Ex-commercial games to be updated for modern RISC OS boxes

[LemmeFatale]

I did a search of the forum for this, but found only one mention-in-passing in an otherwise unrelated post, and I think that this deserves a thread of its own.

Basically, the Archimedes Software Preservation Project (info here) signed a deal late last year to make legally available a number of formerly-commercial RISC OS games, and update them to run on modern RISC OS machines - and this reveals that the Raspberry Pi is among them.

The first games to be released - which apparently should be happening early this year - are, according to the press release (linked above), a selection of titles that were originally released on the Archimedes by Krisalis Software, and Gremlin Graphics, and they are as follows;

Alone In the Dark
Battle Chess
Cannon Fodder
Champions
Chuck Rock
Fire & Ice
Gods
Heimdall
Hero Quest
Jahangir Khan World Championship Squash
James Pond
Krisalis Collection, The
Lemmings
Lemmings 2: The Tribes
Lotus Turbo Challenge 2
Mad Professor Mariarti
Magic Pockets
Manchester United
Manchester United Europe
Nebulus
Oh, No! More Lemmings
Omar Sharif's Bridge
Pac-mania
Populous
Premier Manager
Quest For Gold
Revelation
S.W.I.V.
Sensible Soccer
Sim City
SimCity 2000
Speedball 2
World Championship Boxing Manager
World Class Leaderboard
Zool - Ninja of the 'Nth' Dimension

It's a really nice selection, and it'll be a great addition to gaming on the Raspberry Pi, I think.

Has anyone else been following this? What games are you looking forward to the most? (For my part, it has to be the three Lemmings titles that are covered here, along with James Pond, and Mad Professor Mariarti, both of which I've, for some reason, never played before.)

[dextrus]

This is great news! I am a bit worried as I personally know a number of the people who worked on these games and I'm fairly certain they don't know about this.. But I guess that was in the contract.

[LemmeFatale]

But I guess that was in the contract.

I'm guessing so - I can't imagine how it would work, otherwise. I guess that it may also relate back to this (wherein it's mentioned that R-Comp acquired the rights to Krisalis' Archimedes catalogue), too, somewhere along the line.

[jamesh]

But I guess that was in the contract.

I'm guessing so - I can't imagine how it would work, otherwise. I guess that it may also relate back to this (wherein it's mentioned that R-Comp acquired the rights to Krisalis' Archimedes catalogue), too, somewhere along the line.

If they were simply employees of the company making the games they have no say in what the company does with those games (in most employment contracts). Generally you sign away any rights you may have on software you write when you join. The copyright belongs to the company you work for.

[LemmeFatale]

If they were simply employees of the company making the games they have no say in what the company does with those games (in most employment contracts). Generally you sign away any rights you may have on software you write when you join. The copyright belongs to the company you work for.

Precisely my point. Thanks for explaining it so clearly.

[SiriusHardware]

Populous and Speedball II alone make this news worth getting excited about - Nebulus is already the subject of a near-perfect Linux clone already to be found in the repository and playable now, called 'toppler'.

But I would guess what we'd really like to see are 'Conqueror' and 'Zarch', (which was called 'Virus' on the ST and Amiga). And Carrier Command? Was that ever available on the Archimedes? And what about 'The Sentinel'...?

[Cael]

i'm excited for this for Battle Chess & SimCity/2k any word though if it'll require on the Pi ports the 256MB Pi or 512MB Pi's? as im still looking for a use to my first gen 256MB Model B

[pygmy_giant]

This is my favourite archimedes game: http://www.marblesthebrainstore.com/rock-me-archimedes

[LemmeFatale]

i'm excited for this for Battle Chess & SimCity/2k any word though if it'll require on the Pi ports the 256MB Pi or 512MB Pi's? as im still looking for a use to my first gen 256MB Model B

Don't quote me on this, as I don't know for 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure that the games concerned aren't going to require a 512MB Raspberry Pi, since they all hail from the 1990s and were written for slower hardware that had a lot less RAM.

This is my favourite archimedes game: http://www.marblesthebrainstore.com/rock-me-archimedes

Oh, hohoho.

[pygmy_giant]

Wheres Repton? I wonder if the 'RISC OS Games Packs' could work under emulation http://arcem.sourceforge.net/? Starfighter 3000 does aparently.

[LemmeFatale]

Wheres Repton?

Not a clue (it's another one that I've not played, so I hope it turns out to be covered by this initiative), but this suggests that there are other folks who've granted distribution permission for their software, and 53 titles that can be officially released (the Krisalis/Gremlin list here is only 35) - though I can't see that they've been mentioned anywhere, yet.