much in most instances.

*Armageddon
Poor attempt at a shoot em up, although it was probably one of someone's early attempts at one.

*Bat and Ball
Breakout clone. The help file is rather silly and even tries to give an explanation for the goofy KNP physics engine.

*Beewatch
Catch the small bees in the bottle, shoot the large bees with the gun, and grab more ammo with the hand if you run out. Has some scrolling effects, and I learned quite a bit about manipulating alterable values on active objects from this game. Controls are somewhat awkward, since you use the space bar instead of clicking the mouse and have to change cursors with 1/2/3 in the number keys. (text is in German)

*Bumble Boom
Move the mouse to collect hearts. (text is in german)

*Egyptian Chopper Force
Simple game with mouse movement. One of the games featured on the cover of the CD. Also isn't Egyptian.

*Mach's Rache 5 - Episode 2: The Corsar System
A shoot em up with different gameplay/objectives every level, plenty of clip art/stock sound effect abuse and title music ripped from a CD. Between levels are messy story dumps littered with text and clip art (see screenshot) and crudely drawn ms paint comics and photos with unfitting music plays. In short, a glorious trainwreck. (text is in German)

*Powerball
Another breakout clone (and not the last).

*Spaceballs
Yet another breakout clone, except with mouse movement and more trainwrecky. Has nothing to do with the movie. (text is in german)

*Tanx
Tank game where you can move the turret separately with the <, >, and M keys and strafe targets. Most interesting thing is that it was created with a commercially licensed copy of KNP and therefore is truly "shareware" (being a shareware episode demo for the registered version) instead of freeware.

*Tucker's Adventure 1
Puzzle game where you must collect all the diamonds in the maze. You only have a limited amount of shots to destroy enemies and walls by picking up powerups. I have no idea why you're shooting diamonds at an old lady. (text is in german)

*Winnoid Demo
Last (and least) of the breakout clones. The other game that made the cd cover

Out of these games, Beewatch, Mach's Rache 5, Tucker's Adventure 1, and Tanx are the most worthwhile to look at. I hope that you get some enjoyment out of these, and that you agree there's some merit in preserving them.

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