PicPairs
Back when I had my Amiga, I used to write games using AMOS. For many years this would be where I would spend most of my programming time. I’d draw the graphics in Deluxe Paint IV, capture sounds using a £50 audio capture device I had, and also rip the occasional graphic from a commercial game using my Action Replay cartridge.
I spent many hours working on these things, easily weeks on a single project. Clearly it shaped the kind of programmer I am today. I would often rewrite the same game over and over, trying to make it better, taking what I’d learned the last time and applying it to the next version, in a very iterative software development process. I also started lots of games that I never finished. Nothing much has changed there either. The one I spent the most time on was International Tig, a copy of a Bullfrog game that they played on the TV show Games World, where one player would have a virus and needed to chase the other players around the screen and infect them with it - before they themselves were chased.
With getting my Amiga back (or at least, an Amiga back), I was able to fire up some of these games again and see what they were like. Most of them were far worse than I remember them, and seeing AMOS again after so long was a strange experience. Unfortunately the only version of International Tig I could get working was a Christmas release, while code for other versions loads up it seems to stall at startup, as if some graphics files have become corrupt. Not a surprise on a 10 year old floppy.
I took video of one of the games, PicPairs, essentially nothing more than a Picture Pairs game, and placed it on YouTube for the sake of history. I had obviously intended to send this for inclusion on an Amiga Power coverdisk, but never did.
Which is probably for the best.
