A new entry into the GTW64 archives thanks to Denis Evans of The Retro Cavern fame. Connections is a simple 1-4 player “fill the boxes” type strategy game which was written long before their other game Defector, which is also in the GTW archives. Denis had long forgotten about the game, but managed to find something of it back in 2011.
He stresses that it is a very simple game, based on an old pen/paper game, but it is still fun to play. The basic structure was done, and there were plans to make a series of expansions, but they were never to be. We have added much of Denis’ recollections under Creator Speaks below.
It is hoped that music and charsets will also be found at a later date, which were created by Peter Morris for the game. For now, check out Denis long lost title and enjoy!
Contributions: Denis Evans
Supporting content
Available downloads
Gallery
Creator speaks
Denis talks about his game:
“Just sending you a simple 1 – 4 player “fill the boxes” type strategy game, which I wrote waaaay back before we started on DEFECTOR. (under the name “The Enforcers”). Found it on my disks, (along with some other stuff) and had completely forgotten about it!
Disk image contains the BASIC source code (which runs slowly due to delays needed for the compiled version (Line 485 can be REM’med out to remove the delay!), and a compiled version which runs very nicely. (We hadn’t got to grips with ASM until a while after this! ;-) )
I did have some music (done by Moz (Peter Morris). and a charset for this, but will have to send them on once I’ve found them out and spliced it all together again… :)
Still plays well with a friend (or two/three!), (in my humble but biased opinion!), but no AI unfortunately…
I did have some rudimentary AI planned, along with different shaped levels to go with the standard resizable grid choices, so I may add them anyway, along with the none-PETSCII char set, and send an updated version.
I stress, it’s a *very* simple game, and it’s more of a (slow paced until the board builds up, or selecting a small board size!) strategic, draw your line without giving away any boxes, type game, and it IS very simplistic mate – based on an old pen/paper game!
I also had the idea of adding pick-ups that were hidden behind certain random box positions, that drew x amount of lines onto the grid, possibly changing the balance of power, giving double points, randomise who’s next turn, randomly re-colour/re-allocate filled in boxes, affecting the balance, etc, in order to introduce a random element into the game, but this would of course have been selectable/de-selectable still, in order to not affect the core gameplay if desired… :)
I’ve attached the image as it stands for you to get an idea of the core gameplay, and will pop the charset and music into a single load once I remember how to point to the charset, initialise the player, etc, as I’m so rusty on programming my beloved C64 these days! :(“
