Action SuperCross

[boomlinde]

#10255

Hopefully I’m not the only one who spent a lot of time with this late 90s shareware title.

It’s a platformer with a pretty impressive physics model, where you drive around on a motorbike collecting apples before you touch a flower to end the level. The premise is simple enough, but it ends up being very challenging and requires using the motorbike in unconventional ways.

The level designs are crazy, and a nice mix between hard precision platforming puzzles and more relaxing roller coaster-like designs, half-pipes, spiral loops etc.

It has a built-in, straight forward level editor, too, so it might be an interesting subject for another community mapping project.

There’s a Windows sequel to it called Elasto Mania, which is nearly mechanically identical, but has higher resolution graphics and a different but similar set of levels. That one ended up being more of a lasting cult classic and still has a very active competitive community. I remember that as one of those games everyone had but few had actually paid for.

I’ve attached a screenshot. It’s clearly not a looker, but it really is a fun game.

[Evil Taco]

#10265

This is a good one, and also quite different from a lot of the club games so far. It’s kind of a late(r) era DOS game, but it’s shareware, but not the Apogee/Epic Megagames kind of shareware – so it’s all sorts of refreshing. I think it’s also meaty enough for a month due to having quite a lot of levels unless I’m mistaken. It’s a good competitive game I believe too.

Also of note, it has (quite recently) been re-released for modern platforms (such as Nintendo Switch!) and is available for cheap on GOG.com.

[JorgeYYZ]

#10297

I remember playing this one A LOT back in the day! I actually got stuck on some levels and, if memory serves, there was some sort of level skip feature involved.

In my eyes, this game is the grandfather of titles like the Trials series, which began as a browser game and eventually started being published by Ubisoft.

Super fun game that should spark interesting conversations around the use of “proper” physics, editing levels, and exploiting various game mechanics in order to succeed.

[boomlinde]

#10306

Yeah, you can skip up to five levels at a time which is great once they start getting frustratingly hard. Especially since there are a few difficulty humps.

I forgot to mention that there’s a replay feature, kind of like demos in Doom. After ending a level (either by dying or winning) you can save a recording of the playthrough. Sharing these could also be fun during a play month.