Hi! So, last week, I announced that I was releasing a collection of my “other” games, on Steam and Itch. It’s gonna be out in less than a month! I figured I should start talking about it a bit more.
I saw some people on Bluesky speculating about exactly what’s in it – I, uh, didn’t really mean to be vague about this, but I guess I was, sorry! So, here’s a nice clear answer:
There are 21 games in the collection.
So what are they? Humor me for a minute, and let me be slightly vague about that.
Honestly, I’ve made a lot of rubbish over the years; there are all sorts of little things I could have considered including in this. Once I’d decided that it couldn’t be and shouldn’t be “everything I’ve made”, it’s been a very interesting task to figure out what should make the cut.
I could go on about this for a while, so let me just give you a buzzfeed style top five: five games that you might have expected me to include that I haven’t, and five that you might not have expected that I have! And then at the end of this blog post, I’ll just tell you exactly what’s in it.
Not included #5: Climb the Giant Man Obby
Right, well, I guess it’s probably not be a huge surprise that my Roblox game didn’t make the collection – but I gave it more consideration than you might expect! I like this game a lot, and loved making it, and I’ve gotta admit that there was something very tempting about including something that nobody would reasonably expect.
From a technical perspective, while it’d have been extremely difficult, it is sorta possible, since Roblox lets you export your scenes as .obj files. I probably couldn’t have done the multiplayer part of it, though, so it would have been a weird single-player version.
Ultimately, I figured it wasn’t worth seriously considering – too much is lost when you remove this from its Roblox context.
Included #5: A Proper Cup of Tea
I never got around to posting them here, but last year I made a couple of games in Downpour, which is a fun tool for making collage games on your phone. I really like these games, but hadn’t originally planned on porting them. However, whenever I would tell friends what I’ve been working on recently, a surprising question I kept getting was “are you going to port your tea game”? So eventually, I did! Both the Tea game and the Boardgame game are in the collection.
Now that I’m wrapping things up, I’m really glad these games are included – they go well with the kind of personal and messy vibe I’m hoping comes across with the collection. And Downpour made it pretty easy to port them – you can just export a downpour project as a simple json file that contains all the image and hyperlink information.
(Fun fact, adding these games to the collection almost doubled my localisation costs, lol)
Not included #4: Judith
Something I had to decide early on was if I was going to include design collaborations or not. I decided against it, which I think is correct; I feel like the collection is a more personal, cohesive thing if it’s mainly stuff I did solo. So that ruled out American Dream, Xoldiers, my Experiment 12 chapter, among other things. Judith is definitely the one that made me most unsure about that decision, though.
Included #4: Bullfist
…then for some reason, I made an exception for this little jam game that I made with the other people at my table at BIGJam 2009. Yeah, I dunno! I know it’s inconsistent, but it made sense to me at the time!
Not included #3: Pathways
This was an important game to me back when I made it, but replaying it last year, I really just don’t vibe with it anymore. I feel like it doesn’t succeed at what it’s trying to do, and I find the writing excruciating. So I didn’t bother porting it. Sorry if you liked this one, I guess!
Included #3: The Hunt
…not that I necessarily have a problem with excruciating writing. Case in point! Here’s a game I made when I was a teenager.
This was a very last-minute addition – originally I considered anything from before I “went Indie” to be out of scope. But I randomly came across it again late last year and the muscle memory came back to me immediately, and I decided I really wanted it to be in here.
Not included #2: Halting Problem
I took a good long look at some of my abandoned projects for this! In particular, I considered the early jam version of State Machine, my Pico8 raycaster Dr. Monstershooter, Wild Selma, my survival RPG It’s Very Cold, and Halting Problem.
Halting Problem was a puzzle game I worked on for about six months in 2014, and it seemed like the one to give serious consideration to. I properly announced it and everything! I really regret never figuring out how to finish it.
Unfortunately, all of my unfinished games basically have the same problem – I just never really got any of them to a point where they were ready to show to people. Halting Problem, in particular, is a mess of half finished puzzles with no tutorialisation or structure, and it doesn’t work unless I’m literally standing over your shoulder to talk you through it. (ignore that bit, don’t go that way, oh wait let me load a different level for you, etc)
Included #2: Four Letter Word
There was one exception, though: Four Letter Word. Unlike the others, I submitted a demo of this unfinished game to a competition, so I had a build ready to go that had been designed to give people an idea of what the game is like.
It was really nice revisiting this game for the collection. I wish I’d stuck with it and finished it up back in the day, because I think its moment has passed and it sorta feels like plenty other people have done similar things since, but much better. Some cool stuff in there, though. Excited to finally be sharing it.
Not included #1: Constellation
Honestly, I could have gone either way on this, but I eventually decided not to include Constellation because it requires a keyboard. I just really wanted the whole collection to be something you could comfortably play on a telly with a controller.
Also! This game is *weirdly tricky* to localise, because the word list is really particular and built about what words prompt you to think of other words, and those connections don’t quite seem to translate from one language to another.
Included #1: At a Distance
The original version of At a Distance is an absolute pain to get up and running. To even start, you need two computers, set up side by side. Then, they need to be connected on a local area network. There’s no clever server/client auto-configuration code, because I didn’t know how to do that back in the day. So you’ve gotta open a terminal on each machine and figure out the IP addresses and type them manually into a in-game console. This was hard enough to do on Windows 7 back in 2011, and with firewall changes and so on, it’s only gotten harder.
I think, reasonably enough, not many people bothered to do any of that.
At a Distance was not an easy game to port – I’ll spare you the technical details for the moment. But it was pretty important to me that it be in this collection – actually, it was one of the big motivations for doing the project in the first place.
The final list:
Alright, so here’s the final list: the collection is arranged in a slightly weird way, with 5 A-Sides and 5 B-Sides:
But one of the B-Sides is itself another collection, which contains another 12 games. Some of these are extremely slight:
(also, no promises, but I might try to sneak another game in there if I get time before launch lol.)
Right, just a couple of weeks left to go. Wish me luck! You can find my store page up on steam here (itch coming soon): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2824580/Terrys_Other_Games/
I’m shocked and personally betrayed by the absence of Vegetable Game.
you were told not to play vegetable game
It should be in the collection so more people can be told not to play it.
Good luck!!
There’s a ton here, this is fantastic! I’d be interested to see a writeup on some of the technical wizardry you might have had to do to make this collection possible.
I love seeing old art getting a spotlight it deserves. It legitimizes the love and ambition they were originally made with. Thanks for preserving, restoring, and localizing.
(Extra ? for the Halting Problem screenshot! I feel like you’re always so very close to landing on a truly killer puzzle game. It’s only a matter of time!)
Pff, the question mark there was supposed to be a heart. Unicode!
Aha, maybe down the line sometime! Basically I’ve been working with Justo to port everything to OpenFL/Haxe. It’s all a single executable! But also, you can export individual games, so I’m hoping to slowly re-release new browser versions of everything as time goes by.
Thanks 🙂
I remember Grab Them By The Eyes taking over my life for a day and a half when it came out. A lot of these strike a nostalgic note for me! Really looking forward to this collection. Glad to hear it’s coming to Itch, trying to avoid having all my eggs in Steam’s basket these days.
<3
Oh, boy… I was convinced that you were still progressing occasionally with Halting Problem. Too bad.
Good luck!!
I was all set to revolt at a Hero’s Adventure exclusion but there it is!!
This is a delightful package to see as someone that’s been around for most of this journey. Just last year I spent an evening browsing flashpoint and showing a bunch of these to my partner. That they’re mostly all here in one tight package I can easily point friends at makes me really happy.
Thanks for giving your back catalogue so much love, and I hope this serves as a positive example to other freeware vets!
This is such a great idea. Ever since I played VVVVVV I’ve had an admiration. I often come back to it and it’s always such a great source of inspiration for me. “Maybe some day I could make something like this myself” is what I’ve been telling myself since I first played it, and “Don’t look back”, “Super Hexagon”, etc… I’m so glad I’ll neatly be able to go through your journey.
I know some of the games are very old, I’d be super interested in some kind of “dev commentaries”, about some of theses. The sources of inspirations, technical difficulties, what you’ve learned while doing them, etc…
Anyway, thank you for releasing this!
i really can’t wait to replay these! i can see myself getting competitive with my daughter over Maverick Bird
Hey, Terry, kind of random question here–I’ve been looking for a game I forgot the name of, and I made a gif mockup of what it looked like, and someone told me it looked like a game you made. I would appreciate if you could confirm if it was one of your games or not, it’s right here: https://imgur.com/a/x2xbi55
Thank you ! have a nice day/night
Yeah that’s not mine, lol, sorry
Hey Terry. Stoked about the collection. Is Triangle Run in there under a different title? It’s a fun one!
Also, best of luck for the weeks ahead from a fellow C64 tapper. Assembling your own multi-cassette ‘Hit Pak’ must have been an epic level of work. Thrilled to have all of these in this more immediate form; I recommend ‘Naya’s Quest’ to people a lot.
Thank you! (Triangle Run sadly didn’t make the cut, but it was very high on my shortlist! Because it’s a 3D godot game it would have been an extremely difficult port, probably substantially more work than the original game took.)
Very excited about this, and I love the amount of effort you’re devoting to it. Terry’s Trainwrecks seems like the one section that could reasonably expand, so I figured I would list a few things for consideration and speculate about why they might not be included… whether or not those games get added, they’ll still exist, so obviously no pressure. But I’d enjoy reading why they might not appear if you feel like it!
#1: Maverick Bus
This is definitely the main thing I was shocked to not see included and I’d love it if it was. I thought about it and decided it wouldn’t really feel like the same game without some version of Cave Story – Gravity as the background music, so I imagine the biggest hurdle here is contacting Daisuke Amaya and licensing the track for the collection.
#2: Sine Wave Ninja
A line can be traced straight from this to VVVVVV, which I think makes it a game that will interest people for a long time to come. But maybe… it’s too similar for a collection of “other” games?
#3: Deterministica
Maybe this was too collaborative, but I figured I’d put it forward since you’ve bent the rules already. I have no doubt this misunderstood classic of the FMV genre could bewilder a whole new generation of players.
#4: Terry Cavanagh: World’s Most Dangerous Accordion Player
Honestly I barely remember this game and even I wouldn’t advise using someone else’s actual likeness in a commercial project like this, but wow, what a title.
Hi Sergio! Ahh I wish I’d seen this comment sooner! Anyway a quick reply, because nobody else has mentioned these four games:
> #1: Maverick Bus
I mean yeah, it’s the Cave Story track, haha. I don’t even know where I’d start with reaching out to pixel and explaining this project to him.
> #2: Sine Wave Ninja
This one, I don’t think I really gave much thought to at all? It would be kind of a trivial port though, so… huh.
I guess I don’t know if I *like* it enough, is the thing. I ported a few things that aren’t included and cut them because they just didn’t feel substantial or interesting enough (Notsnake and Kowlr), and I think Sine Wave Ninja is probably in that category too.
> #3: Deterministica
This was fun to make and all, but I’m not sure the jokes translate outside the original context, or something! Also I’m already kinda bending the rules with Bullfist (which was made at the same jam!), and this feels like bending them too far, I think.
> #4: Terry Cavanagh: World’s Most Dangerous Accordion Player
Yeah, I mean the problem here is that Terry Cavanagh is a real person, heh. I did consider Noise Game, though, which is essentially the prequel!
I may have buried this comment myself by accidentally replying to someone else… anyway, I check back here frequently enough that it’s no bother on my end.
I realise the game is coming out in a matter of days, so consider the following a purely hypothetical exploration of approaches to Maverick Bus. They mostly require a lot of effort because that seems to be most in the spirit of the collection.
I think Pixel can still be reached at amaya.pixel [at] gmail.com? You could send a message along these lines:
> I would like to license your track “Gravity” from Cave Story for use in a crude minigame where you drive a bus very fast. Is it possible? I apologise deeply for the silliness of this request.
Of course, maybe Cave Story’s music is legally in the hands of Nicalis now- I’m not sure! Perhaps you still have some contacts there you could reach out to with some enquiries at the same time?
But even then, there’s no guarantee of success. Which begs the question, is “Gravity” actually essential to Maverick Bus? Perhaps you could commission a high-profile pxtone user (such as Garoslaw, neozoid, jaxcheese, or Gryzor87) to create a pastiche of the track especially for the collection. It’s mostly the first few seconds that will be heard over and over again, after all.
But enough speculative fiction. That’s a fair call on Sine Wave Ninja. I’m a little sad to hear about Kowlr, I have a soft spot for it since it was my introduction to towlrs, but I can see how it wouldn’t make as much sense in isolation in this collection. And those decisions for the others definitely make sense. Although… Noise Game? Noise Game… Noise Game.
Spending the last week pursuing a port of Maverick Bus is… probably a bad idea, haha. (god I could probably just do a pastiche song on my own, though). I do regret some of the things that aren’t included that were borderline possibilities – e.g. Squish (too much work to port from Allegro), Graveyard Graveyard Revolution (would need new music), Triangle Run (Godot 3D game, also too much work to port), American Dream (collaboration with three people, one of which I’ve totally lost touch with), etc.
The one thing I’m kinda secretly hoping to get in there is Not At a Distance, an unfinished collection of cut content from At a Distance that I have had lying around for years, but I think it depends on finding time this week which is feeling unlikely, heh.
I can’t wait to play At A Distance again. Really looking forward to this!
Hi Terry, excited to hear about this new collection of games, I’ll definitely be picking it up. I was wondering if you would consider adding a playable version of Unfinished 3D Game 2023 – https://youtu.be/L3Ua1wxuXdw – I understand that it is (as in the title) unfinished, but I’ve been personally fascinated with it ever since that video released. It made a big impression on me, and it might perhaps make for a nice piece of “bonus” content. Thank you.
Ah, sadly not – that game was a bit of a godot learning project, and like Triangle Run, would be fairly substantial port. (I do something think about going back and having another go at some of those ideas, though. Maybe soon.)
Thank you for this!
Every few years I am playing through Don’t Look Back (for me it’s a masterpiece that’s worth revisiting), and had to find more and more exotic platforms for that – looks like that won’t be an issue any more.
I’m looking forward to get to know your other games as well!