Squarez is a game from the Experimental Archaeology research field of the CHludens.ch project. To summarise, SQUAREZ is a demake of a Flash game that poses the question: How can a simple game be realised on the Amiga in assembler? Why are there not so many abstract games in the home computer area? And why is the mouse not really popular in the field of Amiga & action games?
The outcome is as follows:
The findings now follow here.
Answer A: Settings, mediation & larger opportunity space
The answer(s) is of course multi-layered and the first answers can be found when creating
and thus in the research blog fingerings entries here:
Antwort B: Community Antwort
What is also interesting, however, is the release and the confrontation of the game with today’s and thus indirectly (because many are still around) the Amiga players of that time.
That’s why the game was published on several channels and the comments were scrutinised to see which findings were confirmed, where they were contradicted, what was not communicated at all, what new aspects there were.
1. Internal publication
Squarez was first ‘published’ on our own website gamelab.zhdk.ch. This simply serves the purpose of documentation and the fact that today a game must have a digital origin where it can be downloaded.
2. Publication of the best-known forum: lemonamiga.com
Afterwards it was placed in the forum at LemonAmiga.com and at the same time deposited as a game for 2024 as a post.
The LemonAmiga (like Lemon64) is a kind of community for the Amiga as a whole. There is a searchable archive of all Amiga games – including new ones. There is a large maintained community as a forum. This makes it a kind of complete package for the community. A record system.
Forum – Motivations in the Amiga community
The forum has a wide variety of areas and thus covers almost the entire field. But it is also clear that these are all motivations to deal with the Amiga. Games are at the top.
Games – Competitions Monthly Amiga game challenges. Play to win, or just for fun.
Moderators: Lemoners, Competitioners
Emulation
Software & Hardware
Amiga OS, utilities and accessories. For developers as well.
Scene – New releases, demos, cracking, music, groups and parties.
Meetings and Events – Information about Amiga community meetings.
Requests -Request any Amiga-related files.
Supermarket – Buy, sell or trade Amiga software and hardware.
Questions can also be asked in the forum. This is particularly suitable for existing communities, as the protagonists can actually still respond here, or more correctly: some of the interested parties can still respond here – as contemporary witnesses, so to speak, and those who are still interested.
Forum: Games
A thread was opened here (this had to be confirmed) and in the thread the game was briefly outlined with graphics and text about the game and above all the download link (virtual disc) to the game.
The detailed view was as follows:
Specifically to view the current status: https://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19773
As the Amiga had no internet access, an attempt was made to use the forum as a highscore list: People were asked to post their high scores here. Unfortunately only 1 entry. But that could still happen.
Feedback
There was little feedback on the game here. The demoscener Depeche (whom I know) then found out that the debug function ‘Skip level’ was still active. One person got in touch. I then fixed that. As a result, the link no longer worked. A person reported this.
Nevertheless, the number of page views increased continuously.
Reaktion Let’s play without Audio (19. Oktober 2024)
On 19 October, the first LetsPlay was online (without personal commentary) by Saberman – a well-known figure from the Retroscene.
The Comments:
@per-olaeriksson2589
Looks good.
@bubbanstix2536
Music is great, graphics are nice.
The gameplay looks limited, increasing the square’s speed is going to make things less fun.
Obstacles, walls or corridors would make things more varied.
Like you want to catch a square but a wall blocks the mouse cursor and you have to bypass it. And then in a further level the screen is split in two and you have to follow a corridor in the shape of an „s“ to go from one side to the other.
@bubbanstix2536
The music is very fun, it’s Titus the fox/moktar meets Over the Net
@chezchezchezchez
Did they steal the music from Karsten Orbaki?
These comments make it particularly clear what associations are linked to the game: Titus the fox/moktar meets Over the Net or Karsten Orbaki. This also opens up the intertext that people can call up for this specific game.
Requirements for games: References to other games.
It is also interesting that @bubbanstix2536 criticises the simple gameplay. This reaction was to be expected, but is only one of many. The question behind it is what was/is expected of a game on the Amiga. The suggestions then move into the integration of other games and game mechanics.
Artikel bei IndieRetroNews (20. Oktober 2024): Squarez – A new abstract arcade game released for the Commodore Amiga
A little later, a small article appears: https://www.indieretronews.com/2024/10/squarez-new-abstract-arcade-game.html
The game is therefore perceived as something different from a classic Amiga game.
‘Fancy something different other than the usual genres we’ve been posting about these last few weeks, then come and check out la1n.ch’s endless top down arcade(?) game of Squarez. ’
It is also clear here that most games come in genres, which means they can usually be clearly categorised.
The comments paint a mixed picture.
and not satisfied at all:
The classic expectation seems to be at play here. Unfortunately, nothing more is said – except that it is ‘ugly’.
AmigaBill – Squarez streamed
Depeche from the demoscene then says, why don’t you ask AmigaBill if he can stream it? I then ask AmigaBill via the Discord invitation link and in the Discord server if he could perhaps stream it and he immediately says yes. So the game appears in his Twitch stream on Sunday morning.
He then plays the game in his 2-hour stream for about 10 minutes with commentary. He scores 315 points and wants to play again and again. Unfortunately this is not on the Youtube video (after 1h 20 min), because AmigaBill had problems with the microphone, among other things.
That’s why there is only the discussion via screenshots of the comments below. Of course, the interesting thing about the media form is that you can join in the discussion and ask questions.
The comment ‘But the game will look super weird in static screenshots’ is interesting because it highlights the problem of games in general: How can they be depicted in print? How can a game and its motivation be depicted with in-game screenshots? And that is certainly much more difficult with abstract games because there is nothing to recognise.
„Amiganess“
The comment ‘I love this. It doesn’t look Amiga at all’ it becomes clear that there is already something like a visual universe of the Amiga or at least a visual Amiga universe culture.
This is of course also clear: the graphics are ‘concrete’, detailed and work with many colours (colour gradients – see other blog post).
The mouse – the dangerous input device
The comment ‘’Try this with original tank mouse.’ already indicates what was at least clear beforehand: The game must be played on an original Amiga with its mouse. And the original mice of the time were high-maintenance and bouncy. In other words, they were not so reliable.
Another then logically says ‘Brutal stories like kids who grew up with an Atari ST’. And then comes that more game-based games are needed for the Amiga ‘We need more mouse-based Amiga Games’.
As suspected, this already explains why mouse control was not so popular with action games on the Amiga. So why there were few action games like RockNRoll on the Amiga back then. This also confirms my own assessment.
The link between the many Flash games and ‘they would also be fun on the Amiga’ also begs the question: Why didn’t these games exist back then. An answer is not given here at least.
Amiga – Squarez – YoutubeVideo with a new Highscore: 615 Punkte
Afterwards, the high score idea starts to work at least partially on the forum. A film and comments on high scores come together.
Forum revisted
Today (as of 1 November 2024) there are 335 views and 10 external comments.
Here >
Und wieder eine Antwort darauf, warum Emulationen nicht die Erfahrung an OrginalHardware ersetzt.
Resume
The publication on the various channels has brought insights from outside, mostly confirmations of the theses, but also new aspects. The results are not quite as exhilarating as the publication of TheHolyGame (C64). But they do show that the method of publishing the Archeological Experiments game helps to generate knowledge and can also be used to tap into the knowledge of the community.
// ToDos: Processing PublicationTheHolyCube